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Day 30 b

To celebrate us mythical beings ....poets. The poets work alone in poet warrens, yet are sociable things at times. And laugh. Trying to get a poet to list simple instructions ends in cascades of metaphor   and like, simile. The poets are searching for the essence of a word, but will accept the feeling  it brings. Choosing the right word can be a good day's work. All poets carry a net with which to capture those wild poems, which often hatch and swarm, but good poets know to let the poem go - where it flies is up to the poem. A poet is a creature of symbiosis. Biology and imagination. Language and blood. A poet is all poets, yet all poets are one poet. I have seen great flocks of poems in the skies in a migration - creation from mind to pen. I remember this as I try to write in my poet warren. Go out poet, and sing to other poets, poets of grass and sky,  they are variously, sleeping and walking and waking and writing. the poets are busy, but th e poets  stop to wri...
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Day 30

 Day 30 Definitely feeling the poem fatigue! The sidhe exist telescoped in your pocket They are small only in relation to the bigness of us We are superior only in superseding Look once -their places have become the size of warrens Or little honey chambers of underground bees They hold dances where they are disguised by disbelief Look again- they have shrunk to quantum universes Existing invisible to naked eye - on the head of a pin  Through the microscope they wave bravely Oh to be taken away as a changeling Passed through the needle's eye and made pollen Angry as pale soldiers with sparks of dust and magic 
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Day 27

Barrier method Building a wall is more tricky than you Think -you must think while building a wall Measure and be measured, not hurry and Rush - the other side is going nowhere, you neither Think about how high you want the wall, do you Need to see over it, do you prefer the safety of blank brick? Think whether the wall is to keep people out or Keep you in- that is a real difference and means everything Some people put windows into their walls which will Turn the walls into houses I guess, even if roofless Some people try to climb over their walls, they Put one leg over and then fall . Use words or a ladder Building a wall can take two people, one each side take turns laying bricks and thinking of grievances. Work    together To demolish your wall, it also takes two.  Decide to end this border, take a sledgehammer or forgiveness
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Day 26

 Ars poetica When I was six, I wrote a poem about a Tiger And recited it to my Grandmother And Grandfather and Mother and Father And baby brother. I was usually quiet  But the words made me proud Summoning the Tiger  Now I write  Lately, every day  Trying for this conjuring  Through strategies to describe the Tiger, The fire of its pelt  Its ribs the bars of a cage for a heart, It utterly itself,and yet the words I choose still hunt me down. I feel the poem's breath On the back of my neck. I dream that when I speak it there'll be a quiet roar.
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Day 25

As, like, is "A school is a factory is a poem is a prison is academia is boredom, with flashes of panic.” —Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One We almost clocked in at registration, As close to a factory as we would get In the days of unemployment, of empty industry. Certainly in photos it looks as if We were made on an assembly line Of unflattering 80s hair  And questionable sapphire kohl. They'd put the finishing touches  To our unformed faces later, bring us up to standard, uniform. The prison part was new-build and squat, not porridgey Victorian - No gothic here, just old stained concrete And a baking freezing perma portacabin, Carpet like sparse astroturf. The barbed wire  Keeping us in was time and time to learn. Academia was the English teacher who drank And the ones we said who couldn't, taught Though now I know how difficult the job is,  Poor warders of knowledge. And yes, the boredom, yes , the sudden panic Of wrong hair, wrong words, of endless fitting in , Of te...
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Day 23

   The villanelle Speak of souls born other than our kind, A deer in the shopping mall, spine taut and front legs funny - Seeking some purchase in this country of money   These creatures redefine theory of mind - They say we are less rational than monkeys - Speak of souls born other than our kind   We are puzzling and puzzling the true design, How honeycomb becomes the honey - Seeking some safety in the country of money   So the young deer careers as if he’s blind At the smell of some pale hunter coming - Speak of souls born other than our kind,   He runs for sanctuary, if there’s sanctuary to find Among the flowers and the river running Seeking some purchase in this country of money   The silver deer is the lone deer child And the parents will search in vain for something, We speak of souls born other than our kind, Seeking some purchase in this country of money
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Day 24

Things that happen at night (or thereabouts) Your neighbour puts on uniform And wakes you up with their alarm And wakes you with their heavy pace And shines a light into your face. Ok, that is the brash new sun They leave the house just before dawn And drink the dew fresh from the lawn And boil their kettle, bronze their toast  Then go on Instagram to boast. Ok, they have invented Monday  Your neighbour is an abyss yawning And punctual, mourns their every morning And calls out songs to greet the birds And some days they may give you words Whether in notes or speeches Your neighbour lobbies in your dreams Your neighbour's fraying at the seams Your neighbour puts on uniform And wakes you up with their alarm And wakes you with their heavy face
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