Sarah Davies NaPoWriMo 2026

 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 

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

 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.

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...

   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

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

 Self monologue The wonderful thing about talking to myself is this – they / we cannot be bored or at least, I will be kind enough to not to mention it to myself if I am. I would be scrupulously polite like summertime, and though I'd think , well this is long and you are wasting my time (which is our time), thank you for holding space so I feel safe. Evening indeed. If I were a president I might not be able to say this since my ego would outdo myself, making one me a great baby Gorgon of prancing and eating cities while the other Mr Me might be small and afraid, cowering in a luxury golf resort in a trophy room. I’m a locked desk drawer. When I am a cat or bird, this is also a thing. It's excellent that scientists have proven by experiments that a cat truly has a self ideal. That their existence and every human face they see is actually a cat face for familiarity. I’d tell myself to smarten up, groom my fur and get crawling hunting in the long grass for field mice. When I’m add...

The salmon  They were eating together for Once, their schedules matched It was important. She Was cooking the salmon Waiting for the fat to white And the flesh to paler When she burnt her finger Ran it under the cold tap Until the flow was icy And the hurt subsided, there she was, A hill spring in winter become river And the salmon of knowledge Moving upstream, yet to be caught  was asking her some questions she didn't know the answers to - Unspoken, she would let the salmon go If she didn't answer right. Still, as you know Oh you iridescence She's  sorry that she lied, That catching it was easy In the rainbowed shallows Though there are most things they don't know. The truths down Swimming in the colder ocean

The language of flowers For the king of false pretences,  mock orange  For the duke of anger, whin  Here’s a flower for greed,  scarlet auricula For the starters of endless war, liquorice and wild Tandy For war and war and war, Achilla mullefolia For the king of false pretences,  mock orange  For the duke of anger, whin  There will be endless green, cypress, death, cypress For nothing natural, the flowers of falsehood- Buglass Frog lily Manchineal tree For those pretending patriotism,  American elm For the king of false pretences,  mock orange  For the duke of anger, whin  For those living in the lands of horror, Basil Mandrake Dragonfoot For when there's nothing true but error, Bee ophrys Fly orchid For there's nothing to feel  but to feel real grief, Harbell  Marigold Bugal rose For the king of false pretences,  mock orange  For the duke of anger, whin 

The elephants of memory How the elephants of memory Stand in corners and wait For us to remember what we want to forget Stand in corners and wait How the elephants of memory  Crowd in our rooms  Leave us no room for thinking Crowd in our rooms How the elephants of memory Are graceful and serious Though we make them a joke Are graceful and serious  How the elephants of memory Could crush us if they tried Could trample our dreams  Could crush us if they tried  How the elephants of memory Are also kind And strong enough to carry us Are also kind How the elephants of memory Hold up the house Pillar the temple Hold up the house How the elephants of memory Remember our lives Move through the dark night Remember our lives How the elephants of memory Are living stone  Are warm and breathing Are living stone  How the elephants of memory Fight armies for us Are heavy for peace Fight armies for us How the elephants of memory May dissolve in dreams  Are lande...

 Day 17 "The earth is blessed, do not play In it or with it." For those of you who used to pray For others and who now pray against How does it feel-bitter and harsh? I am unsure if anger can nurture The small flame of a candle  In an empty chapel Or snuff it out To darkness -  A threat whispered is a threat Do bombs fall False angelic? An incendiary song The path of the downed aviator  Parachuted from warring heaven- We live in this sunless valley You have mistaken love and prayer If you think worship's this cruel Strangeness Religions of ourselves,  All hope or antihope  In every molecule of our bodies

What the house taught me How to keep standing While parts of itself break How to keep going as itself To open and to close A door a window To be a nest and a station For arrival and departure  To watch how we grow And how we diminish To build the bills and poems Into the fabric of itself To hold sleep To dream in its foundations Rooms after room, room after room

Care The worker we saw last week Is in the little lake again Hoovering the weed From the white marble I have never not seen Its surface rippling  Concentric circles Vanishing reflections  I don't know if he does this task  Each day or every other day Or once a week, but Every cobble is white The sun is out Making this an eye The shallow water And the lidded clouds It's a job this, I know But if we think of love as care And what we do again again  Perhaps this counts

  #Day 15 On love Once, it was a revelation, New to me but known, How love was not bounded But able to leap and grow. Exponential yet self contained As the house that dreams up One more room because Love demands it, a wonderful accommodation Here's a thought, we might be able To explain infinity through love And that one star is all stars This is some physics Can we apply it to the ordinary? In this city, slight headache Remembering the taste of cherry liqueur And margarita salt in equal measure The pecking bird head of the crane Above the buildings And all the people connected Somewhere by their love Their loves, like pebble circles In the lily lake . You can debate If the peacock loves his wife Or his own beauty. It's all love The husbands of husbands of wives Of wives of children and mumdads Catsdogs gardens cars books chocolate The other and eachother At this moment how our bones Love the kind spring sun Always, and may even love ourselves ...

Technology The drone pilots and their craft - There is no need to name them But perhaps they do, the hovering things Flutter, Falcon, Ellie, Rover, Champ, Moth It's said it helps To anthropomorphize the weapons And call them home when done  As you would a flock of cooing birds

In the gardens at Sintra A bird trying to pull out moss From the cracks in the folly wall So its head is hidden Isn't singing, is busy. Here, a peacock, Its feathers petrol on water Actually, for a birthday present  I would like you to have planted  this forest a century ago So now I can walk among pines The air saturated with the scent  It is important that water Can speak as a spring from the soil And trace itself over fern and rock Until it pools enough to think Darting neurons of memory- Tiny grey fish. Lilac blossom, Lilac colour, my app for recognition Breaks. No scent but ozone We have hours yet to walk the gardens No path is accidental From the folly of the palace balcony,  hardly pretend being queen There is a room with nothing but pink And a casement open  where the mountain shoulders in Green and exercised with muscle, saying here I am this is a landscape While the faint blue line says nothing And doesn't need to, for the sea Is always familiar, even ...

 Day 12 Grandmother listed names  It seemed the multiplicity Of children were not born but named Into some being The bills and jacks and charlies The marys the edies As if the names were a means of genesis And by naming became real Berries on a branch  Eggs in a delicate nest Music on a stave All the people in the peopled century Grown and flying singing - This same species

Blackout poetry I am on holiday and have 1 book...about antarctic exploration Something like snow blindness  Said the historian  Lieutenants, grocers, drunks. Flowers that bloomed in winter  At the edges of the sea Cerulean azure Burst with laughter Poems of Tennyson Cliffs of ice Caves of ice Clacton on Sea A dance A limp A waltzing  The queen's face My tennis racquet  A stranger place The ship has broken the ice The ship has sailed

How the peacock  Displays its unlikely feathers  Each an eye of god  In the small cafe  Near the palace gardens  Another peacock looks on There are no peahens I am drinking my coffee and talking to you But would acknowledge his beauty His bluegreen iridescence  Who am I to argue with such vanity?

Grief Remember it is important to do these things - Eat, drink, sleep, read,  get dressed, wash your face Breathe.Write  Feed the birds Feed every bird a crumb

 Day 8 War is suspended In the heavens War is heavy  In the air War is suspended  But war is happening  War is happening  In the blossomful air War is falling across countries War is happening  In the gap between War is floating in the abyss And in the awful raining where, Like stone and iron, blood, War is suspended

 Day 6 Science says that in dreams we only see the faces we've already seen Science says that in dreams we can never die Science says, these dream scientists who camp in the foothills of sleep They speak with dream authority And yet, there is your face And yet, there is your face  And you live here

  The Ambivalence Hate tiredness  when tired  Hate sadness  when sad Hate hate when feeling it Everything happens But we know the storm That rushes through  And blows the birds nest From the tree Is blameless 

 in the 80s  operated blind, couldn't see as they reached for the sun or fumbled the sticking on of rainclouds. They had one eye between them sisters, and she was a camera. Weatherwomen in the 80s had to be pretty and had to be pretty storms were banned and  it was always sunny and  Nuclear, how everything  glowed.

  Reluctance The astronaut in love with the Earth, whose head is like a centrifuge and is overwhelmed by the vastness of STARS! That cosmonaut who likes nothing more than feet up and a good book. That astronaut who misses their dinner and their ordinary dog. That spaceman who has never done  anything extraordinary  Who dreams of ordinary dreams Is that one astronaut,  is this undreamer who you want out there, meticulous with the umbilical grateful for that link? That cosmonaut who misses gravity and its  grounding. The spaceman who doesn't confuse a multiplicity of suns  with the comfort of one  Who longs for the journey coming home.

  CHILDHOOD Isn't far but very far Is just over your shoulder Is your unsewn shadow Unseen. Is a start and a place of departure like another country The language you speak is the same but different, translated through time Same things bright in the supermarket but the font has changed  There is a red telephone box on the corner of the road by the elm tree Here now you talks to old you, it can be awkward Sometimes you just listen to the wind from the sea through the receiver Sometimes the voice says go home, a s if we can ever go home.