Poems For Your Week

My challenge for April

April is ‘National Poetry Writing Month’ (I always find these ‘national ___ day/month’ things so silly — of what nation???). Since 2020, I have tried to do the ‘write a poem every day’ thing for all of April and have never completed it. I think the closest I ever got was halfway through.

This is kinda silly considering I once managed to write 100 tiny songs in 100 days.

But hey, new year, new poem-me!

I also find this process a really good way of finding new inspiration for songs. Poems take me weird places and often down avenues I wouldn’t usually explore in my songwriting. For example: here’s a song that was once I poem I wrote about being reincarnated as a car.

Here are the poems I wrote last week for my April challenge, following the daily prompts from my Insta-poet friend Amy Kay. Let me know which one is your favourite!

Grab Your Dust Jacket, We're Going Trope Hunting

There's only so many times a woman can be
Death incarnate, can fold the world
Like a petal and sharpen her smile
On quivering necks of wickedness.
There's only so many times she can
Outwit magicians, sleight the dice,
Hold the line, feint and keep running.
There's only so many times the stars
Can be defied, wished upon, or rattled
Like teeth in the palm of a gambling god.
There's only so many Christ analogies a girl
Can take, before she wonders if the hero needs to die
And stay dead, so the world can take its turn.

What Do You Want?

Why can’t you put it plainly?
Instead you’re standing on someone’s back patio
With a full moon backdrop, open mouth and open arms
Like you’re Jesus or target practice, singing your

Everything-and-nothing aria nobody can understand.
It riles me up, it gets my shoe-throwing arms in
Windmill motion, it makes me laserbeam a
Shut-the-fuck-up glare through the blinds

And why am I standing up in my pyjamas giving a cat
A shut-the-fuck-up glare like cats can even decipher
Shut-the-fuck-up glares it's stupid, you're stupid,
Just go back to bed, turn over, wonder

When was the last time I yelped and yowled?
When was the last time I asked for something
Just to hear my own voice
Ask it out loud?

Limbo

August passes through, in

Bruises, damsons,
inkblots,

Bracelets, rainclouds,
bottlecaps,

Clifftops, curtains,
aches,

Eclipses, angels,
orange trees,

Stations, platforms,
labyrinths,

Clock bells, turnstiles,
elbows,

Corridors, cicadas,
shadows.

Aramanth, You Never Had To Change Your Network Provider

I don’t want to be the fifth caller in the queue.
	I want to
		Bleed out in the snow,
			Moonlight dancing off my
				Tinselled armour as my lungs
				Rattle, soul tugging on
				My ribs like a dog’s jaws
				On sinew and fur.

I don’t want to hear about a better contract.
	I want to
		See the glow from her
			Distant tower, and curse the day I
				Clasped this quest, half-knowing I’d
				Never sigh again in springtime
				Forests, for fate would
				Hunt me down.

No, I don’t want to upgrade instead.
	I want to
		Hear her in the mist,
			Call my name and not know
				Whether a dream or death
				Has kissed me, but ruby silk
				Sews my bones anew,
				And I rise for one last battle.

Earthbound

A bird too high,
One dark dash of emptiness
In our sky. This world
-tilted, seesawed thing:

Spun down,
Borne,
Carried
Away.

A Short History

Swirled in a storm of stars,
Time is like tracing paper, handwritten by

Asteroids,
Animals,
Gravity.

My kitchen calendar glazes months together.
When I look through I travel
Back and forwards, through

Mountains,
Meadows,
Salt-blue oceans.

I must call my friend tomorrow,
I must send some files,
I must buy food,
I must walk outside
And let my footsteps write.

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Til next time! Be good,

Olivia 🌈✨🏔🎶