Category: PA
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30 Nov: PA & Twiglets #307
And It’s Lizard Couplets The house leaks light out the window, across dewy grass sparkling like small stars as heat ripples off the tin roof. A lizard stretches long on a stone, eyes the colour of burnt sugar, it’s as alert as an Aztec warrior. The bowl of water and melon I place by the…
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29 Nov: A Fox-Gazelle
A White Fox in Camouflage The wind is in the key of coldness. It barks as trees argue with the wind, starved by its conversation. There, perched on branches, winter birds and other wings, where birds know there is warmth below the snow. The trees suck at dark layers, the sun pulled up by its…
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27 Nov: Q and PA Day 27
A Poem Based on Henri Rousseau’s “Myself. Portrait Landscape” (from L’ile Saint Louis) This woman’s name is Clémence.She is Henri Rousseau’s lover. You must, she tells, Rousseau,be frontal, be primitive. Be the lion in your jungle. Dress yourself inbest Sunday’s black, and permit your feet to rise on pavements.Pause semaphores on their lines, and strike…
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26 Nov: PA & Q Day 26
A Particular Tree (Major Oak, Nottinghamshire) Beyond the iron gatesof the low stone wall,where the view widenson the slow rising hills is a model of serious trees. There amongst the birds, fields and things that arepermanent and unbroken,we look up at that tree as true and honest wisdom. Its limbs stretch out inthe morning sun…
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25 Nov: Q and PA Day 25
In All seriousness A boy asks the local halal butcher“Are you Santa, sir?” And the butcher rolls two fingerson his bristley beard, as if piecingmyth and faith into a jigsaw puzzle. He spins the rotisserie, fat rendersin long drips from the doner meat,and he slices precisely thin sheets. “No, I am not Santa, but I…
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24 Nov: Q’s and PA Day 24
For a Bear Called Cedric You’d poke it with a stickto see if it’s really dead,and if it grabbed the stick you’d not be surprised. He was made from a sock,stuffed with squishy fluff,and had a button in his ear, and you’d not be surprised if he was smiling at the moon, and sat on…
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23 Nov: NovPAD Day 23
Prose: Postscripts to a Story Once upon a time, my dad and I were a story. I speak about him in the narrative now. My dad was Swedish, but turns out that might not be so. My sister swabbed her mouth for an ancestry DNA test, and discovered that she’s German and English. Seems Dad’s…
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21 Nov: dVerse Haibun Monday
Autumn undresses the trees. Leaves gone mouldy. And rotting. Everything. Damp. And smells of dog. Autumn has clouds in her eyes. Autumn has rain in her head. She removes her floral halo, and lets time have its way with her. Singing woodwind treesWiley words from a spiderPrick survival skills Written for dVerse Poet, Haibun Monday “Autumn’s Voice”…
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21 Nov: Q & NovPAD Day 21
PA: use these words: button, gather, hold, not, sweep, toxic I.A Clean Break She will march like the sunback into her own name,gather how many thingsher suitcase will hold. It happens.Mistakes.It happens.Like blunt knives and bent forks.She’s leaving him,but not before she makes the bedand sweeps the floor. It’s her last toxic responseto his fleeting hot…
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20 Nov: NovPAD Day 20 (PA)
Still Conflicted Seeing is believing, they say. Flip that global warming switch.Again. You’ll see, they say. I read thatmeat production warms the plant. So I stopped eating red meat,but I would love a thick steakinstead of this boiled lifeless eggand bread white and soft as cotton. It’s wrong,bringing a child into an incinerator. No trees…