challenge

An ars poetica poem* – Day 15

| Sheree

“I write only because

There is a voice within me

That will not be still.” ― Sylvia Plath

Poetry is where we are ourselves – Elizabeth Alexander

i try to connect beauty using words as healers of possibilities from the state within, the voice, a teacher, a sage, where my poetry winters, where I can see the ‘I’ like a clearing through the trees, where imagination lingers inch wide mile deep, conjuring for change and connection. i try language, not to trick or demonstrate my intellect, but to spark simple, stretching blossoms into ‘we’ rather than ‘them and us’. from the state without, i’m a beast, caged and muzzled. swallowed. cornered and supposedly cowered, i come out writing, wading into dangerous waters, owning my imagination to practice potential futures.

*“An ars poetica poem is a poem examining the role of poets themselves as subjects, their relationships to the poem, and the act of writing.” —Poets.org

Tell me what you’re looking for in a relationship in one sentence – Day 14

| Sheree

Ohhh good question.

Laughter and fun, with trust and communication, honesty and commitment but not in a heavy sense but much love and affection and respect and joy, I spent a long time in a relationship that wasn’t joyful and really what’s the point, life’s too short to waste time and energy on people who don’t treat you right or who aren’t happy in themselves, I want to be with someone who makes time for me and us, just like I make time for them and us, hey I get it, people are busy, leading busy lives but I’m of the belief that if you want to be with someone you make time and effort to be/do just that.

Tender, Undoing Self Within Night’s Skin – Day 13

| Sheree

I say to myself : stop. Stop undoing yourself within night’s skin.

Tell myself a promise to sort out my living habits so I don’t die prematurely like my mum.

Imagine the tenderness: like soft beige rolls of fat, like soft pink tongues languishing in wet mouths, like soft woollen blankets tickling toes.

I may no longer be the second daughter, the misfit who could conjure a soul’s reflection through colourful art.

Please night as you stretch out your skin one more time, please be tender with my damaged, twisted stars.

Couplets – Open Heart – Day 12

| Sheree

Feel the breeze through the trees. Even the leaves strive

to stay alive. The energy is flowing through you, my love.

Pause and feel its spinning. The way of this world , freedom

is for the taking with every breath, linger

in the outside, the black outside while still enclosed within,

for now.

Revisions – Day 11

| Sheree
Come Again

Day 9 – Goofing off Revisions/ redrafting

Ten years. Ten long years of changes, I’ve been dreaming on paper.

I had to give myself permission.

To create again. Safely.

I was fearful. Fearful of the word. Images are safer. Images speak to the soul.

Paint. Takes me back to being a child and all I wanted was love and joy.

Tapping into this feeling of being with self, I show up to the page. Each day.

Each day, I have the opportunity to start again.

Each day I have the opportunity to meet the sunrise anew.

The Belly of a Mountain – Day 10

| Sheree
Glencoe, Scottish Highlands

We obscure the outline of the belly of a mountain*

when we write about nature

we enter the realm of words being useless

we enter our narcissistic imaginations instead of being in with the mountain

I miss the mountains, the Highlands, Glencoe

At some point, I became marred by immobility, by staying close, staying safe

Now I return in my dreams, awake and grapple to describe their grace and poise

Abstracted longing. Never enough, never true enough to capture their form, their presence

I wait for my return. To sleep within the belly of mountains,

the mountains I’ve always felt are old Black women resting together, safe

*Day 10 prompt was: Find a single sentence someone else wrote that sticks out to you and use it as your first line. Let your poem unfold from there.

This adapted line was taken from ‘Against Nature Writing’ by Charles Foster.

Goofing Off – Day 9

| Sheree

I made a journal this week.

Recycled a print out of the Darkling manuscript.

I needed to get centred, grounded, focused.

So I stitched the printed sheets together into a book.

Then I applied paint to each page, blotted off any excess.

I had a journal of colourful pages.

I had a safe vessel to capture all my thoughts feelings and to-dos.

I had been feeling overwhelmed.

Like treading water and getting nowhere.

Creating this journal was fun.

It felt like goofing off my day-to-day responsibilities.

This journal helped me get my ducks in a row.

And tick(le) them off into the sunset!

[the hour after] – Day 8

| Sheree

Letting my brain catch up with the happening, I allow my heart to stop for an instant. Feeling unmoored to make sense, far too soon.

If only I had saw it coming. If only someone had thought to talk to me before this. Maybe things would be different, maybe the wound wouldn’t cut so deep.

Needing to rewind the clocks, to go back to that ignorant bliss, that season of love and acceptance, is a fool’s wish.

Under the avalanche of words, I move silent into the dark night, to piece myself back together following a different schema, charting an undiscovered course.

[the hour before] – Day 7

| Sheree

I know I was in the full of it all. Life overflowing.

With all its distractions and demands and me thinking I’m the central force.

I know I was missing from the family home, chasing the next big gig, the next recognition slip.

Maybe my family had eaten for the day and I’d missed it again.

Maybe I had to circle the streets trying to find a parking space for at least half an hour.

I know I carried loads of bags with stuff packed just in case, always worried about being unprepared and found wanting.

I know I lacked the self-belief and love of self. I know I needed more of everything.

So when night fell, and I found myself still working, reorganising books for god’s sake, I know I wasn’t prepared for the public shaming.

But my gut probably knew this day of failure would come to expose me for the imposter always felt and knew.