And on the seventh day, we rest. Nope, no rest for us NaPoWriMo devotees, Poem-a-Day challengers. So, getting on with it: Robert Lee Brewer's prompt today is "write a poem describing a scene in which two or more people interact without speaking."
Catherine's poem of the day works from this prompt, establishing a scene in which the interacting but not speaking two are not even in the same place. Genius.
4 a.m.
When my cheek finds the cold cotton
of your pillow, I know it's 4 a.m.
and you have just shown your I.D.
at the gatehouse, checked your phone,
holstered your gun, started a shift
that will end soon after I’ve finished
morning’s first cup of coffee.
Before another chapter ends,
you will claim the place you staked
in the first bed we shared,
a double bed, then too much room
for our bodies stacked like panes
of glass fused by the heat of naive desire.
This king-size bed, too small
to bridge the distance of fifteen years,
will crowd me to my corner desk
in a few hours when you return,
but now, concealed
in disheveled sheets and dreams
I know it's only 4 a.m.
—Draft by Catherine Pritchard Childress [do not copy or quote ... thanks]
Today, Maureen Thorson of NaPoWriMo.net suggests this prompt: "Pick a color, any color. And now write a poem in which everything is that color (or, at least, that color predominates). . . . And remember, the poem doesn’t have to be “about” the color — just dyed with it."
My own poetic offering of the day takes place in a Philippine rural area on the night before Easter — that's what today actually is, friends — and tries to work both of Robert's and Maureen's prompts.
Black Encounter on the Eve of Easter
— in Cutud Village, north of Manila, 1921 On his straw mat, his banig, under the inky susurrus
of the mosquito net hung from the walls of his nipa hut,
a bachelor farmer named Jesus de los Santos lounges half asleep,
half dreaming of the Easter sunrise mass coming at dark's end
then later on penitentes flogging their own backs into black
bloody crosshatch, a couple to be crucified for a few minutes.
Jesus gazes up toward the now charcoal-tinged underside
of his thatched palm-leaf roof and starts at an indistinct
shadow above, shaped darkly like a crucified person. What?
Jesus rolls out of the net and fixes his eyes above. Yes,
there is something there in the pitch black. Wait, is it
a dark brown woman with her arms outstretched, gripping
the almost invisible bamboo supports of the roof? A ghost?
A hallucination? Jesus rubs his eyes and looks again. Her eyes
are dark red like dying coals. He crosses himself quickly,
notices a rippling behind her like a mourning-dress curtain.
Susmariosep, Jesus whispers, she got wings like a bat!
Wait, it's not a whole figure. She has no legs. No legs!
Jesus slowly realizes there is nothing below her waist
but a few brackish red loops of, what, guts, torn intestines?
O my Jesus, an aswang . . . putang ina, she's a mananananggal!
The aswang smiles, teeth a dingy slate gray, and from her mouth
slips a dingy bloody red thing like a snake or maybe more like
a thick dark earthworm that writhes wildly, closer and closer
to Jesus. It's her tongue, a ten-foot-long tongue. Hold on,
she's trying to suck my blood, this black harpy! He clenches
his arms, his fists, shuts his eyes hard. As the aswang's
tongue slinks, inches, nearer to his neck, Jesus's body
in the shadowy center of the room seems to sprout black
fur, arms and legs thinning and crackling into wolf-like
limbs. He's getting taller and bulkier, T-shirt and boxers
ripping apart like tissue. Jesus growls, dark yellowish fangs
flashing out of the lengthening snout of his face. Jesus
is also an aswang, a shapeshifter churning into a huge
black dog, larger than a man, standing wide on hind legs.
The two monsters growl and snarl at each other, a tableau
carved into the dusky sweaty air of the room. Then it stops.
Both of them laugh, they snicker and snort, convulse in dark
shrieks and screams of black humor. The manananngal pulls in
her slimy tongue, waves at Jesus, and swoops out of the window,
her pterodactyl wings sighing velvety tik-tik, wak-wak sounds.
Jesus lifts his noble black head to the heavens and howls.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [do not copy or quote ... thanks]
Okay, friends in the art of poetry, there goes a week of National Poetry Month beauties and gems. At least, so we hope. Won't you tell us what you think? Comment below, please. Join us here again for another week of poetry. Ingat.
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10 comments:
I had no idea about NaPoWriMo, but I'm addicted as of now. That poem, "Black Encounter on the Eve of Easter"--it hisses with power, all those sibilant tones that dominate and then, occasionally, are broken up by the crack-crack-crack of brackish loops, clenching arms, things that crackle wolf-like. The poem shape-shifts just like its subject matter. The images move and arc and something happens from beginning to end, something transforms, as it should in any good story. But in so few lines, it's a little stunning. I like the way it hushes toward the end. The S sound becoming an SH sound, but the hush is a question, because the poem has broken open, and everything has changed. No silence. But a howl. I can't wait to read more.
Bk ... many many thanks. Your reply is kind of a poem in itself, such good sounds in it. Thank you. It just occurred to me from what you said, that "everything has changed." Will this be a love story? Hmm.
Everything has changed. A love story. Ha, I like it. There's a slouching to Bethlehem quality to this Easter horror story. Images so vivid, and some perfectly timed dark humor, which is always good.
I like it! and also the potential of developing it further as a love story - "Will this be a love story?" Will we get to find out?
Thanks, BK. Still very new characters to me. At least another poem from the woman's POV, first.
Vickie ... what an idea, hey? A love affair between the shapeshifter/werewolf and the self-segmentor/vampire. Hmm, the sex would be pretty strange to say the least. ;-D
Oh, wait ... one of the interesting things about the Philippine aswangs is that they are always community members with secret identities. Notice how Jesus de los Santos even seems to be a practicing Christian (not sure about that yet, though the percentage of Christians in the population was probably in the upper 90s in the '20s. So they could become lovers in their daytime lives but then who knows what happens at night? Could this be a novel? Who wants to option the movie rights? Ha ha.
Vince .. you spin a wicked tale in such a short space, yet it feels as though it stretched out for a long time due to the suspense. I'll have to come back and post any nightmare images due from reading this one. I equally enjoyed 4 a.m. with it's slow awakening pace full of realization that one gets as they come out of a slumber. I sense the yawn, the search for a robe with a glance at the alarm clock, wondering how it could possible advance so far so soon. Keep it up folks! Good stuff.
Denis, many thanks! I hope you DO get a nightmare out of it. It's like a free movie, a free reality show about YOU. Ha ha. Seriously, thanks. And come back, come back.
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