A poem a day

[DGSquared]

Deb, you triggered a memory.

=====

Redolent

I bought a book about palmistry,
a fairly ancient book.
Black and white line drawings
showing different hands.
None quite like mine.
Thick coarse paper.

It sat on a rack outside the shop
and, as ancient books sometimes do,
it called to me as I passed.

I opened it at a few random pages,
noticed the 'foxed' edges
and a few handwritten notes
from the previous owner,
In erasable pencil,
so not total vandalism.

Fifteen minutes later I went inside,
to the familiar antiquarian book smell
and paid for it.

"I knew you'd be in,"
said the store owner.
A wizened little fellow,
cloned in bookshops worldwide.

I'd been home less than an hour
before the tobacco smell emerged.
Previously hidden by the outdoor cold,
and diesel fumes from the road,
but now released in my warm office.

Rolling slowly through my home,
slipping from room to room
like mist across an open field.

Good quality pipe tobacco I'd say,
not cheap ready-mades,
but still unwelcome in my home.
But I didn't want to dump the book.

So it hung on a string,
pages partially opened
and occasionally shuffled,
in my garage for several months.

Now, rehabilitated, it's indoors,
on the shelf where it belongs.
No clean paperback reprint available,
probably never will be.
And there are still faint traces
of wherever it lived before.
But these I can live with.

Gyppo

Gyppo, this is a wonderful poem. It needs its own thread. If the books could tell more stories than the words written between the pages...

[DGSquared]

I just took a trip down your poem a day page for the first time today and enjoyed the insight into someone else's effort to stay calm Love the blue screen of death. I think it was last year during NaPo a participant (Marcel) wrote a triolet a day and it is now a published book. I join Deb in urging you to join the effort this year. It's right around the corner

I did not know that - it's great to hear.

[Dansinger]

Gyp, that's a nice poem. Very relatable - and that tobacco smell is one of the main reasons why I usually buy new books. Which is a shame, as some of those old books are so beautiful.

NaPo? Around the corner? I never participated in NaPo before, but I might this year. I love the idea of writing one triolet a day. I like writing triolets.

BTW, I did write one poem a day that month. Just stopped posting them.

[indar9]

Tracy is setting up this year's format right now. There are rumors of zoom readings (optional) no hard-hitting critiques under the circumstances but razzing is permitted if it is in good fun. If I write with the intention of posting, I read what I write differently even under NaPo conditions. It is intense in its own way and on April 30 I feel the way I once did after finishing a demanding term paper exhilarated and let down/sad. Please do consider joining us.

[Gyppo]

I expect to be there, Indar.  As always, no promises, but I can feel my inner 'performer' peeping over the parapet and sizing up the arena.  (Not sure about the 'zoom' idea though.)

I agree about April 30th.  It always feels similar to the way it did after our medieval re-enactment season ended.

=====

        After the show:

        "In a few minutes the final audience will be leaving.  The emptiness of the arena will be an aching void, a black hole of silence.  Muscles still twitching with adrenaline, and minds shot through with flashes of memory will be all that remains.
        "The performers, suddenly bereft of urgency now the season has finished, with no need to pack and dash to their next performance, will pause occasionally as costumes are folded and packed into the hampers and boxes.  Weapons and props will be cleaned and oiled for safe storage against some future if unspecified comeback.
        "Arena personas will retreat back into the innermost depths of their respective psyches, to slumber awhile; some peacefully, some restive, and nearly all ready to leap forth again at the blare of a trumpet, the roar of a crowd, the smell of half-dried painted string chainmail, and the suddenly remembered scent of hay in some village field where - for a short while - the centuries were peeled back as the air rang to the clash of steel and the cries of battling men.
        "You can take the man out of the arena - but you can never take the arena out of the man!"

Gyppo

[indar9]

So glad to hear it Gyppo, I'll post a link here as soon as it's available. Love "After the Show" applicable to many more situations.

[Dansinger]

I'll definitely not join on Zoom, but I'm comfortable writing.

[indar9]

That's where I am on the subject of zoom. What's with that anyway? People who haven't bothered to pick up the phone and return my call from 1992 suddenly want to get me into a zoom group. Glad to hear you'll join the writing.

[DGSquared]

Oh, that's what Tracy meant by Zoom readings. Hahaha! I'm so blonde it's actually quite funny. I thought it was some sort of poetry critique or delivery I was unaware of.


Welcome to the madness, Dan.


Where is our 2021 NaPo thread?

[DGSquared]

I expect to be there, Indar.  As always, no promises, but I can feel my inner 'performer' peeping over the parapet and sizing up the arena.  (Not sure about the 'zoom' idea though.)

I agree about April 30th.  It always feels similar to the way it did after our medieval re-enactment season ended.

=====

        After the show:

        "In a few minutes the final audience will be leaving.  The emptiness of the arena will be an aching void, a black hole of silence.  Muscles still twitching with adrenaline, and minds shot through with flashes of memory will be all that remains.
        "The performers, suddenly bereft of urgency now the season has finished, with no need to pack and dash to their next performance, will pause occasionally as costumes are folded and packed into the hampers and boxes.  Weapons and props will be cleaned and oiled for safe storage against some future if unspecified comeback.
        "Arena personas will retreat back into the innermost depths of their respective psyches, to slumber awhile; some peacefully, some restive, and nearly all ready to leap forth again at the blare of a trumpet, the roar of a crowd, the smell of half-dried painted string chainmail, and the suddenly remembered scent of hay in some village field where - for a short while - the centuries were peeled back as the air rang to the clash of steel and the cries of battling men.
        "You can take the man out of the arena - but you can never take the arena out of the man!"

Gyppo

Perfect!