Sarah L Dee Napowrimo 2025

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Rupert Brookes I used to read of the siege of Constantinople But did I compare it to love Well no But the sultan did Drop a massive iron chain Across the narrow neck of the Bosphorus And dragged it so no ships Could pass And later, some greedy greek official may Have opened a forgotten door In the ancient walls by what is now fatiye Enough to slip a spy through- Poison the water  Or  Later, the sultan fired bombardments  And bombardments of great cannon Which staggered back after each volley The stones splintering like teeth   Old city quaking And maybe people All across this grand sickbed of a  city Of our love are waiting. Future  defenses To be breached and the bricks Painted in blood or gold And maybe we are tired As sad faced businessmen At the ending of a  millennia old empire A woman can be only so much A creation in a  dress made  from peace time years If bureaucracy was A paper flowe...

 Portrait of a child as Frank Sinatra It was not the music itself But the way the record settles on the player And the unexpected weight of it The 78 And it was as if evenings We’re bottled and poured as measures One for my baby Me and lotte lenya Tilly Loch, Lotte Lenya's lover and surrealist dancer Getting out of the bath And waking up the staircase of the central hall Of her husband’s mansion Left wet footprints on the carpet Which he later would have woven Into the design And followed when he was lonely Oh Lotte of the 4 husbands I would sing odd and lonely in the evenings The songs of Brecht and Weill Listening to the original recordings That sublime rasp of a voice Everything the absolute opposite. To my sheltered self Who would never dare but had such Fascistic control over myself. Lotte Lenya smoked and married  and was alone and loved and sang And the ship  The black freighter  Hauled its weight , sloughed anchor, And settled in port  As the pirates sto...

  The venn The venn diagram of us interacts  Not so much intersects  as breaks their bubbles and swallows up When we're cold, the barriers immutable  Are solid You know the magic trick where the rings interlap That’s us that’s us  That’s us Unless it can be proved that  We are not And the rings fall apart The venn diagram of us interacts  Two become trefoil Or some rough alchemy You know the new leaf That is three in one. From two That’s us that’s us You know the lonely petals. That’s us too We have likes in common But we also have hatred This is where your worst behaviour. Seeps into and joins into the best of mine. Reverse it . Make it thoughts. Make it colours For too long we've been subset Facing subset. Allowing statistics to map  And to define geometry, Laying out The diagram of us 

 Battista Sforza Has the nearest and palest of faces The palest and barest of foreheads, she Is the left facing right. She is all face, yet  Does not  smile-  Who would, I ask you Posed profile to profile eternally With the similar pose Of husband? She milk He poppy  Or blood. Forever from the side And he separated from her by the frame of gilt So they can never kiss Or see each others faces Or look out into whatever gallery there is Stretching in whatever room Or reproduction unto eternity Painted like this  The realism not yet quite perfected And underneath the paint  The geometry  Which is shape or symbol Look here at the arrangement, Look here at the dance

 In the forest 22.3460 DESCRIPTION Sir Ratan Tata Art Collection In the forest it is murky green And not what we expect - Outside the forest is terrible sunlight, In here we can rest. The party cool themselves Under the great leaves Till one of the women shivers Bu it’s good to feel the cold Out here, it’s good They’re following a pale blue person Who may or may not be Krishna? Krishna halts before an unknown tree Carved in its trunk or door or alcove In the alcove a skeletal man hunched Or a hungry bird My reproduction  is too indistinct to tell It looks starving for something Krishna and his women Are questioning this bird This person And around them the forest masses Will they find their way home? Is this an exile or A journey to an oracle I wish there was somewhere I might turn To ask all my questions in a green light And all of nature listening

 The animal who wishes to be groomed Will lie their small head down upon the ground And look up asking, at their friend or mother, close their eyes while waiting to be touched  So every creature wanting to be groomed Will wait, and make a call or birdsong sound  And leave our peace and comfort to another We are like lonely gods and not enough  The kiss or stroke upon our summer fur  small breeze through dandelions or grass This is what earthly consolation is  A cool hand brushing through your winter hair The first one ever to touch  you or the last This sense a gesture of whatever love is

The last time we made music, All of us, All the order were masked  In white and blue And for these in it for the haul, black crepe It was a kind of slow horror and we saw A body shipped out in a narrow boat A stretcher or a door You sister opened the creaked old iPad Screen also dead, but underneath the apps trying Garageband, and laid a beat down as if she Were planning something good And you spoke over it With what new words came into your head And they were great The cut glass of your voice And I was thinking  Could every memory be in a song? Like this? Every memory like this Able to wth a finger halt the sky From moving and the sun from make arc And the moon from dilating shrinking It’s a mood And the song was called As I recall it, silver trees in a birch wood Of my reflection. Dark brown dye And a kind of powdery cold Some got tall, some didn’t-see How I have got older but I do remember all of it, that song The name of it was called   I'm lost here somewhere  F...

Put your voice through a filter So you sounded like a songbird , So they took your words apart  And placed them on the scale like notes I’m sorry I don’t practice every day The sets of intervals the variations. I promise you I once did have the knowledge. Outside they autotune the blackbird Like a reality show contestant Set it off colatura and the cheap vibrato God declares it pitchy  And that good does not mean art The wren I keep in the small place In my chest trills his song The wren I keep, the tune My self is tuned to I know by heart

  Instrumental When I first learned to play I was dizzy and breathless  Couldn’t work out how to Keep breath for myself and for the music The lights were white before my eyes  I lost balance. Mr Tempest told me To put my palm on my belly And breathe deep, feel the air compress And decompress like some ancient valve Breathe in and out  Breathe out and in When I first learned to play I was breathless and dizzy Couldn’t work out how to be Breath kept for myself  The whitest light behind my eyes I stole my balance  Mt Tempest told me  To let the air move through me And breathe in the music , let it ebb and flow And be the chemistry, the score  The practice to be perfect turning Each breath in becoming exhalation now

 Walking on through  London Watching as the rain comes,  Thunder shouts your name  Seeing all the high rise All the whitewashed sale signs Houses of the vain Can’t afford to live there Sleeping in the fresh air All the boys went downtown Say these are the slums here Selling crk and cheap gear-  Who wants to be a millionaire? You you it’s all for you Harder than you ever even knew One day you’ll be lounging in the blue. Where the sky meets cool sea Dreams come true Food bank meals taste better made for two Never thought I'd be stuck like glue  And tell me baby is it true We got no money blues

  The Rules  Christ, you have mislaid The rules of the game again. You say let’s make them up  And play regardless, but, If it’s all the same I’d like to see this played With etiquette and law- Your cheating kings and queens cease trampling on the pawns make quiet moves that conform and never make a scene , so the end is always sure Move from cerebral to physical do all the vice as versa. You’ll scheme and  strategise, then wake and realise You’ll never know a person And most love is mythical

  Goat song He had not thought that it would be the coat undone him His need for the coat and when he saw the other wear it He thought about it more and how he wanted it This tale tells of the coat uncertain, insert here How it seemed. Uncertain how it was, the coloured coat With the true name . He is not a label but labels are important  All his life had come to this , he had not thought would be coat undid him His want for it, but when he saw the other wear it The fit over his shoulders, the fabric of the thing  He wondered  The fit over his shoulders, the fabric of the thing  He wondered. Uncertain how it was, the coloured coat His neck his neck the collar Uncertain how it was, the coloured coat The fabric of the thing, the weave, materiaL And he would kill for this, as he was dying for it Such a trivial thing, the coloured coat The fit upon his shoulders, the fabric of the thing The blood upon the weave, the blood that was worth dying  Killing for, such...

 Usually when we're driving I sing, because it’s in my range Radiohead exit music drinks film or just it even paranoid android or karma police and it’s the sailing crooning part unlike  Or perhaps Lana del Rey in which case it’s ultraviolet ence or video games And every time I have to explain that my move for her is both completely ironic and not ironic at the same time It else right now for the same reasons, Stevie nicks and the chain or silver springs or edge of seventeen and I try and get the tremble on. My voice like I do too right now as actual the field so endlessly flat like wtf have they got buried under there under there As I sing old Roxy music song for Europe I remember all those moment and it’s any song that gets the time passing that processing drifting feeling and I have been unable to tell for 32 years if you think I sing in tune or not Do I buy I can’t contain the song that. Sure I won’t sing since I’ve heard it in each supermarket aggregates like clothes shop ...

 How To Be Old: Two Women, Their Husbands, Their Cats, Their Alchemy by Carrie Frye April 5, 2013   “Beauty is a responsibility like anything else, beautiful women have special lives like prime ministers but I don’t want that.” Today, the writer speaks  And is debating the difficulty of goats and wolves living together It is not, she says, as you might expect That the wolves bite But that goats refuse to be afraid Parade and headbutt And eat eat eat Eat eat  Dresses, handbags, velvet fodder bourgeois  In a bloody uprising of yourself  Oh Remedios The red of your headdress, queen  That was a cloud of bloodhair With stars A convent education Again only proved a mess of saints , And the dream seed of fucking revolutions Remember Leonora's discarded face , left with her mother during her debutante season  How everyone in England applauded As a king Groomed her like the dawn horse  How she shows the biting animal instead How, in debt and wonderful...

 Tests have shown that extroverts Do better in exams in the presence of music While introverts cleave to silence. Who'd work at the fairground And write poetry? So pop dance club lite memesis Stakes territory by the circle of the waltzers And the spinning up machine And the trembling rollercoaster Above the hungry sea . They and their Euro Hordes by the fun palace and the Sheer drop, so that beat and pulse May jam the rust machinery and the little wheels Are singing in the works of the hit factory And the teenagers become like symbiotes Of bass and auto tune. Scream melody And vibrate. The ground a mighty Beat breaking to meet you, your Youth a wonderland . Fair two days and night On grazing ground. The music and the oil Dying the grass

 I like cats of all kinds, but especially those  Of the medieval kind who have human faces I like them because I imagine They would have something to say about Most topics, especially the theological Which are rarely discussed while they do this daily And praise her with the inevitability Of chimps seeing sky for the first time  Awe of course, at first, but then  Their human features morph to boredom, indistinct And gossip, kill, like modern people do I like cats, like I like me and you

Of course, there are the p****** Stacked on the shelf, neat packages Pliers shaped. Adjusting the screw Black white yellow the metal, turn Of course, there we are p****** islandish If a place crowded with p****** Can be a kingdom of people, A hierarchy of sorts, an uncivil service Dancing and crowding, dizzying but alone Queenkings of the western cliffs Flightless don’t mention that birds not the birds When crowds of nobles And of peasants or collective of choir The thrift and the angry white teeth, ocean The nature of p****** to dance in place then dive 

 The old man and wife behold the crown of burgers  Six burgers in their buns and their attendant chips For the time they eat their dinner they do not speak Look at the green pitch flat screen as they eat their chips Do they do not look at us, they just eat and eat Don’t look at each other, this is what they do, eat  Is that each Saturday , this crown of burgers The old man and his old wife at the hungry horse  Slow eating duty, ritual, there is no pleasure  Chewing the meat slowly as a grazing horse This all you can eat, eating as endurance This all you can live, living as endurance  Bring tupperware for the old man and his wife Bring tupperware unused, so half his meal he’ll save  Not a word exchanged as they watch TV and chew And into tupperware with what they want to save  And the world in his mouth for when he wants to eat it Dry and tasteless, but still he needs to eat it

  The Sisyphus myth I need used to think that Sisyphus Having rolled the rock up the slope would Weaken every now and then and let the rock slip Backwards  I used to think  Sisyphus would be crushed by the weight of his failure And the at the base of the slope Alive with young trees The dust would entreat him  To try again Or else I thought  That Sisyphus would roll the rock right over The ledge at the summit And that it would gather its dignity And speed the other side Like the idea of a child’s plaything  Or else fall like angel soul Over the precipice Cratering on impact  So that all is pockmarked with grief I used to think Be sure I’d never read The myth , just word of mouth and rumour  I used to think I used to think and think 

 A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.  You do it to yourself  Say Radiohead with millennial ennui You And no one else I’ve bought dull books on self self help But nothing seems to shift this dread ennui You do it to yourself  I learned to breath to meditate myself But nothing seems to be a remedy You And no one else I vibrate crystalline, glass celled- But you see absence in transparency You do it to yourself I recall dreaming I was someone else  My voice was echo shimmering out of me,  Said you and no one else Can’t be a saint if you don’t surrender wealth  Can’t be a demon if you just agree. Answer me oh answer me an answer Here’s the question - You do it to yourself ? You and no one else?

 Little frog in the pool No the garden pool no The pool garden with the frog Little frog pool No the garden pool Little frog swimming In the pool, the garden . Don’t pool Me don’t frog yourself  No the garden pool  Little frog little pool little garden 

 How the tulips lower their heads How the tulips bend their redyellow heads To the table face  And the table face Smiles at the tulips  Nodding yellowred At the tulips praying  To the flat face of table And the god face of table  Demands the redyellow worship of tulips And yellowred tulips bow heads in worship 

  Ghazal Ask me what exactly love is And do we feel it in the siege like love The rescuers with blue lights The blue lights rescuers like love The soldiers shoot love down Even with hands in the air like love Safety can become not safety With the breaking ceasefires of love Ask me what exactly love is And does it heal itself to peace  like love 

 Why I am not a comedy routine I like to think I’m not predictable  So you won’t see my punchline coming So I'm not on the other side of the knock knock joke I am not bait set up and payoff I am not the mother in law gag I have been known to pratfall But I think I maintain my dignity Even so Do I provoke do I push Sometimes . Do I gather myself Into my place of privilege and kick My heels at those below me Well I try not to I'm not even Jesus With his camel hyperbole  And his disciple pratfall And his 3 day fake out And the absurdity of loaves and fishes Am I a woman up there  And am I an easy target For sex age looks class hatred Yes Having done extensive research Do I know that the clowns are sent in To distract from the fire And the performing elephants gone wild And the falling trapezists Yes In the 19th century Roughly 76.7 percent of Victorian clowns Died of sadness Directly or indirectly I won't speak of the mortality rate Of tightrope walkers Back to me in ob...

 The Blend  Oolong As an odd child Yes, I hoarded Assam in a tin And opened it just to smell it The cool of the tin The smell of the leaves I wonder if that’s why I want To go to India now In cool season With the terraces green  A safety Meanwhile In the now This hot water steeped Taste of cuckoo And repair and wrong all bad things Sitting in judgement And nothing from my mouth moth dust sounds right I adopt a blackbird song But it was not my own A panel of tasters are due to come To the plantation soon Or the factory They will be wearing white coats They will take samples and make judgment And I'm afraid this blend May be drawn unfit For your assumption

 Obliterate the choir This yacht rock love This yacht rock dream The slippy boards  The young second wife Odd chord changes All the centaurs hanging out in The holly wood hills All the stack hooved big shots  And their bojack horseman sons I thought this was a cruel  But this was hollyhocks Rioting in the  garden I have never asked you What you think about the Super rich If you think They’re clever Creatures of their own invention Rich enough to flex plastic In the clubs or Notice how They dance With exaggerated reactions. Stagger and bend And fall As if they’ve Been Sebastianed By arrows. A story shift Because they  Have transfused themselves  To vampires

 Living with the painting After denise levertov If you had bothered to drill a hole in the wall And put in this a nail and in the nail From the nail hang the painting This would be a different poem You didn’t Swore the walls would irrevocably crack No wonder people were speculating I could have done it myself But was wary of the power tools With my long bloody hair I can’t stress enough how The picture’s an original My mother painted it And in it, caught And tipped now, so they Dig in their brogued feet to stand] Those nuns with faces indistinct Stood on the dark beach Controlling  familiars in the guise of kites It is face down to the bedroom wall And I can feel it raging with its storm Turning away from me I’m sorry mum I’m sorry I’m not sure if looking would help me  remember you more but know each night I sleep with a world of storm screaming in bubble wrap  in the universe of cupboard

  Why I am not a dancer Because as I have often said, I go the wrong way when I should go the right And the contribution of the mirror doesn’t help It just confuses Safer to stick to words Me always  living in my head which You have said seems to be half the problem Or yet more That teacher who wanted To nail yes nail My feet to the actual floor And the 5 beers that  I took to start  Salsa And the time I waltzed Into the ballet class My child was taking and began To walk on tip toes Set my spine iron straight And extended my arms How I cannot run while turning my head And how I fall dizzy How the rhythm sticks in my hip bone skeleton Like ballerinas And trembles and vibrates How no one has asked me to dance  For years But how I wish they would How you can extend this out to poets Where I don’t to need be asked Before I write Take a leaf out of this book Reply in terms Of classical Vedic Moment Embrace each conversation Like a potential partner Watching my feet i...

Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me bittersweet, irresistible, a crawling beast. Look I told you  When I was being clever That Nosferatu is a modern love story   As Sappho writes, is hunger And as she also wrote Love is a battlefield  All the untidy soldiers  No match for what we care for That mild word What makes us live and love on and on  And my widowed grandmother Not speaking at the man she’d lost decades before But singing in a quiver voice at no one Honestly, I wish I were dead. “Alas, how terribly we suffer, Sappho. I really leave you against my will.” The lynchian red neon Of heartbreak hotel By the white rock of Delphi I knew I’d lost Everything I care for  But choose to think of it like this A temporary madness Leaping into the dark waters 

 Describing an object  There must be, somewhere a person perhaps a woman or perhaps a man Or either Who designs those bouncy castles The ones you see out of the corner of your eye On inconsequential days of your life Of days of your life which are utterly meaning full Like it was the day after you gave birth pushing your baby , floating in a new world Or other times Head down, anticipating joy  as you were haunted by your own grizzle cloud of misery The sheer movement of soar and coming down There must be somewhere, a design for this Drawn on a scrap of paper Or a window with a fingertip Or more likely, properly to scale For health and safety Without the proper guidance The castle may become a craft Barrelling through clouds A boat on paperish sea And it seems likely there is a terminology to this The seam of the plastic The double stitch of the edges The balloon and the bassoon the Chanter and  the bouncy legs The hermit of the little labyrinth The mother of the bou...