Lily's NAPO 2018

[Lily of Archenland]

Thank you, Hobbity-friend! ^_^

Setting bait
4/18/2018
Roughly, on temptation and the ways we can be lured and teased into doing what we know is unwise, when the right heartstring gets pulled - two analogies from fiction, one metaphor for a personal experience.
"Don't you want it", the pretender said
To the future king,
"Don't you want to be my son and thrall?
Sweet as lies and kisses is
My sugar offering -
Don't you want it? Don't you want it all?"

"Don't you want it?" asked the vampire
Of the warrior girl,
"Don't you want to dance with death with me?
All your life, the thrill of battle
Sends your head a-whirl.
Baby, I'm your final answer.
I'll assuage your curiosity."

"I know you want it",
Said the demon to the cub in her den,
"You want to sleep inside my cage.
You deserve it what's more -
As do all free beasts -
Just so we're on the same page.
It's in your heart, your love to rue.
I'll clip your claws and punish you."

[edited 4/28/18: typo-correction on stanza 2]

[Lily of Archenland]

self-fulfilling prophecy
4/19/2018
They called us a storm.
Crushed into this desert dust,
I will bring the rain.


“Like seeds, like soil, like stars”
4/20/2018
Stardust and ashes,
Empress and beggar,
Daughter of Eve.
Bow to stand,
Confess to proclaim.
Be alive, Child.
Between two trees
You find your soul
A foreign land.


old calluses
4/20/2014
Echo me back the questions we’ve known –
I hadn’t known you’d known them too.
The years I spent wrestling before I’d half-grown,
When I was alone, I was alone with you.
Help me then to finally see
That in our wonder there is a key.


against the siren
4/20/2018
Not my words
Pounding in me
Not my words
Call the dance -
You can refuse to meet the fiddler
But you’ve always had the chance.
Not my words
Cloud the sunshine
Not my words
Wash the street -
Mark them up to daily grind,
They’ll tell me what I shouldn’t eat.
They’ll tell me when I shouldn’t speak,
When to move or to lie still.
They’ll tell me that it’s dark out there
As the very sun comes up the hill.
Not my words
May not own me
Not my master
I am no one’s toy.
I own my heart and fingers,
I will sing the stars with baretooth joy.

[Lily of Archenland]

"Teach us to pray."
4/22/2018
Loving first-family and Maker of me,
As high and far as the sun you seem.
Too strange and sacred, great and grand
For me to ever touch your hand
But here,
You rule, protect and guide.
Here, in this ball of water and clay,
Plants and beasts and secret fires
Beneath the stone,
And the heart of me.
And you were still here (so far away)
In the teen's despairing unseen dark,
And you were still here (and ready to stay)
In the child's quiet begging, locked closet door.
And when the night passes with its restless sleep,
Wild wonderings,
Night-mare riding me into flame -
I wake to the warmth of the near-distant sun,
And rise and eat my daily bread.

[Swanwhite]

Wow. I'm really glad you told me you were posting these here. I really appreciate your poetry, Lily. Your words are very potent. Easter's Fool is very strong, and I liked the apple gathering image in Strange Fruit. Is it young Caspian and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Setting Bait? The untitled of the 10th I quite like. I would maybe call it "Spark". I'm not sure. “Like seeds, like soil, like stars” is another one I especially like. Your words matter. You craft them well and sincerely.

[hobbit_of_narnia]

I don't know what it is about "old calluses" but I really like that one!

[Lily of Archenland]

Thanks for checking in on me, Swannie! Always a pleasure to have you reading. ^_^ And thank you for the kind comments, as well.
The second stanza in Setting Bait was indeed Buffy, but I was actually thinking of Jadis and Edmund for stanza one - although I can certainly see how it would easily work with young Caspian! I guess "sugar offering" as literal rather than metaphorical was the only real differentiating factor there... While she didn't raise Ed as Miraz raised Caspian she did offer to essentially adopt him and make him her heir and provide for him forever as she was plying him with magic sweets - while knowing one of the four thrones was rightfully his - and we know that even as she was enchanting him, he believed her.
Hm... Spark may work. I'll at least tentatively put that on my month anthology doc! I feel like it places all the focus on the end, rather than on the contrast or on the wilderness of mindscape within which hope can still be found, but it does still fit the topic.

Glad you're still here with me enjoying, Hobbit! I am rather fond of old calluses, as well.
---

Jo and Dan
4/22/2018
(suddenly wondering - Alcott, Little Women and Little Men, AU. Dan as a girl.)
You knew she was trouble when you saw her face -
The same kind of trouble you could have been.
All dark-eyed fire and wild hair
She would never put up like a “proper” woman,
Phoenix’s ashes and city street rage
On the steps of the schoolhouse -
You couldn’t look away.
You knew she was trouble,
For your students and your tiny world -
Knew she was a tinder-box.
Knew she was kind.
Mothered your boy through that fierce “make it right"ness,
Protected him with word and wit and fists -
Protected the lost soul with the violin.


Behind the Glass
4/23/2018
Let’s break another funhouse mirror,
Shatter illusions open wide -
Wandering Yous warped and wavy forever,
And you can’t remember how you got inside.
With rabbit-holes and wardrobes you know how you found your way.
In your adventures you still own yourself, however long you stay.
But kid, when you’re lost in the Sisyphus carnival,
Will you still have your name by the break of day?


Scattered
4/24/2018
We are three weathers -
Sun-drought, rainstorm, winter’s snow -
One distant family.

[Lily of Archenland]

Note: I didn't actually intend the symmetry of the end of the first poem and the title of the second, but I left them that way because it fit.
---

Within the Mist
4/26/2018
One more step forward in the dark.
Keep moving, you may find someone.
Keep moving, you may find a light.
One step more fights back the whispers.
Fog can take a thousand shapes,
In the end it’s only empty.
One step, now. Keep the path.
If there is still a path to keep,
Our scentless hunt may reap the morning.
Eyes peeled wide for a glimmer.
Although the air is empty now
Perhaps a moment brings an answer.

a moment
4/26/2018
Hold fast, my friend,
For the world is never empty.
Small moments still gleam.
Ice and sweetness in the heat,
Unexpected iridescence
In a bird’s folded wing.
There is always something left
To discover,
Some tiny secret to uncover,
As long as chinks of light can still
Invade your broken things.

[hobbit_of_narnia]

Whoa, that parallel is so...COOL!

(Also I really love "Behind the Glass".)

[Lily of Archenland]

Thanks friend!
...Hm... Behind the Glass and old calluses both stood out to you... Sorta wondering if you have a thing about rhythm?

---
Evening falls
4/27/2018
I rest in the shadows again,
And wonder how long it shall last.
Will the peace of night
In my sheltering place
Break slow or shatter fast?
Will the unease start with a whisper?
Will it harrow me with a croon?
Or will this be a rare sort of dark -
Quiet safety under the moon?
Will I look at my lamp like my one good thing -
Hope somewhere beneath the stars?
Or will I go drifting on light in dream,
Far from this planet's wars?

[Lily of Archenland]

Another - something a touch more playful, this time.
---
Bookworms
4/27/2018
I’m a book-dragon, increasing my hoard -
I was only a little wyrm once.
You taught me how ink held the wonder of word
Even while chickenscratch made me feel a dunce -
And those words I collected and wound round my neck,
Like jewels found everywhere (even in dreck);
And though our tastes have a great divergence
I still find myself with a soft resurgence
Of wonder
When under
The spell of a page
Next to you, bookish comrade -
The first I’ve had.