Day 30: The month of firsts

You never forget your first.
—May

Not yet, May 1st begins in less than half an hour, but let’s have a look at the last poetry challenge for this month:

Challenge 30: “I’d like you to take your cue from Borges, and write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact.”

We shall leave Borges where he belongs, which is nowhere near my poetry, and instead end this April sausage with a little recap.

Thank you to organisers for all the prompts, and to my regular and irregular visitors for not running away this month and reading any or all of my poems, and especially for all the kind things you said in your comments and in one case in your poem, Charlotte.

A few strange and fascinating facts for the month of April

Tsssssp-tsssssp.

Not only
I continue my life
in the bottom right corner
of Tuscany
where this weekend

tsssssp-tsssssp

there is a rave party nearby
and frankly I’m happy
that it’s a rave

tsssssp-tsssssp

– do they still call it that? –

tsssssp-tsssssp

which I abhor
and not think of music at all
rather than something more exciting
such as speed metal
or old rock
that would propel me over there

for Tuscany doesn’t know me yet
for once I open my mouth
I sing

neither have I
known myself as
/imagined to be,
fantasised to become/
a poet

writer, yes
memoirist (memoiricist?), probably
but this month it’s happened:

I have taken part in my first NaPoWriMo
for which I have written
a poem a day
more or less to the prompt
30 days in a row
– actually 31
since I wrote
a heavy one
on Day 0 –

including my first:
haibun (and loved it)
tanka, though not required,
plus that strange word
I never remember
– rubaiyat! –
and a neat quadrille of 44 words
since I discovered dVerse Poets Pub
in the process.

There was a proper sonnet
and possibly my favourite
disobedient poem
to the rebellious prompt.

I played with other poets’ poems.
I told plenty
to those who listened.
I read other poets’ poems
but not too much.
I had fun.

Frankly I’m glad it’s over
because now I’ll be able
to write 17 poems in a row
on a single day
or none at all
and not pace and space myself
as carefully
to last the whole month.

Meanwhile
the tsssssp-tsssssp
has gone quiet
and I shall shut my mouth too.

Certainly for a while
but likely not forever.

I’m bound to remember
my strange and fascinating
month of firsts though
likely forever.

(Tsssssp-tsssssp is back.
Help.)