NaPoWriMo 2016: Day 17

Posted on by tcsparrow

There is a mouse in my kitchen

He and his mouse friends play poker

With the ghosts of my appliances

The ghost blender mixes drinks

The ghosts of pizza boxes are eating leftovers

The mice are little gangsters

Bank robbers and moonshine runners

They wear little suits and hats

They call the ghosts wise guys

The ghost of the microwave deals a new hand

The mouse we call Roach

He wins the hand

Straight flush

All hearts

Roach tips the blender

A moth hits the window drunk

The ghost of the vinyl sings love songs to the tattooed guitar

Another day in paradise

For little gangster mice

NaPoWriMo 2016: Day 16

Posted on by tcsparrow

I’ve been writing a letter to no one

For the longest time

I have been gathering my thoughts into bags

Harvesting my imagery

And storing it for…something

When i finally meet the name that will come after the ‘dear’

I will open the doors of this grain store body

Watch the words tumble clumsy

Empty everything

Just to have space

For her spare thoughts.

NaPoWriMo 2016: Day 15

Posted on by tcsparrow

This is the dream:

She lies under a peach tree

Carelessly running fingers across the bark

Beside her there is a basket of peaches

On her other side a pile of peach stones

The peaches are sunsets

As big as her palm

She eats them full mouthed

Light dripping

The stones are the cores of stars

Still clinging to the yellow

She places these peach stones down

Delicately imprecise

She and the tree they are on an island

Surrounded by a lake

The lake it is a mirror

The stars tread water

There are no waves here.

Everything is still.

The woman she takes a handful of peach stones

Makes them dance with small gestures

She takes them one by one and skims them across the water

Out of the water a bear comes

Swimming

Pieces of sun stuck in single strands in his fur

The bear reaches her island

Shakes off the night

Take its fur and drapes it over her

They sit beside one another

Peach stones, the woman, and the bear

He tells her all about where he goes in the morning

She laughs but she knows she will never leave this island.

This is how they sleep.

Curled around a basket of sunsets.

Tomorrow they know they will do this dance again

And they smile at the routine.

NaPoWriMo 2016: Day 12

Posted on by tcsparrow

The first meal I learned how to make was carabonara
a combination of egg, bacon, garlic, pasta, and a small kilamonjaro of cheese
To this day it is the easiest meal to make
and I have made it for many of my friends who aren’t vegetarians
my Italian friend Emma, from three years ago, even said it was good! And he’s Italian so that made me proud!

I learned to cook from watching my dad
he is the best cook i know
I watch him as if I’ll absorb his muscle memory through my eyes
When I’m old enough to drink beer we drink and I keep him company while he stirs in a shirt and no tie
with a tea towel on his shoulder
I sometimes catch myself doing the same thing with the towel
especially if someone is watching

My dad taught me how to make risotto over the phone
I did a tester batch and it was addictively good
I made it for a girl on our second first date
it wasn’t good enough to make her stay but we both had seconds

Everyone in my family cooks
My mother makes the best mac and cheese
she does something with the nostalgia
maybe grates it or finely sives it
either way it is baked right into the memory

Me and my brother get along better now
I went with him to a market in Barcelona and we bought ingredients
pork cuts and oranges and peppers and such
that night we sat outside
drank wine and ate pulled pork with my family and my other brothers girlfriend (who’s basically family now anyway)
Sharing a meal is the best thing to do with an evening

If I want to get to know a place or a time i like to think about the food
Texas is filled with charred brisket and bbq smoke
New Orleans is gumbo and other amazing sounding concoctions
Britain is a roast dinner
Christmas is a ham and drinks measured loosely
France is a hot chocolate and a pastry at 7am
Italy is my favourite
Visits home are whatever dad is making

I don’t cook as much as I should

I reckon I could cure just about any bad feeling with a good meal
not just the food
but the company around it
I always feel at home when I can talk over something I made with my own hands.

NaPoWriMo 2016: Day 11 (Letters to Aang)

Posted on by tcsparrow

One of my favourite shows of all time has to be Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. If you haven’t seen it yet, go and watch it so we can lament its cancellation together.

Dear Aang,

When you were in the iceberg

Did it feel like a strange kind of home?

Did it look like your monk’s cell in the air temple

Taken

With an avatar state blue filter?

Do you ever catch yourself falling in love with the ice again,

When the fire seems too intense?

Dear Aang,

How does a hundred years without time feel?

When you first learned to firebend,

In the second before you accidentally burned her,

Did it feel the same way?

Dear Aang,

The first time Toph called you

Twinkle-toes

Everyone laughed

But I could still recognise the jealousy in her voice.

Dear boy in the iceberg,

Maybe time worked differently for you

Maybe you lived a whole life in that cold

Grew a beard

Fell in love

Taught kids the air scooter and how to tame flying lemurs

Dear boy

When you first saw her

Which flew higher

Your body or your heart?

When you first saw her

Did she remind you of home

The smell of the air

The feeling of flight

Did you know right then

Exactly what you’d been waiting for

For every one of those hundred years?