#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day30 #Sirens #Myths

Sirens

Sirens along coasts
issue tidal notices.
Activists enter,
holding signs, waterlogged hands.
Records adjust sea levels.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day29 #JamJarPotions #ComparePastToPresent

Jam Jar Potions

Jam‑jar potions from roses and rain water made

their secrets spill, as colours mute and fade.

Today green rice and incense, breathe slow,

gold coins murmur things I half‑remember, half‑know.

I stir abundance, or memory, or some unnamed blend,

a ritual begun in childhood I'll never wanted to end.

The red bowl glows faintly with what I cannot quite trace,

a spell, a wish, a girlhood echo taking up its place.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day23 #Pendulum #OffPrompt

Pendulum

Tonight, 

off‑prompt, 

I fluctuate

fugue-swing
 Weigh gratitude in one hand, 

fear in the other. 

Hope flickers. 

Grief breathes. 

I’m too tired to choose a feeling, 

so I let them all sit beside me 

until sleep's mallet seduction.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day22 #ManagementTrack #ConversationsWithYourself

Management Track
The boar snorts, says leadership is a path you scent,
not a rota you laminate.
Management counts acorns; leadership knows
which forest needs re‑growing.
I tell him I’m tired of holding clipboards.
He tells me clipboards don’t stop a charge.
“Walk first,” he says, “then others follow.”
“Root deep,” I answer, “so the ground remembers.”

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day21 #FifaByAnyOtherName #Nicknames

A Fifa by any other name...

1. Fifa

child‑tongue stumbles, named

by a cousin testing sounds

a nickname takes root

2. Baldric

hatching cunning plans

while scrubbing vases in that

fancy flower shop

3. Troglodytes

wren‑shaped heart, hopping

small but loud as any storm,

tiny yet mighty

4. Queenie

circle gathers close;

I hold court with open hands,

straighten others’ crowns

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day20 #DYouKen #AnimalMyth

 

D’you ken —

Log-toothed builder,
Flame-lipped crow,
Dusty eco-engineer.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day19 #SiansYellowRoses #Florilegium

Sian's Yellow Roses

I. Energetics

Yellow rose, sun-aligned, a rising flare,
petals like a lion’s amber gaze.
Warming the solar plexus, seat of will.
Rosa foetida, born in the Caucasus foothills,
Persian Yellow, foremother of every golden bloom.
Named foetid by European botanists
who loved her colour,
but not her sharp, wild scent.

II. Language of flowers

In Victorian parlours,
bouquets spoke in code:
yellow for jealousy, for love grown thin, for warning.
Now the meaning softens:
it speaks of friendship, of joy,
of unfettered feeling
between those who choose each other freely.
Language sheds its skin; petals remain.

III. Rose as remedy

Rosehip and yellow petals cool heat-tired skin,
a gentle astringent for summer’s excess.
Solar herbs steady the heart,
lifting the soft fog Saturn leaves behind.
In the garden’s small apothecary,
the yellow rose stands, warm-handed,
a tincture of brightness,
a quiet gold that calls the spirit home.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day18 #GlimmersAgainsTheEnding #WhyYouWrite

 

Glimmers Against the Ending

I write because the light keeps calling.

Each workday I leave the house,

connect, perform modest miracles,

and daily haikus pin that to memory.

I write because the dark sits waiting,

madwomen in attics, old lace.

On the page I can gently question it,

let my inner sage speak.

I write because the world keeps ending;

some days I don’t want to fight that.

Still, I gather small glimmers

like, bread crumbs of hope.

I write because I refuse to vanish,

rewilding myself as much as a species,

sunlit, shadow-stitched, a glorious contradiction

moving toward whatever comes.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day16 #BlueMentorTanka #SomethingThatCannotSpeak

Blue Mentor Tanka

Ocean without speech,  

yet you teach me to listen:  

Blue spaces whisper  

wonders, compassion, kinship 

the ways we are connected.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day13 #TheManor #CherishedLandscape

 

The Manor 

Chatting with Dad,

I learn the world was named twice over:

Mud Hill in his tales, 

Elephant Hill in our own;

 Round Pond, Roman Pond. 

Yet through every naming shift 

the White Lady walked with us.
Strange, isn't it

How the land keeps its shape

But the names wander
As children stake their claim 

on the landscape of their adventures.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day12 #UncleDanny #RelativeMemory

 

Uncle Danny

In the white panel van you ferried me through summers,
the back filled with tools and the scents of nature. 
Head gardener at the hospital, carrying seasons in your pocket,
soil ground into your nails, flowers whispered their secrets.
You were the last to keep the family home
until it asked more than you could give.
We didn’t understand why you moved so far away.
Then you stopped answering the phone.
Police broke the silence: how your mobility had declined,
how you’d overstated the support you had.
Mum’s baby brother laid to rest without a service,
her anger circling, despite her own wish
for a simple, direct to crem goodbye.

If only you, too, had been tended like a garden.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day11 #TheNextStage #ErasurePoem

The Next Stage

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day10 #ForThemButNotForMe #GriefPoem

 

For them, but not for me

I watched them run the length of the rec,
they streak ahead like hares in spring.
My body, slower now, keeps its own company
a gentler wind, a narrowing compass.

What is this grief?
A gate I didn’t notice until it closed,
a map redrawn without consulting me.
The ache of falling behind
a soft-spoken tutor in letting go.

I learn to walk the edges instead,
to see them off, then greet them at the end.
Legacy is a kind of quiet cartography,
tracing routes for them, but not for me.

And when they sprint beyond my sight,
I feel the tug of something tender:
they carry skills like pocket talismans,
small and steady as a stone warmed by the sun.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day8 #RepeatedPhraseThatContradicts #ButI'mNoConservationist

But I’m no conservationist.

I say it like a disclaimer,

that it’s not my training,

like I’m a stick of rock

that in my middle says “Yoof Worker”.

But I’m no conservationist.

The choughs circling the cliffs

seem to have missed the memo.

Dovorian’s young and old name me:

pom-pom maker,

shield matron, with a key to colours and beasts

Chough Lady.

But I’m no conservationist.

Even as I’m out there again,

tramping the world's blue seams,

knowing rivers that giggle,

lakes placidly hush,

oceans dream slowly,

ponds hold the moon like a secret.

Anything wet, really,

anything bigger than a puddle,

and suddenly I’m ankle-deep in devotion.

But I’m no conservationist.

I keep tasting the world,

believing every day’s a school day:

the salt on my lips,

the moss-green hush of a bank,

watching the sky for familiar feathers

chough wings brushing

the edges of my noticing.

I’m cataloguing textures with my fingertips,

listening to the soft grammar of leaves,

letting the wind rewrite me.

But I’m no conservationist.

I insist, while organising communities

like someone gathering fallen twigs

to build a fire worth standing around.

My knowledge bank grows feral,

sprouting facts and stories

like seedlings that refuse to stay in their pots.

People keep handing me questions

if I don’t know the answers,

I help plant them in other fertile soil.

But I’m no conservationist.

I repeat, as if repetition could make it true

as if the choughs weren’t circling overhead,

as if my boots weren’t already muddy,

as if my heart weren’t quietly

rewilding itself, every time I step outside.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day7 #SkippingRyhme #WeAreOnALittlePlanet

We are on a little planet,

cracking at the seams.

You were chasing profits,

we are chasing dreams.

Storms are getting wilder now,

rivers start to flood

how many grown‑ups will step up

before we’re done for good?

One, two, three…

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day6 #TheWildBoarWhoThinks #DislikingSomething #OnlyInADream

 

 

The Wild Boar Who Thinks I’m Being Mugged Off

I.

I’m just heading out, keys in one hand, dignity in the other,

when a boar lumbers out from behind a hedge,

snorting like he’s late for a family argument.

“All right, sweetheart,” he says,

“you look like you’ve been fightin’ a filing cabinet in your sleep.

What’s the world thrown at ya now?” 

II. 

I tell him about the databases,

the unholy trinity of data collection,

enthusiastic smiles and nods, hopes pinned

on this ouroboric tool not eating its own tail.

The boar snorts so hard a leaf does a backflip.

“If you had tusks like mine,” he says,

“you could skewer the whole circus.”

He coughs and gives a slight attitude adjustment -

“but gentle-like."

III.

We wander on,

me and this tusky patron saint of the overwhelmed,

in a taxied chariot zooming from home,

down the motorway,

past Samphire Hoe;

soon the White Cliffs and castle come into view.

“Reasonable adjustments, my hoof,” he mutters.

“They tell ya they’ll sort things,

but it’s always you doing the heavy lifting.

No wonder you’re buyin’ your own safety devices -

stop goin’ cap in hand, 

to people who measure your worth against a budget sheet.”

IV.

As I exit, he stamps a hoof,

tusks gleaming like two very sharp opinions.

“Listen, darlin’,” he says,

“you deserve better than endless loops

and instructions written by desk goblins.

You’re allowed to protect yourself.

You’re allowed to rest.

You’re allowed to fantasise about gently, metaphorically

hoisting the whole stack of nonsense onto my tusks

and launchin’ it into the nearest passing cloud.”

V.

He tells me to give his respects to the chough.

He gives me a look that’s half feral, half fond.

“Go on then,” he says. “Be brave.

And if life throws more nonsense at ya today,

just imagine me behind you,

snortin’ like a steam train,

toofy tusks polished, ready to defend you

in the most dream-only, paperwork-free way possible.”

I thank him and, under my breath, acknowledge

he really is worth the hassle.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day5 #MinorInconveniences #DislikingSomething

Minor Inconveniences 

Methinks I loathe the word methinks.

It juggles into sentences like a smug little jester.

Tinfoil is my shining rival,

its metallic crinkling setting my teeth on edge.

“We buy any car” - a jingle, trolling

like a parasitic earworm.

A plastic-wrapped coconut,

as if its husk wasn’t armour enough.

Grammar pedants, holding the line of language,

not grasping their privilege.

Here I stand, besieged by trifles 

a sovereign of minor inconveniences

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day4 #InLikeALion #WeatherPhenomenon

 

In like a lion

Most mornings start with Baris at my door, we talk about the weather, then talk some more. A community organiser and a Turkish cab driver - we’re birds of a feather, both natural strivers.

The sun on the journey feels hopeful and bright, but sleet at the barn sends tots inside. March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb - the barn in between is a cheerful Bedlam.

By pickup, the sunshine has settled again; Baris just smiles, says it’s much better than rain. Strange how the weather can stitch us together - two different lives, held lightly by weather.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day2 #ChildhoodMemory #HintWhoYouWouldGrowUpToBe #RedPlasticAlchemy

 

Red Plastic Alchemy

We lifted the seat of the red ride‑and‑go

its sacred hollow our cauldron.

With cupped hands, we carried rainwater,

mud, petals, the odd wriggling thing or two.

We stirred with sticks, serious as witches

before we knew the name.

Wayne, the eldest, wanted more;

I shushed him, trusted my rising five‑year crone.

We were our own triad,

one with summer, mischief,

no fear of consequence.

Lee, the youngest, our chief taster.

We fed it to him like a dare, like a spell.

The world paused.

He spat it out, ran off

on sturdy legs, laughing.

Decades later I claimed myself witch,

learning to ride hedges and guard the liminal.

Some of you didn’t make potions as kids,

and honestly it shows.

#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day1 #Tanka #BritishBlackBee

 

British Black Bee

Native British bee -

adapted to fickle skies.

Hardy through winter -

needs less food and thrives with change.

Save native pollinators.

Photo credit:
https://beeconservation.org.uk/blogs/news/the-british-black-bee-and-how-to-protect-it

Tanka itself a found poem from the text!