The featured photo is called Beauty and the Beast and is one of my favourites of all times. I took it in 2012 during my first visit to the parts that now I call home. How did this come about, you ask? Not without certain risks.
This post is also for Patrick’s Pic and a Word challenge. If you like Morocco, colour blue and heartfelt poetry, I recommend you his latest posts.
First let’s see about the poem for NaPoWriMo which has just moved into its final third.
Challenge 20: “Write a poem that ‘talks.’ What does that mean? … Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life.”
*Mumbles something about how there is spoken word in my poems on an average April day as it is, and how hard it is for speakers of English as a second/foreign language to nail the differences. If I was to translate the Iliad into English – why? – Achilles would sound like a punk. My poems are merely me talking to myself. Better believe it it’s spoken, messy and fractured.*
Risk-taking
How did I tell them?
How does one tell anybody anything?
“Parents, I’m going to Italy for two weeks,
alone. In the meantime
you can feed my boyfriend.”
I didn’t say this last.
The departure date was closing in
and I still hadn’t figured it out.
Then there was my card tournament
where I fix the prizes for top five, yah?
I printed out my train ticket
and put it in an envelope.
Just in case. I came third.
Quite a prize for coming third.
Only one man knew
that I wouldn’t be as alone.
Well, two.
One was a friend with all the data
of the other:
telephone numbers,
addresses,
work info.
You know,
in case I don’t return.
And the other was a man
who asked me a few days
before departure:
“How do you say No in your language?”
“Ne. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just to know,
in case you really won’t like it.”
Here are twenty glimpses from those 13 days. It was my first time in Rome and Tuscany. Seven months later I arrived for good. Be careful with the risks you take or you might go places.
In response to Patrick Jennings’ Pic and a Word Challenge #183: Risk
and for Day 20 of NaPoWriMo
Marvelous places, really.
Journalism? For real? So what are u reading these days?
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Thanks, Bojana. Journalism and English. I’m reading you all! Bloggers! Poets online. Interesting articles, just all online. Plus a few tangible books at once (Duke Miller in particular). I never finished my studies though. Life happened.
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As is often the case.
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A leap of faith in pictures.
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That’s right, Claudia. I could tell so much more and probably with time I will. Funny how some things happen in life. Thank you!
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I hope you will, I think your story is meaningful and hopeful and full of good emotion.
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I had the same dilemma: I feel like the majority of my poems sound pretty much like me just talking. I have a few more hours to decide if I’m going to try and come up with something. I like this, though. Risk, indeed!
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Thank you, Maggie. I don’t think it’s anything wrong with poems that just talk. This has been a long month for me, longer than last year. Still, a good experience.
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The photos are all good, but I adore the one of the two boats.. just amazing.
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Thank you, Judy. I’m glad you love it too.
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So much in one post 🙂
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😀 Glad you’ve noticed, Bushboy. Thanks!
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A wonderful story-so filled with love and beauty
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Thank you, Tina. We do our best to keep it up and make our story proud.
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That Beauty & Beast photo may be my favourite photo of yours of all time. Not positive about that, because of course my memory is poor and because I haven’t seen them all. When I saw it, I felt eletricity in my spine. 🙂 You named it perfectly.
That poem is wonderful! And what a joker your man is. How could anyone go to those places and answer, Ne?
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Hehheh, Crystal, thank you. He is certainly a joker but I’m afraid that in this case he didn’t have landscape of mind, but something more… intimate.
And I’m so glad that you like my boats. ❤
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/blushing/
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I love that there is still so much mystery in this move. As it should be. (K)
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You mean in my moving to Italy? Well… I tend to say it as it is, and as it was, just in instalments. Thank you for reading, K.
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I think it’s a mystery in how lives intersect. How worlds intersect and make something new.
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<smile> Of course… one of the most fearful elements of taking a risk, is dealing with the unforeseeable and unintended consequences resulting from taking the risk. I’m not sure it’s possible to measure the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of a risk until its consequences play out. =)
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Right, Patrick. and if you’re lucky they are playing out a long time. Thank you!
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Absolutely! =) ❤
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I can see why that’s a favorite photo – such a wonderful contrast and that blue color is heavenly.
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O, Lexi, good to see you here! I’m glad you concur!
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