Happy National Poetry Writing Month! For all 30 days of April, Flights of Fancy is going to be filled to the brim with poetry, and I cannot wait to get stared. I adore prose, could write short stories and novels forever, but there’s something deeply visceral about stripping back language to its bare bones, slashing away till there’s nothing left but feeling and emotion. As poet Mina Loy once said,
“Poetry is prose bewitched
a music made of visual thoughts
the sound of an idea.”
That being said, for this first day of #NaPoWriMo, I’m toying with bridging poetry and prose, using poetry as a tool for fleshing out character and backstory. Today I draw inspiration from Tempest Dumont, the heroine of my steampunk tale, TELL ME NO LIES. While Tempest spends most of TELL ME NO LIES recovering from heartbreak and trying to track down a crazed killer, “Tales Twice-Told” explores a bit of her past, chiefly her chance meeting with a rakish, dashing, and an all-too-dangerous airship pirate.
“Tales Twice-Told”
He told her once
that Home was prison
and she believed him
because Love had never grown
between the four walls where she had been born.
“Home is the Coward’s last refuge,”
he said,
“a fortress to hide from Nature and Neighbor.”
He’d found his Freedom in the skies
untethered
untamed
He answered only to the Elements
and thrived on their Chaos.
He called to her,
a Man freed from Fear,
and promised a life that could be her own:
“Clouds will line your Parlor;
stars will be
Blossoms
in your Garden,
the
Heavens
themselves will be yours.”
He gave to her
wings of Bronze
strong, stealthy and true
born from
Genius
and the need for escape.
She left the World of
too-weak
too-scared
never-good-enough
stole away
in his winged Chariot.
For the first time in her short life
she found Happiness
that was neither lie nor pretense
but was as real as the
Coal
fed to its Furnace,
the massive Gears that tilted and
whirled
in its Engine,
the scalding Steam that poured
from its Pipes.
But Dreams are not all they seem:
The Heavens can be cold
unforgiving
and Freedom from the world
may be a Prison in disguise.
The most dashing
Hero
can be revealed as Villain
and Tales
twice-told
may not always be True.
