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.