NEEDLING

This morning on the fourth day of the month of November, I have written only one entry in my NaNoWriMo blog… which puts me way behind on my word count (50,000 by the end of the month! Yikes...)

Going to work yesterday, driving around town, seeing people going around doing their business as if nothing had happened.

Maybe nothing did.

I know I don’t feel so good, though... But a new day is a new day, and one has to get out of bed and keep going… right? Shouldn’t I just not care? It’s not as if I can do anything about anything…

So I’ll simply have my coffee and try to write my next NaNoWriMo entry.

First, I want to publish here a little poem I wrote a few years ago:


Between the Emperor’s toes

Allied with the trees
the freezing nights, my cursed belly aches
and the pains in my calves
from pushing the pedals of my bicycle
through these hilly roads

I’ve decided:
I will not kiss the Emperor’s toes!

The Emperor’s feet are moldy
between the big toe and the next
incrusted inside hardened socks
grows the imperial mushrooms.

They don’t make you giggle
like a schoolgirl over her first loving kisses

you don’t fry them in salted butter
with garlic, parsley and sweet spices

they’re much more explosive than all that
growing to high sinking heavens.

By kissing your feet, dear little Emperor
all we see is you and your arguments

it is as if the world existed, my noble
republican, only for your requirements.

Even if your nails are painted red
your toes adorned with golden rings
perfumed with flowery speeches
and sweetened with my liberty on a leech

I will not kiss your toes!
Oh, nasty, nasty little Emperor
you are
trying to trick us like that.

Wouldn’t you like our tongues
to lick the mold from your feet
to suck the puss from the growth
on your heals
while you set a platter on our backsides
and dine in peace

without smelling your own stinking feet?