Phew! I've been attempting to unravel the prompt over at Found Poetry Review, but it's a really laborious one. I figured I'd come over to NaPoWriMo and see what the prompt was for today, and it's a little less time-consuming:
"Today’s prompt comes to us from Vince Gotera, who suggests a prompt very much in keeping with our poet in translation, a “kenning” poem. Kennings were riddle-like metaphors used in the Norse sagas. Basically, they are ways of calling something not by its actual name, but by a sort of clever, off-kilter description — for example, the sea would be called the “whale road.” Today, I challenge you to think of a single thing or person (a house, your grandmother, etc), and then write a poem that consists of kenning-like descriptions of that thing or person. For example, you might call a cat a mouse-stalker, quiet-walker, bird-warner, purr-former, etc."
My Feet Are Killing Me
There you lie, gap-toothed land lumberer,
submerged in swamp-stench,
waiting for a dead dog
(or even a live one; you wouldn't mind)
or fish entrails from the Co-op
to be thrown your way.
Scale-swathed dinosaur of the day,
you toss that head of yours from side to side,
willing me, wanting me to—what?
Take your picture? Provide you with a leg?
Not going to do it, not today.
Instead, I stare into your hook-eye
and am transported back eons
to when you first evolved,
efficient killer, cannibalistic assassin,
who would name a shoe for you?
