NaPoWriMo #21

What a lovely prompt:

Today’s prompt is from Read Write Poem member Kristen McHenry:

“In ancient times, Persian rug makers were deeply religious and believed that only God could make something perfect. They would deliberately drop in a small faulty stitch, a flaw, into each Persian rug. In doing so, a ‘Persian Flaw’ revealed the rug maker’s devotion to God.” — Karel Weijand

Like many of us, I often struggle with the gremlin of perfectionism. The above quote reminds me that achieving perfection is not my prime directive in life, and that in fact, striving for perfection can be a form of hubris.

Write a poem about flaws and perfection in yourself or in nature or write about how you feel about being imperfect or perfect.

Here are some things you may want to reflect on as you write: Do flaws add beauty to the world? What does it feel like to experience perfection? What is it like to encounter flaws — in our selves, in others, in systems or in objects? As imperfect beings, are we able to adequately judge perfection?

If you’d like, you can try contrasting these both concepts in one poem or just choose the one that you feel most drawn to. There is potential for both perfection and flaws in everything on earth, so there’s no limit to to subject you use to frame your poems.
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Dear Reader,

Your convivial attitude, in my half-sleep stupor,
is unacceptable, contrived (as the) heterogenous

chunks of found junk in modern art.  Fragmentation
is no longer a risk, no longer new or shocking. 

Civilizations were born from your introspective
thoughts. And your existence breeds

existence breeds existence. Stop.
Grow another heart, reader, I wasn’t quite

ready for this. You can’t write a love story
unless you throw your heart over the cliff.

At least a few hundred times, they say.
But I maunder. Shall I manicure your delicate paws?

Pause for thought, now. Somewhere there is an illiterate
child walking the streets with nothing on but a long white shirt,

thin as tracing paper, revealing his ribs
which protrude like rising manhood with each breath.

Smile, reader. I am fragile as clothing.
No luxury of mothballs and spent

from the years of communion and repentance,
communion and repentance. Now we might have a chance

at tip toeing past the Beaujolais grapes of your imagination. Now
let’s return.  Conviviality is a goal for some of us.

Let me hold my pencil up, stand
still, don’t move, right    there.