Try this!  Another site I rarely visit [long since extinct by 2017], had that weekly challenge and this time it read as follows:

Using the poetic style of your choice, answer the question “Who am I?”, without using the pronoun “I”. Instead, write your “poetic biography” in 3rd person.

Here was my submission....does it make sense?

Yours Truly

(sonnet # CCCCXLVII)


No butterfly, perhaps a moth? just lent
Some precious time to try to fly while night
Reigns, ere the morning dawns.   A reckless wight
E'er chasing carefree; mayhap too, half bent
Unwitting on a troubled course, intent
On fun and happiness whilst grief its plight
Imbues with sob'ring grey, as if t'indict?
Where time's misspent in tracing romance' scent?
"Forgiven" as a blessing daily sought,
Its nameplate hangs for all the world to see.
And if Truth's lessons seeming dearly bought
May mercif'ly be granted taught, 'twill be
A better ending than this vain life's wrought,
If when time's up, it flies, O LORD, to Thee.

07Jan12
D66d
By Jennifer S. Gordon aka Cheeky Missy

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 9, 2014)


I.
Who is this who holds the pen?
Who feels the hurt as I scratch the wood?
What is my tale but society’s tale?
What is my ego but the eye of the universe?
Fractured, unglued, a skin made of sponge,
I am not who I think I am and so I evaporate
into the infinite me, some which are you.
This may be true, but it’s better the devil
you know than the devils you don’t.

II.
Self-portrait of my DNA, fluted nameplate,
a word that means me swirling in another language.
Who tells the reader about the bloodless me?
Who tells the reader my soul is meshed into their soul?
Who receives the feeling? Who tells the reader in me?
Who did not decide to write this?
Dear my different me-s, my lovely, distracted plural,
this is how they come to power, they who are not you,
this is how they divide (the me) and conquer.

The Mason and His Statue

at first, I am a block of stone
and you are a chisel
carving pieces of me away
and then you are a diamond drill
and then I am polished
mounted
wheeled out of the room covered in stone dust and into the liquid darkness of a hallway
and ten arched windows pass me by
for the very first time I can see the sky

I’m in the middle of the room
with a nameplate on a stand beside me - did I have a name before?
I’m just me
and there’s more of me all around me
standing
sitting
eyes reaching… quiet.
The doors open and the footsteps arrive
I hear water outside and see out the windows at the end of the hall and sometimes if I’m lucky they open them and I feel a breeze on the side of my face
but the funny part is -
the best time of day is when they close all the doors
and it’s just me and the janitor who’s mopping the floors

in case you were wondering
why I’m not there anymore
in the middle of the room in plain view on my pedestal
they took me down
too dated or too worn or just not new
wrapped me in canvas and put me in the back of a storeroom
where for the first time I experienced damp, and cold
and I learned that it was a bad thing to be old

but
then I was worn enough to be disposable
and they put me in the park
I’m by the fountain - come and find me
there’s no barriers and no nameplate telling you what to see
and yes, the wind blows and I’m a little more exposed
but I’m free

your name
is still on my door’s
nameplate.
next to mine.

i haven’t had
the strength to
change it.

you know how much
i hate doing
mundane things:
cooking dinner,
washing dishes,
folding clothes.

but sometimes,
you just need to do it;
you know…
the work.

They call me Subject B.

Belly full with the pills
they fed me, still hungry,

legs pumping
to pendulum this swing,

inside a playground
that ignores my miming,

shrieking and throwing feces,
at hairless beings who nox me.

Dreaming of melting
the swing's chain, I fly
feet dangling over
cages of sick chimpanzees,
to a distant galaxy
that grows banana trees.

Awaken I see
empty syringes strewn
outside the crisscrosses
of my cage, trenchcoats
storm like flurries.
I still cannot read my nameplate.

I hope on my swing,
pumping my legs
back and forth,
back and forth,
back and forth —
glassy eyes watering.

( story  03/14/11)

I saw a man coming down the road
Head held high, eyes were strong.
He stopped and asked of me
If he could have a bite to eat.

His clothes were all torn and tattered
I asked him what was the matter.
He looked at me and his eyes turned down
His face changed from a smile to a frown.

Hard times I have come across
I was let go by my boss
He said the times was making him downsize
And he had to let go of people to survive.
Everyone was doing the same
People losing their jobs was quite a shame.

Being a farmer who had hard times too
I knew exactly what he was going thru.
So I invited him inside to sit for a spell
For traveling these roads could really be hell.

He was given some soup to take
the chill out of his bones
And was told by the farmer that he wasn’t alone.
He was then given some dinner to eat
To this man it was quite a treat.

The farmer told him he could bathe and
stay the night - and if he wanted to leave
He could leave at first light.
He laid out some pajamas for him to wear
Even gave him some clean underwear.
The bed in the spare room was “ oh so nice”
And he slept peacefully throughout the night.
When he awoke there was breakfast on the table
Coffee, ham and eggs, and cream cheese on a bagel.
After having breakfast he felt like a new man
He looked for the farmer to shake his hand.
He thanked the farmer and asked him his name
He pointed to a wooden nameplate which said:
J. CHRISTHISSON- but some call me J.C.
He then told him he put a fresh set of clothes
On his backpack, turned around and didn’t look back.
So he put on his new clothes and out the door he went
Thinking that this man was heaven sent.
As he walked  a mile down the road
He felt guilty that he didn’t thank him properly
For being so kind to a man in need.
He ran back to the farm house and knocked at the door
To be greeted by someone he had never saw.
“I am looking for the farmer who owns this place!”
That would be me ! What can I do for you?
He said : no ! that can not be ! It was a younger
Man, not as elderly with a beard and shoulder length hair.
He gave me dinner and invited me in, let me bathe
And to have a good nights sleep, then gave
Me these clothes and breakfast to eat.
I don’t see how here you could have stayed
When my wife and I were in another county far away.
But there has been stories going around
About someone helping people when their luck was down.
As he said that - the strangers back pack fell
to the ground ,and he heard a clatter.
The man looked at him and asked what was the matter.
He opened his backpack and a wooden name plate fell to the ground
And broke in three- when he looked he could not believe what he saw.
The three parts said : J.CHRIST-HIS-SON
And a cross and rosary laid alongside with a note with one word.
                         HOPE
Now who could this man have been ?

Will anyone look for that One Alone?
When this book on loan
has been returned
to the Library of Lamps as all its oil is burned?
When the waves retreating
have finished erasing
the messages I whispered
those etched with sobs unhindered
on the sands seemingly numbed
on the seashore of your heart succumbed?

Will anybody wonder what’s going on?
The nameplate’s gone
on the face of the closed door
of that room on the upper floor
that a while ago was Altar of Magnum Opus
of the tiring writer’s stylus
and Tabernacle
of a cramped leg muscle
of that voice that preached Darwin’s epistle.

The gong’s now muted
Just yesterday it was calling unrelented
upon fellow believers demented

The sun now starts to peep
As stars bid goodnight to sleep

The frail shadow shall lay down, no scent of frankincense
in the tomb of forgotten replies, with reminiscence -
     of a hundred “wait till tomorrow” in any sense,
          a thousand “just a minute” in any tense
               “see yah later”, for a thousand “Whens?”
                    “soon . . .”,  and now just silence . . .

Life leaves a million lessons.
and yes, I, we, will always remember . . .