NaPM April 16 2013

[milo]

Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month.

Topic 16: Write a poem inspired by a day in your life.
Form : any
Line requirements: 10 lines or more.

Questions?

[Todd]

Three Weeks After My Son's Birth

Today, I want to kill my friend,
who never means to condescend.
His daughter never counts a sheep,
but my devil child will not sleep.

His child eats without complaint.
I force feed mine with thick restraints.
Her appetite can make me weep,
but my devil child will not sleep.

With red-rimmed eyes, and not unplanned,
my son will win his daughter's hand.
Advice he's given, he will reap,
but my devil child will not sleep.

[NakedBear]

Three Weeks After My Son's Birth

Today, I want to kill my friend,
who never means to condescend.
His daughter never counts a sheep,
but my devil child will not sleep.

His child eats without complaint.
I force feed mine with thick restraints.
Her appetite can make me weep,
but my devil child will not sleep.

With red-rimmed eyes, and not unplanned,
my son will win his daughter's hand.
Advice he's given, he will reap,
but my devil child will not sleep.

Awww. Sounds like my boy (still he doesn't want to eat, still he doesn't want to sleep, yet he's almost six).

Nice read.

[milo]

The Visit

She comes to me on Fridays
with her J. C. Penneys’ clothes;
her rack-bought plaid skirt,
her frilly collared blouse. She knows
but has to ask
about Love. It is an “interview”
and I am in my sweat-stained
undershirt reclined too far
to lumber forward and offer
tea, or coffee or dessert
or pretend to be polite;
to hide my fear and shame
of the carpet, frayed and bare
or my grimey unwashed hair
or my socks, worn smooth
and filled with holes. She
wants to know of Love.
What can I say?
Should I talk about deserted
alleyways down on Genung street
where the unkept trash
has spilled and clogs the drains
and oily crack-smoke smears the window panes,
where every shout is a banging echo
of my screen door; banging hingeless?
What can I say? Does she want
to know of young girls and their ways
in those back alleyways with their
fingernails chewed bloody
and their stockings full of holes.
She knows
of greasy sheets in hotel rooms
where the lamps don’t work
and someone stole the picture
frames, where you pay
forty bucks an hour for a broken
mattress and brown stained
toilet seat. She wants to know
of Love, and how it passes days
in those back alleyways,
and how she finds the veins -
those used and punctured veins -
so she can document my pained
face on that rigid clipboard
that she carries, she wants
to know of Love
but I haven’t seen
my daughter
in more than twenty days.

[cidermaid]

I plan at some stage to turn this into a Luc bat. Short on time today so just the bare bones of the syllable count and the flow of thoughts for now.

The day Diana died.

Silence in the country
is marked by abusive language
from birds at four a.m.
Accidently left on Play,
I still hear the background
hum of fog horns, cars and voices;
some other shadow life.
Overhead the sky is now dumb.
No turbined buzz of high
octane activity. Instead,
this is replaced with cows
lowing and distant harrow chains.
A brief climb through a boxed
valley to the window confirms,
no other souls in view.
Not missing my normal station sounds,
I relish my new start.
At four pm we find the box
-- turn on the world again.

[NakedBear]

Raising children

The sun rises,
and it sets.
The sun rises,
and it sets.
The sun rises,
and it sets:
how boring it gets.
I feed them,
and they sleep.
I feed them,
and I sleep.
To feed,
and to sleep:
as good as it gets.
Lay still, lay still,
lay still:
at last the sun’s set.

[justcloudy]

last night....

Shut up internal orator!
Dreamland needs your energy,
so quit your endless yapping.
Hovering buzz, you’ll be splat
to a mess of red and hair-like legs
if you try feeding on my ear.
Wrinkled old wimp upstairs your pipes
run water down my walls;
you’ll go without tomorrow’s newspaper.
And you, musical bed partner
save your rumbling symphonies
and grinding halts until I’ve crossed
the unbolted door of motionless time
that your lullabies keep me from.

[brandontoh]

Midnight
In between today and tomorrow,
we live in dreams.
Both sleepers and insomniacs see
cracked reflections, along with fragmented surreality.

Maybe we’re all ghosts
scared of the living
that’ll return us our consciousness.

It’s tempting to stay a drifting cloud
phasing past all that is cement and routine,
but nature has rules.
We all need to wake up, or sleep at some point.