LPiA Nov17

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 17

Rules: Write a poem for LPiA 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 the month of November. 


Topic : Write a poem about or inspired by a bizarre accident. 
Form : Any
Line requirements: Eight or more

Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

[CRNDLSM]

When she found out her husband 
was cheating, she packed his bags.
In the ten minutes it took
him to enter the lobby
of the apartment building,
she couldn't live anymore
and jumped from fourteen stories.
She landed on him, surviving his death.

[RiverNotch]

The universe is fine tuned
to chance upon the speed
of light, the elementary
charge, and other constants.

Fine tuned: as if there was
a hand who made it. To chance:
the hand was not so clever
to rid us of the plica
semilunaris, the palmaris
longus, and other vestigia,

unless this designer was more
of an artist than an artificer
and all their little accidents
are actually a signature.

[Tiger the Lion]

The Birds and the Bees

This is how it was explained to me:

Dad was barbequing burgers
one late-summer's eve.
Having just applied the cheese
he was in the process of closing
the lid with his left hand
and taking a slug of his beer can
with his right.

A yellow jacket, who'd stowed away
under the lid of the can
for a cheeky bit of sugar
stung Dad in the mouth.

The shock caused my father
to clench both fists and he fell
backward into the Koi pond
bringing the barbeque,
the beer,
the burgers
and the glowing charcoal briquettes
with him into the water.

It kept him from being burned
too badly, but one of the Koi
had been crushed and floated
to the surface of the pond

whereupon a crow, who'd
been watching the ordeal
from his fencepost perch
swept down, plucked up his prize
and disappeared into the summer.

Dad always insisted
they'd been working together.

[CRNDLSM]

The Birds and the Bees

This is how it was explained to me:

Dad was barbequing burgers
one late-summer's eve.
Having just applied the cheese
he was in the process of closing
the lid with his left hand
and taking a slug of his beer can
with his right.

A yellow jacket, who'd stowed away
under the lid of the can
for a cheeky bit of sugar
stung Dad in the mouth.

The shock caused my father
to clench both fists and he fell
backward into the Koi pond
bringing the barbeque,
the beer,
the burgers
and the glowing charcoal briquettes
with him into the water.

It kept him from being burned
too badly, but one of the Koi
had been crushed and floated
to the surface of the pond

whereupon a crow, who'd
been watching the ordeal
from his fencepost perch
swept down, plucked up his prize
and disappeared into the summer.

Dad always insisted
they'd been working together.

Ha! Love it, the whole thing thank you

[dukealien]

Reasons (1893)


In ‘ninety-three HMS Camperdown
collided with and sank Victoria:
thousands of tons of steel and wood and coal
both stoked and piloted by tons of men
responding to a simple string of words
expressed in flags which none then understood
nor anyone can understand today.

At Balaclava forty years before
the poet wrote that none could reason why;
off Tripoli they steamed on to their deaths
when none dared call a halt to reason what.

[Mark A Becker]

If I Had a Hammer

When my wife got home she found me
in the garage, and thought that I was
waving at her. After waving back
she noticed that something wasn’t right.
I told her that I meant to pick up
when she called, but I couldn’t quite
reach the phone.  Oh, and it was so close-
ouch! Goddamnit! It was just
out of reach. I’d found out the hard way
that the nail gun was loaded.

[TranquillityBase]

Thump thump thump
is all I remember
as the lawn mower blade clipped off
the tips of three fingers.

What can I say? I was excited.  
I’d just replaced a carburetor for the first time in my life.
It was working but gas was leaking from a line
so I needed to lift the mower to get a better look.
At least I didn’t use my index finger or my thumb,
just the lesser three: middle, ring and pinkie

It was a slow day at the trauma center,
a line in blue scrubs watched
as they clipped the excess bone
from my ragged fingertips while I chattered, 
answering questions, repeating my folly in words.
A social worker stood so close
I could feel the warmth of her body 
and study the lovely arch of her throat.

After the audience left,
interns took turns sewing my fingertips back together.
I happily jabbered, watching, as though
it was another person’s hand.

Since then I’ve learned “the lesser three” are pretty valuable guys.
Stuff slips from my hand and I don’t even feel it.
Immediately lost my wedding ring,
I can’t grasp anything as small as a marble.
If I lay my missing tips against your skin,
it feels like my fingers are inside you.
Not exactly a superpower
but entertaining during moments of boredom
or anguish. 

Dunno.
All I remember
is thump thump thump.