2025 NaPM After Hours

[RiverNotch]

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.


This year, there are no form requirements, only "tiers" or "rankings" given informally to all participants:

Bronze Tier: Participate at least once.

Silver Tier: Participate all days.

Gold Tier: Participate all days, and have all entries be the same form or have all entries be different forms.


Poems-about-suicide month, here in the Pig Pen, has been June for about half the times it's been a thing, but I guess this sort of precludes that...or does it? Let's do a vote, by way of your poems: either follow Todd's prompt:

It is now time for the "3rd Annual Poems About Suicide Month" at The Pigpen, where we ask you to FIGURATIVELY slice a vein and pour out your depression onto paper (or make it up as that's what writers do).

or write a poem involving a king, a kingdom, or kingship in general.

Also, re rowens: idk who RoadBase is, but the name is familiar---was that person into magic?---and, yeah, bang on. The pattern for sefira and trumps is: 1, nil-1, 2, 2-3, 3, 4-6, 4, 7-9, 5, 10-11, 6, 12-14, 7, 15-17, 8, 18-19, 9, 20-21, 10. At times I obviously got a little lazy (albeit these prompts were all prepared in one go about a week in advance), but I am happy with the way some of the prompts were chosen, like "the devil" being corporate-sponsored.

For the next few years I again hope to do more than 30. Maybe 33, each day based on a canto from
the Commedia, or maybe, if it's not too religious, a certain cycle of religious icons I have, or maybe some tradition fully outside the west. I had originally thought to do 30 based on various countries and famous events, but it ended up being too hard to justify each choice: easier to stick to some preexisting list.

Or we could return to "normal" and have these prompts be semi-random.

[Mark A Becker]

Ideation

A dogged notion gnawed;
convinced you of no purpose
for returning to spring,
embracing beauty at all;
you only recalled weary winter;
last searing summer.

Your once fluid thoughts
iced over on blazing asphalt;
you became more certain
life led to evaporation
of your dream,
from solid, to liquid, to steam.

edited from a previous version

[busker]

“For the next few years I again hope to do more than 30. Maybe 33, each day based on a canto from
the Commedia, or maybe, if it's not too religious, a certain cycle of religious icons I have, or maybe some tradition fully outside the west. I had originally thought to do 30 based on various countries and famous events, but it ended up being too hard to justify each choice: easier to stick to some preexisting list.”

Some great ideas. Any one of them would be excellent

[rowens]

Mr. Nova’s Tarot Series (Major Arcana)
0. The Fool — Walking Smile
1. The Magician — The Evolution of the Peacock
2. The High Priestess — Love Handles
3. The Empress — Ishtar
4. The Emperor/Star — Humility
5. The Hierophant — The Bull in the Field of Thought
6. The Lovers — In Difference
7. The Chariot — Nailed Down
8. Strength/Justice — Righthanded Swordsman
9. The Hermit — Cave
10. Wheel of Fortune — Mara
11. Justice/Strength — Whore
12. The Hanged One — Runed Dionysia
13. Death — Masturbation
14. Temperance — Art
15. The Devil — Conquest
16. The Tower — Holy Ecology
17. The Star/Emperor — Easter Rabbit
18. The Moon — Untitled (The moon is a gloss over the world…)
19. The Sun — Entitled
20. Judgement — Nemesis
21. The World — Universe





I moved the Devil to the Netzach Prompt, which fits the pattern of my Descending. As the Devil, for me, up or down, is free energy breaking patterns, between Tower and Temperance. Breaking patterns which may include "good" and/or "bad" patterns. And Energy creating patterns, patterns of slavery and/or patterns of novelty. 

The Capital Landscape allows for lots of colorful appropriations and transfigurations. The Earth is a great Flea Market of Paris. 

The Descending Path becomes more Self-Indulgent, which is what the Ascending Path tricks you into becoming until your break. Either way, the Path is Self-Indulgent. And Temperance is more about Art in a secular sense which is a trick no matter what. As Michael Stipe says, "Another prop . . . to occupy my time . . . "

Another Devouring Mother, another Demanding Father. Another Child enjoying the seesaw of living. That's me, ghosts, demons, androids, humans and donkeys alike . . . 





Daughter

Don't call me, I'll call you;
don't use your fringe devotions.
I'm the witch on common ground.

Brother, crossdressed, turn
to face me for once
from your sealed maze of knowledge,

allow me, man of this earth,
to feel the stars leave my sack
of ingenious stones 

to the mimicking graal
you use to catch fireflies
of the Bright.

Let's leave this solarsystem awhile,
burst the cave of the universal mind
and walk differently as one through this only time we have.

[Mark A Becker]

Special THANKS to River for hosting NAPOMO '25 !

And thanks as well to all the participants. I'm pretty sure Duke gets the nod for writing poems in a different form each day.

rowens may be eligible for the best writing frenzy/come back in NAPOMO history, as well.

Hopefully, I'll be able to re-work a few outta 32 for keepers.

[RiverNotch]

Virgin Athena's city
was governed by no kings
except how every house
treated their fathers so,

their sons as oligarchs,
at last without a proper
voice in any affairs
of state their mass of slaves

who tidy every room
or harvest every crop,
alien associates
who man their ships of trade,

and women who are there
only to bear their young.

---

Now I wonder if fourteen of what I wrote this month is worth collecting (and, if so, which ones).