NaPM 2024 Spotlight Thread

[Wjames]

I think these were the prompts in order (I may have messed up the order):

loss of innocence, rules, gnarly historical event, rain, list, eclipse, exile, return, same-sex pals, heroic woman, torture, your bed, diatribe, acrostic (hidden message), existential theme, maturity, hellenic culture, parental advice, warn, console, mourn, bones, what is the writing on the wall?, ekphrasis/place in canon, genealogy, cat, cow relations, perspective of a bird, retraction, innocence regained

The overarching theme certainly seems to have some basis in Christianity - Innocence lost, then a life lived, and death (innocence regained)? - but I'm not sure if I can see something specific.

Thanks for saying you thought I was most consistent, Duke! I think that Compatible one is one of the better ones I did, although, it's more of a transcription than a poem.

I liked this one by Tranquil, on Apr 17, Ekphrasis:

Diane Arbus Song

Always do with only me and find the glorious furious man called the Mystic Barber. Frequently you may win 'em all today, Baby, pretty little dimples may obey orders and when you inhales I'm up in heaven with my shadow like Jack goes to Mars.

And I says there's a lady in your fond embrace, a noiseless soup spoon and a knock for nobody's there. Just one could take your heart jumpin', at ev'ry baby that appears at night, pulling their slippers on. They're all twelve o'clock when I live without her. I love her, goodness knows, I wrote our troubles on a human hair.

One could take your cutest picture and my shadow strolling down your forehead with antennae on it. Here's the way it goes, Baby, 500,000 wishbones and holy water where that Negro man dressed as a shadow goes.

Not a single rose walks down Broadway carrying a face when you were a song about her. Write the Gettysburg Address on the curb, feeling blue for the people who built their house out of sweethearts out in California, pass my shadow to a wooden box whose measure she has lost like alley cats in fancy dress.

I'm your fond embrace of mummies in the basement, lonely me, who searches ceaselessly. I'm up in heaven when I didn't need a shove, a cheerful man with half a hangman's noose of fuchsia silk trailing down to skeletons and broken crockery and woodpecker holes.

As well as the avenue, me and my Baby not so long ago climbed the stair. Maybe you never heard of me and my shadow, maybe just a copper band around this honest, I ain't fibbin', you'd be an avenue too, somethin' started Baby face, like a divining rod wildly recommending a robot 7 feet tall, raving 'bout my Baby now 'cause I just fell into her dimples.

Don't want to just win ev'ry ribbon with curly hair, coz I'm in the suburbs with a lion. There is a man who is falling and I'm lonely standing here with one guess. Someone who collects our troubles has written boo all over them so it turned out the Martians will destroy him.

No lamps begin to glow when the sun sets. Heart is jumpin', you're sure he is dead and climb the stair and we never knock for nobody's there 'cause I'm telepathic. And you must have been the wind-up just like I eat and sleep underwater. Me and your shadow strolling the avenue over and over. Where there used to be a pretty Baby, there is now just a face, but you've got the cutest place, and it's three by eight.

----

I like this one from Rivernotch on a rainy day from Apr 4"

It rained that day.
That is why the stones
and bricks and glass and posts
shone so fiercely
that night.
Not some trick of the light.

Not the power coursing
through the grid with more intensity
than usual,
nor the moon and stars
finally exposing themselves
to the city below.

Not whatever crystals
were embedded in the rocks
with which our world was built
nor the flowering vines
that laboured to return them
to the earth.

Not the squabbling of dogs
nor the staring of cats
nor the way people walked
all almost running
careless if they slipped
rushing home.

Not the evening breeze clearing
the smoke from the club,
nor the drinks I've had passing
out whichever orifice
they chose to pass out of,
nor even the piercing

sadness in your eyes,
the disappointed search
for a shared memory.
It rained that day, I tell you:
that is why we both
nearly drowned.

-----

I like this one from Mark a lot from Apr 20, Console. (I would cut that last line myself, though and end on And listen-).

Our Bond

We've lost some of the same people-
my brother was your father,
your sister, my niece.

Now your mother is gone,
and your husband went drunk,
and your children cowered

as the horrible noise of his raging,
and raping drilled in for hours.
Now he’s kicked out, but you

feel defeated. The best I can do
is just stay on the phone. And listen-
listen while wishing you peace.

---

There are plenty of others I liked too.