NaPM April 10 2015

[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. 


Day 10!  One third of the way.




Topic 10: Write a poem inspired by giving or receiving a gift.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[Tiger the Lion]

Boxing Day

 
finally
 
a holiday for all faiths
 
all the best temples have food courts now
 
we can celebrate ingratitude over cola and fries
 
it’s gravy
 
so long as you don’t disturb the packaging
 
they’ll take anything back
 
but as far as that sweater that Nana knit goes
 
please don’t wear it to the mall
 
it’s not appropriate

[just mercedes]

One giant stride                          
 
 
One day
when I came home from school
a pole stood upright in our back yard
taller than anything around,
taller than any new trees.
Four ropes hung from the top;
it was anchored deep in the ground
with railway line and sleepers.
Neighbours shook their heads.
Some called it a May Pole.
 
Slamming sideways
into the steel, or
banging heads with others
who should have let go
but didn’t; this is how
I learned to fly.
 
I also learned the
random brutality of pain,
the importance of letting go,
timing; how convenient
unconsciousness can be
and eventually physical
coordination, strength
and stoicism
 
and to be suspicious
of gifts from my father.
 
 

[rayheinrich]

                                          < gifted >
                               
                                the aluminum ladder is useful
                                the knife is sharp
                                your purposes are suspicious
                                the cardboard body-armor is inexplicable
                                your maps are detailed
                                the black rubber bands leave stains
                                the masks hurt my face
                                your book of myths is infinite
                                your breasts
                               
                                              - - -
                               

[Todd]

Scholarship Athletes and Oz

Searching for George Romero,
he found George Glass instead.
The scarecrow can be forgiven
for his head was only a bag of straw.
He could barely think
of anything at that moment
except to rip the seams and hope
to fill himself with a haystack.
So he traveled a road
chosen for him to perform
for the great and powerful
man behind the curtain.

Who one day would hand him a diploma,
creased like the queen of hearts
in a Three-card Monte.
There would be applause from those people
who never want to look too closely.
The diploma would prove
that something was in
that same small head all along.

[milo]

The Gift

I took a single beam of sunlight
and put it in a jar
and held it to her broken eyes
as I tilted her head toward the sun
so she should see the warmth she gives me.
 
Her eyes are no better
at making tears than seeing
so she cries with the gentle hiccup
of her shoulders  as she tells me that the sun
is gone forever. She let it loose
when she opened the jar
to find what sunshine
smelled like.

[Todd]

That's very lovely, milo. It's not a critique but it's true.

[milo]

That's very lovely, milo. It's not a critique but it's true.

Thanks, Todd.

I am more than happy to keep NaPM critique free

[Erthona]

She brushed my lips with hers
as her hair swept my face.
She pulled me into her,
as I pulled her into me.
I felt her scented sweater
soft against my face.
We had grown up together,
she two years older.
I was her puppy
and she my goddess.
From that day she moved away
—leaving me with her gift—
I have never stopped trying
to recreate that moment.

Erthona

©2015

[billy]

April 10 Numpy


A Gift Claimed

He went out
fishing far from shore.
In a drifter called The Blistered Boil:

Nets lay round about the boat
on torpid water.
Kept afloat by plastic;
balls that gently rocked and knocked
against the wooden keel, the tiller
locked and bobbing at the stern.
It held no hand, no hand
to hold and guide the fishing craft
to land, to home, to woman's hearth.
No gift of fish,
no life to give.
An upturned boat
and empty nets.

[cidermaid]

It was given as a gift, a simple thank you kiss.
Repeated many times, as they marched home from the lines.
A kiss of recognition, a kiss of gratitude,
for heroic acts of service,
for the way they had been used.

The disconnected story: how they walked the weary miles,
their bomb volume voices,
the sad brittle smiles,
and their hollow eyes that followed her,
as she offered salve for their minds.

Her Herbert was too young to serve in the trenches with a gun,
but when he turned nineteen,
clean up had just begun.
He was sent to dig up bodies
and walk among the bombs.

She had traced each trembling letter, strewn across the page,
of Herbert’s life in Flanders,
of the sacrifice he made.
She gave a kiss as a gift,
to men who might have seen her son.

[ellajam]

The Gift of Loss

You left without your things.

Eighty years of saving
sorted, labeled, ready for reuse.
Bookshelves crammed:
Twain, Cayce, Eliot,
religious tomes in languages
the rest of us couldn't read;
favorite issues from the weekly deluge
of magazines on every subject.
Closets stacked with picnic baskets
and fixable vacuum cleaners,
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes,
photos of you, us, them.

When the ocean took it all you came, grinning,
reminding me "They're just things."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hug today.

[jasmine.m.wardiya]

nine months carried
secret not kept
but precious still,
intact

ribbon untied now;
cut neatly, and clipped
and unwrapped

little babe
now in arms

tears
and laughs
and cries
in response.

[Todd]

While I liked many of the poems and there were some standout lines with food courts in temples, milo's poem worked for me on a few levels. If I'm remembering properly around this day he was trying to explain in a critique how to develop something like a jar of delights (I could be wrong), but he went out and demonstrated what he meant in a lovely poem. There were other good works here, but that one sums up what I look for in a poem in style and economy. Wistful, haunting little piece.

[milo]

While I liked many of the poems and there were some standout lines with food courts in temples, milo's poem worked for me on a few levels. If I'm remembering properly around this day he was trying to explain in a critique how to develop something like a jar of delights (I could be wrong), but he went out and demonstrated what he meant in a lovely poem. There were other good works here, but that one sums up what I look for in a poem in style and economy. Wistful, haunting little piece.

I am surprised you remember but, yes, this was inspired by the line "jar of delight". I think there was something about comparing sunlight to a jar of delight.

[Keith]

Heavy Ipods

Only the radio had the power
to keep my attention
and that was only for an hour
on a Sunday night just after a bath,
and shaved bubble beards.
The rest of the time
I was a distraction
to the rest of the class,
well at least that's what it says
in those musty pink report books
in the loft.

The top twenty meant as much
as match of the day or Iron-side,
and when it was over at 7:00pm
I was always a little depressed
and called it Sunday night tummy.

Dad rarely spoke between smokes
so when he shouted upstairs
for me to come down, I did
in leaps and bounds four steps
at a time, here he said and don't
say I never give you nowt.

A brown cardboard box with blue faded art work,
it smelled of stock cupboards and warm dust.
I threw my hand around his neck going in
for an unmanly kiss, I got a stubble scrap instead,
but at least it was a sign of affection.

That Sunday my world was transformed.
It was time to leave the capsule if I dared
and in one black leather driving glove
I mimed the night away too My Coo ca choo.
Move over Alvin Stardust,
with my tape recorder by my side, I have arrived.