NaPM April 22 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. 








Topic 22: Write a poem inspired by something you lost.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[ellajam]

What Cannot Be Undone

On a perfect sailboat day
I choose the speedboat.
The engine cuts out
and I toss the anchor;
the rope follows it, untied.

Drifting,
I watch the spot were it sank
get smaller in the distance,
bearings lost,
a done deal.

[just mercedes]

I told them I hurt myself skating


Tannoy speakers
broadcast ‘Rambling Rose’
over a constant rumble
of rubber wheels on concrete

and the ssssh …ssssh …
of waves turning shingle
along the beach below

where we moved awkwardly
together in the shadows
leaving me stone-bruised.

I didn’t want to talk
afterwards, hid away
in the Ladies.

Do I look different?
Am I a woman now?

My parents picked me up
as arranged, full of news;
Kennedy’s death in Dallas.

Later I learned we lost
C S Lewis and
Aldous Huxley too
that same night.

[rayheinrich]

                silence
                where her shape was
                empty
                air
               
                silence
                where her shape was
                empty
                gone

[Erthona]

Blue

I would say "truck"
and he would jump in the back.
He would stay there
until I told him to get out,
unless I had gone inside somewhere
and it had gotten too hot;
then he would get under the truck.
When we would walk, he would walk
three feet ahead and to the right,
making sure nothing threatening
was coming into sight; no leash required.
Then he started to lose his sight.
I noticed when he jumped on the hood of the truck
instead of into the back.
He could no longer tell which was which.
Although completely blind
(you could see the cataracts, milky on his eyes),
he could still find his way out the dog door,
off the porch and to where he needed
to do his business, but then,
the seizures began and I knew it was near the end.
One day he went out to the wooded area,
found a hollow place, curled up and died.
And I was lost, never to be found.  


Erthona


©2015

[Todd]

Slightly Soiled

I was gone like the golden leaves
of autumn, a pram racing
down the hill. There is forgetfulness
in being lost, and in being found.
A stranger surfaces in the pond,
a reflection ripples, and I cannot see
my father’s nose, or my mother’s smile,
or I do see them, but they are lost
to me like the wisp of a dream,
like the flute of the wind.
I am these costumes I wear.
I am this day, forever—
nothing more.

[bena]

The Marks of Me



It was a spring day when when I was four
when they first started,
these scars that would never show.


I was wearing an Easter dress,
frilly and pink,
and I remember twirling it so high
my underwear must have shown.
For years,
I blamed what happened next on myself.


I spent the next ten years in hiding
whenever we visited Grandpa:


under the house in the crawl space,
breathing in red clay and mold
beside the decapitated lawnmowers,


under the embroidered end-table cover
curled in a tiny ball
breathing in dust bunnies
one eye peeking through the holes
praying he wouldn't find me.


You might think this poem is about
lost innocence,
and you'd be partially right.


Mostly it's about lost shame,
because I stand up now in the sunshine,
showing the whole world my marks.

[Grace]

Lost Moggy

It's only a cat, I thought,
as I wept on the breast
of one who, ten years ago,
had lost a child.

"It's only a cat", I said.
But I wept on and on.
I felt ashamed that I loved him
as my only son.

[ellajam]

Lost Moggy

It's only a cat, I thought,
as I wept on the breast
of one who, ten years ago,
had lost a child.

"It's only a cat", I said.
But  I wept on and on.
I felt ashamed that I loved him
as my only son.

Welcome to NaPM, Grace, good one.

[milo]

Lost

She lifts her head and sees the row of bottles
or rather, notices the different necks,
the sun diffusing through the blinds as specks,
a ladybug that chores along. She dawdles.
There is a tiger tattooed on the wall
and three ceramic monkeys on a shelf
and on the night stand next to a stuffed elf
an unfilled scrip for phenobarbital.
 

[Tiger the Lion]

Loss

 
Denial is slandered too often these days;
without its crude tourniquet
we’d all bleed to death.
 
Get angry as quick as you can;
it is not a blemish to pacific skin.
Lash out at me.
 
You can bargain all day long,
but only with yourself.
You will always overspend –
 
and never pay enough
attention to what’s most depressing:
 
you’re accepting the loss.

[billy]

22 april

the first time

It was lost by the boy back in seventy five
in an old drinking den; no more than a dive.
It went in a flash after smoking some hash
which he'd stole from his dad's special stash.
She charged twenty two, and he hadn't a clue,
as to where he should put it or what he should do.
He was held for a while and her hand forced a smile;
when he left he was he was happy and did so with style.

[rayheinrich]

Lost Moggy

It's only a cat, I thought,
as I wept on the breast
of one who, ten years ago,
had lost a child.

"It's only a cat", I said.
But  I wept on and on.
I felt ashamed that I loved him
as my only son.

Welcome to NaPM, Grace, good one.

I, of course, am terribly biased when it comes to this subject.
My avatar was my companion 'Dark Tiger' who was killed by dogs before I could kick
them away. I hold no hatred for the dogs as they did what was necessary for them.
'Dark Tiger' hunted and killed wonderfully beautiful birds. How can I judge the dogs?
How can I judge Dark Tiger?

I won't; I only love him.
Wonderful poem.
ray

(My stillborn daughter had red hair, Dark Tiger's was gray-gold.
I loved her for a day and always; I loved him for twelve years and more.)

[Grace]

Lost Moggy

It's only a cat, I thought,
as I wept on the breast
of one who, ten years ago,
had lost a child.

"It's only a cat", I said.
But  I wept on and on.
I felt ashamed that I loved him
as my only son.

Welcome to NaPM, Grace, good one.

I, of course, am terribly biased when it comes to this subject.
My avatar was my companion 'Dark Tiger' who was killed by dogs before I could kick
them away. I hold no hatred for the dogs as they did what was necessary for them.
'Dark Tiger' hunted and killed wonderfully beautiful birds. How can I judge the dogs?
How can I judge Dark Tiger?

I won't; I only love him.
Wonderful poem.
ray

(My stillborn daughter had red hair, Dark Tiger's was gray-gold.
I loved her for a day and always; I loved him for twelve years and more.)

>< My avatar isn't a cat known to me. Monty was white, with grey markings. He enjoyed rolling in the flower bed - and always had one cheek he didn't wash. One of his many quirks !

[cidermaid]

I cried in church today.

I miss the inspiration of your infilling love;
the indentured adventure of being covered by your cloak,
a promise that floats across the divide of broken lives.
You repatriate people like pebbles, tossed in the tryst of a tri-part storm;
wind, wave and gravity rip through the layers of relapsed perfection,
impressing your presence on blood soaked stones.

I am cast adrift among dry walls, left to crumble to dust,
a dud shell, an empty well.
The sweet essence of honey drips in incremental slips
from lips that have never kissed a Lebanese cedar beam;
a collect of grit filled curds, milking the gutters of eyes that no longer cry.
Brittle bells chime to crush the uncut stones, bleeding them to rubble,
drown out the murmur of rolling rocks, recalling the healing tide of salt.

I am a nothing more than a skeleton leaf; I cannot tell you why I weep,
my voice is hidden in a crevice, amongst leaf-litter strewn feet.
I am lost, nothing more than a shadow of a hope,
unstable and clinging to the ullage of the knowledge of your face.
I thought I heard a whisper, wind in the blistering silence of my mind
and felt a hand binding together the cracks below the water line.
And I cried once again as we sang the refrain
as I remembered the weight of you filling my frame.
I miss the inspiration of your infilling love.

 
Starting inspiration line: Cleanse my heart by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
                                    that I may perfectly love you.