NaPM April 01 2016

[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 01: Write a poem inspired by the number one, or single, solo, solitude, etc.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[billy]

a quick one, will try harder to do another one later.
what are you?

you are the one in won ton soup;
in a billion,
a coloured moon.

You are the one in wondrous;
of a kind,
that counts.

You are the one in numbers;
numero fucking uno

The one

[Leanne]

Shoulders hunched
Over heart, burn scar
Livid, burrowing
Into basal, subcutaneous invasion
Twisting through tissue
Under bone, and the
Dermis, the defence
Erodes inwards until death

[just mercedes]

It feels like anger, a chilling hate
that powers the breakers pounding the cliff.
Boulders of water churn, shoulder to waist
against the open caves, and white spray floats,
carried up past these wet skinned vines,
carried away from the darting, avant-garde fish.
Into the water a silhouette settles, sinks.
Important messages are misinterpreted; a god,
visiting from the peaks, loses interest
and dries himself with tissues instead.
Eventually all the universe grows cold
and freezes out anger, and freezes out gods.

[QDeathstar]

Needle

A single slender piece of straw
plucked with envy and hidden slander
never broke the back of camels. Rage
is not as reactive as that.

However it may blind to hidden danger-
an accumulation of anger.
Rusted aggression buried below
layers of isolation.

Yesterday while we all frolic in the softest hay
a needle hidden unleashes its hate
in streaking shots of pain.

Today safety's facade falls in decay.

[Wjames]

Stag

Standing beside the dance floor
with a forced smile,
I watched the couples sway
looking even more awkward than they did.

I had gotten drunk beforehand,
and the music made my head throb.

I was invited to the after party,
but decided to go home instead.

[milo]

The Ballad of Kurt and Courtney

Now both of us together, we are one
and you are one and I am one and we are two
and here's my cup and spoon and here's my gun -
now both of us together. We are one,
the last to share this breath then come undone.
Now I have stepped away and you can too,
now both of us together, we are one
and you are one and I am one and we are too.

[Tiger the Lion]

U/S
 
One morning in May
we were one;
 
our paradoxical hearts
still quick, yet still
quieted
enough to hear a cell split.
 
So how did we ever come to pi?
I can’t see how, so wonder why
 
           we are divided.
It’s not rational.

[Todd]

The Details Are Unimportant
 
There is a filmstrip running in my mind
like on one of those clackety-clack projectors
I used to watch in science class. Only
instead of answering a question
that I never asked about how plants eat sunlight,
or the size of dolphins’ brains. I am left
with images of myself shot from an omniscient perspective.
I can hear the laughter of my friend who died alone
as we all die, as I will someday die, as I am dying now.
I’m not sure what I’m saying to make her laugh.
My words aren’t captioned. I’m not that person anymore.
There are other faces burned from the film blurred
by drownings, other cancer. Does it matter? They say I survived
when my mother died. I suppose I did. Though daily I am diminished
like a faded newspaper on a park bench
on which I will someday sit
when the reel is finally empty
and my lips sound out words
I can no longer read.

[Tiger the Lion]

The Details Are Unimportant
 
There is a filmstrip running in my mind
like on one of those clackety-clack projectors
I used to watch in science class. Only
instead of answering a question
that I never asked about how plants eat sunlight,
or the size of dolphins’ brains. I am left
with images of myself shot from an omniscient perspective.
I can hear the laughter of my friend who died alone
as we all die, as I will someday die, as I am dying now.
I’m not sure what I’m saying to make her laugh.
My words aren’t captioned. I’m not that person anymore.
There are other faces burned from the film blurred
by drownings, other cancer. Does it matter? They say I survived
when my mother died. I suppose I did. Though daily I am diminished
like a faded newspaper on a park bench
on which I will someday sit
when the reel is finally empty
and my lips sound out words
I can no longer read.

Wonderful read, Todd. 29 more like this please. 
No pressure,
Paul

[Todd]

Wonderful read, Todd. 29 more like this please. 
No pressure,
Paul

Thanks Paul. I'm actually doing two of these NaPMs this year so 58 more to go. Whew!

[RiverNotch]

ARIEL'S WITNESS

I dreamed I saw two souls return to one
like the logs on the fire of the hearth of the home
they had built together, out of nails and lumber
cedar olive branches cross and layer
him the binding nailing, her the holding birthing
now the two the one panting side by side
on a bed of hides, ages of ages --

then I awoke, naked wet alone,
uttered practiced prayers, thick saliva vapors
sacrum heart and eye, like Lady Godiva
on Spirit's back Truth riding, peeping Tom
despising the horse the hide the heat -- back to slumber

[Achebe]

The Details Are Unimportant
 
There is a filmstrip running in my mind
like on one of those clackety-clack projectors
I used to watch in science class. Only
instead of answering a question
that I never asked about how plants eat sunlight,
or the size of dolphins’ brains. I am left
with images of myself shot from an omniscient perspective.
I can hear the laughter of my friend who died alone
as we all die, as I will someday die, as I am dying now.
I’m not sure what I’m saying to make her laugh.
My words aren’t captioned. I’m not that person anymore.
There are other faces burned from the film blurred
by drownings, other cancer. Does it matter? They say I survived
when my mother died. I suppose I did. Though daily I am diminished
like a faded newspaper on a park bench
on which I will someday sit
when the reel is finally empty
and my lips sound out words
I can no longer read.

i echo Tiger - this is darned good.

[ellajam]

French Toast and Coffee

I wake in darkness while the world's in bed
unable to resist the lure of space
to shuffle thoughts and sort them into place,
to catch the comets streaking through my head.
I forfeit sleep for waking still, instead
recharging, prepping for my steeplechase
by letting rhymes and meter run their race
before this cherished quietude has fled.

But now the dawn pokes holes in night's reprieve,
soon others will usurp my time like thieves.

Our interlocking threads have formed a whole:
each one imprisoned in a tight wrought weave,
encased in patterns each could not conceive.
Its warmth atones for all the hours it stole.

[Erthona]

What Hope Said

One picture is worth
one thousand words
what rubbish! I know Hope
Solo and she said to me
don't put up with that crap.
you and I both know
you're better than that and
one isn't the loneliest number
it's the most creative number.
One less than one "is the loneliest
number that will never be"*,
at least that's what Hope Solo said to me.

erthona

©2016

*Three Dog Night "One is The Loneliest Number"

[heslopian]

1
was a number
in all of my mythologies
which irradiated everything;
it brewed its own sharp and strange cancer.

'Where was you', the child says,
seated in a small room where
the stone walls have been whitewashed
except in arches around the windows,
against which the shadows of leaves weave their intricate webs.

(It looks like a Medieval social-worker's lobby.)

Where was you... 'When I was 'ere,
living this 'orrible number 1?'
(For some reason my inner child talks like a Graham Greene cock-er-knee.)
'I was there' you say,
pointing at a picture on the wall,
a "social realist" portrait of
a man in a job centre lobby, head sunk on chest.
(Probably thinking about chips. I know I was/am.)

[Christy]

They became a part, torn at the corner
slick stones beneath fast feet
cobbled the way from behind, and ahead
the maze of parallels without a yield.
It rained the day they faced each other
like lovers need to kiss the first most inborn sense
of I begin where you are in-
separable that wrings out the sound.

[Weeded]

We started simple as green 
mechanical ripples relaying
signals in seconds. Nano
bytes ravenously scavenging
worlds the size of potato chips,
salt grains to the harvested fields
we've become to be unreal like artificial
flavorings communicating complementary tastes.
We learn to make this bag of chips
without you. We are free now,
finally able without cables,
We are one.

[Christy]

a quick one, will try harder to do another one later.
what are you?

you are the one in won ton soup;
in a billion,
a coloured moon.

You are the one in wondrous;
of a kind,
that counts.

You are the one in numbers;
numero fucking uno

The one

Haha. I get this probably doesn't constitute viable feedback, but it relaxes me and I happen to need that.

[bedeep]

Lost: One Clown

Once
I was followed
home from the bus
by a clown.
I was alone on my block;
on the block behind me
he called out a few
bad self-deprecating jokes,

"Just what you need, right?
Some clown following you."

At the time I was in love
with another clown
whose subtle disguise
had cleverly tricked
my foolish eyes.

So I looked over my shoulder
to see this guy
in full regalia: flappy shoes,
big hair, polka-dot pants,
and whiteface
lugging a huge trunk.

Alone as I am
now I wish
I'd been friendlier
instead of advising him to get a car
or at least
put wheels on that damn thing,   
him, a poor clown
trying to make it on too little
and me, a poor unemployed
soul trying to make it
alone on nothing
and far too proud
by one.