NaPM April 13 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 13: Ahhh . . . lucky #13.  Write a poem inspired by luck (good or bad) fortune or fatalism.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

Heads or tails

I tossed my lucky penny in the air
in a jumbo jet’s upstairs bar
just as we crossed the equator
between Hawaii and Australia;

heads for follow your heart, leave America
tails forget him, stay in California.

I gave a good two-up toss
from my palm held flat at waist level.
My penny, polished so it glistened,
rose, twisting like a gymnast,
paused, seemed to hover
for ever, turning over;

I can still see it
spinning in the air

before the steward
slicker than chameleon tongue
snatched it. Put it
in his pocket and grinned.

That’s how I got it, too.

Now it’s his lucky penny.

[Leanne]

The night was dark, the moon was full,
the black cat stalked its prey,
the minions of the evening screeched
their mourning for the day.

A pinch of salt could not contain
the demon in its soul;
the ladder formed a portal which
the cat had made its goal.

It walked beneath these mystic steps,
the dark night’s calls grew faint --
it touched the side, and down did fall
a can of purple paint.

The cat screamed loud, its fur a mess,
and out of houses came
a hundred people, laying on
the painter all the blame.

The moral: when you're haunted
and all fun is dead and gone,
just paint your pussy purple
and you’ll never be alone.

[billy]

All Six Numbers

The clouds fell down upon my head
and filled my summer clothes with lead.
My surfer's shirt of red and blue
had turned a funny coloured hue.

white canvass pants had morphed to black
black undies had crept from my crack.
I cried and cried, my heart had sank;
my winning lotto all washed blank.

On getting home I called the wife
that one and only of my life.
While waiting like a cold dead cod
the gardener gave me the nod.

'She's over there down by the pool'.
So drenched I strolled; I looked a tool
'It rained' I said 'I got all wet'
'did you send off the lotto yet'?

I explained to her my plight
"You stupid little piece of shite".
She cursed and cried; she was bereft,
at six o fucking clock she left.

[Todd]

The Number of the Beast

On red or black, black or red,
to only land on green instead.
Load the chamber, pray the prayer.
Riches come to those who dare.
The love of money spends the same.
Why look beyond this mortal frame?
Give the gun a final spin,
pull the trigger, bang! You win.

[Todd]

Here's another:

Opening Fortune Cookies Alone After Happy General Dinner for Two

Your plate is empty, but you are not full

Hunger is the silence of a crowded room

The moths fill your pockets with holes

The blinds shake in the windows across the street

He will watch you from the closet

She will pretend to be asleep

Let the blood wash away your hate

[Leanne]

By horse and happenstance
I came to Come By Chance
and stayed

It was empty at first glance --
all around, the green expanse
conveyed

the direst circumstance,
where the world of high finance
and trade

were unlikely to advance,
but the land was rich and grants
were paid

City folk, you look askance
but I'll stay in Come by Chance
remade

Come By Chance

[bedeep]

My Childhood Motels

The sound of highways at night
soft whooshing
in the strange dark.
Great big beds looking
right at the television.
Getting to choose supper
from a menu, and breakfast
always pancakes or waffles.

And the pools, the pools!
The smell of chlorine,
the first plunge a reward
for having gotten this far,
the half hour of splashing
a plenty long time,
then washing off the pool water
in the spiffy bathroom with special soaps
then going out to the restaurant
Daddy picked.

One night late
they were undressing for bed
I caught a glimpse of Mother's breast,
they were talking quietly
and sure we were asleep.
I knew I wasn't supposed to see
and I still remember
exactly what it looked like
pale and startling
and the way the shadows,
the quiet voices soothed.

"This looks okay,"
one of them would say as we pulled in,
and Daddy would go to the office
and come back with a key.

We were always headed for the place
where we could stay a good long while
but in the meantime
there were motels.

Later on Mother
asked me one day
didn't I think I was lucky
never to have had much money
because it meant I had to learn
how to make do and appreciate
things that didn't have pricetags.

Well, no, I didn't think
that was so lucky,
but I never told her so,
or how glad I was
we had all those motels.

[dukealien]

Little Black Cats

Black cats
little black cats
I like little black cats
crossing my path
because
my troubles may be many
but they lithely turn small
remote complex magical
unpredictable and entirely
unmanageable.

---

(A small homage to E., the much-traduced for his use of size and colo(u)r)

[Tracy Mitchell]

bedeep - what a beautiful poem.  I am of an age that I relate to the Dad, the guy finding the motel, picking the restaurant, and having some moments in the room with everyone, when presumably the kids are asleep.    I am gratified with your perspective with the hope that my kids perhaps share those POVs.  I enjoyed hearing  the pool being the reward for 'having gotten this far', and the last stanza is wonderful.  Whatever the adults would like to explain to the kids and have the kids accept as lessons, there is their own genuine and often surprising take.  You present this well.

Leanne - your wordsmithing is incredible, your poem is so fun to read out loud, over and over.  

Todd - awesome recitation of putative fortune cookie 'fortunes' (though none really seem to fortunes these days).  I was   wondering  as I started reading through it the first time whether there would be the fortune - that was not chicken, but I soon saw your were writing at a level about five plateaus above that cheap but funny joke (in my mind anyway).  The sequence in the poem provides a wonderful reading.

Just Mercedes - terrific setup for the delightful surprise ending. It really is a fun reading poem.




- - -     ----            -----------  --

   Hence

I remember the storm that toppled
the tallest windmill in the township.
Afterward it looked like it had been
dropped on its head.  Grampa said
everything loses to gravity.

Of course I thought that not to be true,
recalling the oceans, how when underwater
my body moves slow, toward the surface
or with a current in aimless float
 
and I thought how flecks like me on the skin
of an orange spin wide circles around a sun
that moves terrifying distances, a small way,
in a galaxy hardly worth mentioning.

But I think finally my fate will be less like a planet
than a plant, which goes from green to brown,
then brittle, to finally lie down
in the arms of an afternoon wind.

[LunaDeLore]

Lucky 13
 
Picked up 13 feathers
Painted them each a different color
For two weeks and a day
 
Found 13 coins totaling 13 cents
Walked 13 miles trying to find a fence
Stopped 13 times along the way
Hoping someone at St. Johns would pay
 
Crossed the border at midnight
Thought it was okay
Until the flood lights blinded me
For two weeks and a day

[bedeep]

Teagan, what a kind and lovely thing to say. And your offering is another delight. Thank you.

LunaDeLore, welcome (from another newbie haha) So glad you decided to plunge right on in to these here waters of marvelous doom. And your poem is quite concentrated and impactful. I like it very much.

[cidermaid]

Sorry this is terrible and definitely not worthy to be place among the dignified offerings. But it's all I've got.

I met a man, he said: “I’ll teach you how a hedge is layed”.
Handing me his best billhook, he showed me what to do.
He said it was, my lucky day, I wouldn’t have to pay.
I met a man. He said: “I’ll teach you how a hedge is laid”.
My bushy shrubs were tamed. (It‘s nearly been a decade
since that undergrowth, has seen the light of day)
I met a man, he said: “I’ll teach you how a hedge is laid”.
He handed me his best billhook. He showed me what to do.

[ellajam]

(Arg, I'm so far behind, if you don't like sonnets written with a first grader's vocabulary stop reading NOW. )


A Fool In Luck

Goddamnitall, it's just his luck
to break down on a rainy day,
the money spent to tow the truck
will use a chunk of this week's pay.

It seems each time the family
comes pouring in for barbecue
the rain beats on the canopy,
though when he woke the sky was blue.

Bemoaning every twist of fate
that puts a pebble in his shoe
wastes all his time as blessings wait
uncounted while good luck comes through.

His kids are healthy, grandbabes shine,
his wife's still there. Lay off the whine.

[LunaDeLore]

Teagan, what a kind and lovely thing to say. And your offering is another delight. Thank you.

LunaDeLore, welcome (from another newbie haha) So glad you decided to plunge right on in to these here waters of marvelous doom. And your poem is quite concentrated and impactful. I like it very much.

Thank you bedeep, you words are most kind and appreciated.

Luna

[RiverNotch]

ROTA FORTUNAE

Should the shadow of my thumb
scratch the mole upon your back,
will you bleed?

Anything for you
is so cliche. And besides,
that's not how metaphors work.
Here:

I'll never get used
to losing my keys.
I can lose
anything, really,
just not keys.

Everything can be replaced,
like the broken wheels of a cart.
It's just harder to replace
a lock, having to call for help
in breaking a door open,
either through force
or through artifice -- than it is, say,
to crack open a book and remember
a name, to make connections
between a memory and
an heirloom, to mark
the passage of time
and declare a certain place
home,

to sit beside a stranger
by accident and say, "Hello.
Should the shadow of my thumb

[Tiger the Lion]

Another Rondeau, for Leanne. 

I Once Had Fortune
 
I once had fortune by my side
emboldening my words; my guide
should anxious thoughts encroach upon
endeavors narrow, wide, or on
a scale too big for me to hide.
 
At times my mind collapsed and shied
away from danger or implied
my will was weak and luck was gone—
I once had fortune.
 
And so I will not run or hide
but soon will seek to set my stride
to where my soul is aptly drawn
and set my appetites upon
my dream, my queen, my love, my dawn—
I once had fortune.

[Achebe]

So far I fell

By sheer luck, I made your acquaintance

at a conference I didn't care about,

attending to network, find someone out

to steer my hand through the corporate pell mell.

I was sheltering from the rain

under an awning in a cigarette strewn lane

when you walked by,

whirlwind of my autumn sky,

seeing you, I fell

into Canto V, the cries of cranes,

tossed by the wind 

from wall to wall, my voice thinned,

while thoughts, like birds, flew endlessly through

the labyrinth. I shouted, 'Beatrice!' but you

were far away, beyond the mountain guarded by beasts, beyond

the farthest circle of despond, and I 

no wayfarer guided by Virgil, but lost in the darkness of hell.

So far I fell.

[milo]

My lawn is filled with four-leaf clover
but spring is time for mowing,
seeding, trimming, when it's over
my lawn is filled. With four-leaf clover
gone the weeds have taken over
and reaping leads to sowing.
No longer filled with four-leaf clover
and spring time is for mowing.

[Keith]

This way to the drowning

The stool is not made of balsa
and the devil speaks to God
with water in his lungs.
We hear the words fear wrote
wrapped around a shadowed
mind that feeds inside the carcass
of the frail and all bullied believers.

So cross the road and to your chest
kiss Christ and pray the beasts
will rest. The night will come
as day is gone to thread its needle
with dreams undone, we have our proof
of carried marks and numbers
painted black of art or those who take
a path so weak,
we sit them in the 13th seat.