NaPM April 26 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 2: Write a poem from the point of view of an anti-hero, an adversary, a bad guy, etc.

Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

Final moments


So this is death, delivered by bullets
in my back while I float in my pool.
Such a very strange feeling, dying.
Vivid too, yellow letters on the label,
a scarlet patch sewn on the canvas
in matching thread, which has lifted
a bit on one corner, and started to fray.
I guess it lasted just long enough.
Like a North Dakota sunset, before
the dark night of hunger, the cold,
the impossibly distant morning.

You were my sunrise each day
from the first time we met.
I built the world for you.
I’m leaving. This is real,
my final moment being
extracted. I’ve said
my last word.

Daisy.

The green light swims
towards me now.
Soon I’ll forget even you.

[Todd]

Wicked is the Storm
 
I was leaves blown in circles
when I left your town to return to Autumn,
and now there is no one to warn
when the lightning  strikes.
We will again walk these October streets,
past your tweezered lawns, and lives
hidden behind porch lights and dark windows.
You will hear the calliope and weep
for your herald writhes on my arm,
and Fury is satisfied. There is no salvation
from desire. Your libraries are dust,
and your books covered in dust, and none
of you still reads. You are all stones
dropped down a deep well making no sound.
I lay out this banquet, and you eat
until the food is tasteless, and I
am knocked aside in your mindless rush.
You crawl like spiders up my skin
in your banality. I feared
the virtuous, and finding none
thought I was clever, but there is nothing
to take when you are all teeth,
and continue to chew. The barren trees
are within you. Even now, the wind blows.

[Achebe]

Palestine

Cresting the hill - that white redoubt?
My father’s farm. Inch by inch, they have
occupied it, and when fighting broke out
from settlers shelling peanuts on a  prophet's grave
(someone threw a stone, so they turned the village out)
they made it a sea of soldier's camps.

Praise Germany, its pestilential swamps
where their bones lie: too many to gather.
Burdened with their flow of endless tears
the Rhine ran salty for years...

We need shelter for the night. Is there a room at this inn?

All full, my man, you could sleep on the floor, but it'd be a sin
as your wife is with child. I feel for your plight.
There are beds aplenty, but  I don't want a din
in the middle of the night.

There aren't any rooms elsewhere, could we stay here tonight?

Sometimes they don't give up. Such begging asks a ban.
There’s a barn at the back. Wherefrom come you, my man?

Galilee. Thank you for your kindness. We're quite out of breath.

(Then I know where you're from. No wonder you're a beggar. What good can come from Nazareth?)

[bedeep]

Job Application

Let me be your bad guy.
Let me be the one to stand you up,
run you down, to find the fatal flaw
in your crisp performance
and show it to the world.

Let me be the guy
who spills sauce on your white shoes,
who keys your car and splits,
who whispers spicy hints
about your private life
to those who ought to know.

I'm the one you can't avoid.
I hitch your giddy-up
and wrench your careful scheme.
I'm that plot hole in your dream,
yep, I'm gonna be your bad guy.

I'll be the bone in your throat
that chokes you at the end,
at the special ceremony
where everyone keeps telling you
how fine you are, you win!
But we know, you and me,
you're just you, you lose,
and I'm your bad guy

And all because
no one should be so high
above the mud as you pretend.
Everyone must get splashed
and then drowned in the end.
I'll make sure it happens
to you.
I'm your bad guy.

---

@Achebe -- that's a powerful poem.

[REW]

The Crashing Streetcar

At age three the gardener
first plucked my flower, a pink rose;
rough hands spread me to show
velvet under white cotton.
Thorn prick trickled blood down;
my favorite lace socks, ruined.

Always wanted to be a perfect southern bell,
a real princess ever since I could remember,
working man being my first at such a young age,
chastity remained only a dream.

They arrived one after another.

I wanted tea parties and petticoats—
more than ever, but my pretty
taken as their price. I had a role:
the lust of the town.
It was my job to make men hard,
turn them into sweating stallions sighing.
It just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t,
and so I tried.

A real suitor had me thinking
I actually made it
into an acceptable looking life.
My dear fiancé expected me chaste and pure,
but finding my new husband in bed with a man
insulted me; I hadn’t done my job well.
It was screaming he was dirty
and disgusting that ended me.

When his suicide made me a widow,
I played at being school teacher,
reassured myself, coaxed fresh
pubescent boys into action.
The younger the better
to make me forget a little while,
but that was stupid.

Found out,
the last relatives died of shock.
I took up prostitution
and alcohol at a cheap hotel,
lost the ancestral home.

Still couldn’t stop
the Southern Bell in me;
off to my sister Stella
with nowhere else left.
Her husband Stanley
wasn’t good enough,
but I needed him to want me,
having learned my worth young.

Met a polite gentleman--
Mitch liked me even with lines
showing my age,
but I kissed a young boy
while waiting for our date.

Maybe I could be the chaste bell
I always wanted after all—
but Stanley sold me out to Mitch;
then I wasn’t good enough
for his mamma, but he tried a fuck;
I have always been worth that.
The southern lady I am was horrified.

Then I turned Stanley hard.
He raped me
while Stella had his baby.

Lovely people in white coats
escorted me to my wedding;
the millionaire Shep Huntleigh,
awaited. Mitch cried.
I don’t know why since he didn’t object--
bells ringing were mighty pretty and the sunlight
didn’t worry me as I tossed my bouquet of roses
standing in a puddle of petals
never to turn men hard again.

I always could depend on the kindness of strangers.

[Keith]

A head-butt for a handshake

I can crack pavements
follow the fissure
through derelict basements
were waters drip
I walk on oil slicks
soil beneath my fingertips
from your shallow graves.

The off kilter sees each step
as you run to save a child
I open your handbag
then the front door
and drive away in the mustang
restored by loving hands
full of mothers costume jewellery
precious pieces for you to miss,
I'll drop from slow ride windows
on girls in the cold night air
to make the city gleam between
the teeth of look after that's
and sewer rats, spitting paste
and copper based rings into trees
that line our streets
and secrete its disease.

I'll come back
and watch you sleep
because I don't little bo peep
running for her lost sheep,
my hand will cover
your mouth as I scream,
dragging their tales behind them
dragging their tales behind them.

[Achebe]

Thanks, @bedeep. I was concerned that the Roman/ Israeli analog would not work, esp the Battle of Teutoberg forest.
@Casey- loved it, though I haven't read the play or seen the film and didn't know how much of Balnche's past you were making up. You're posting some good stuff here.

[Tracy Mitchell]

 

 Don’t They Know

I didn’t take my Remington
to the roof because I can’t
write poetry for shit

but that’s what some
will boil this down to.  

Don’t they
know performance art
for Christ’s sake?

[REW]

Final moments




Daisy.

The green light swims
towards me now.
Soon I’ll forget even you.

I considered Gatsby for this prompt.  : Good one.  I like the ending, that green light over the dock...

---

Palestine

This is a unique subject to tackle for this with an interesting form.  

---

Thanks, @bedeep. I was concerned that the Roman/ Israeli analog would not work, esp the Battle of Teutoberg forest.
@Casey- loved it, though I haven't read the play or seen the film and didn't know how much of Balnche's past you were making up. You're posting some good stuff here.

@Achebe 

I hope you visit the play.    Tennessee Williams is a wonderful playwright.  Young Marlon Brando is awesome too in the movie (although his diction can be hard to understand due to his famous mumble).

[Tiger the Lion]

Both Bowers and an Ace

We began with a taste
for red meat, chewed the buffalo
to starve them. Their arrows
were silent and the banshees screamed 
unearthly screams
but felt like real women. 
Our muskets are louder than ever.
 
We might have got
a lot more of Mexico
with a cool skipper at the wheel
to make the right deal.
 
There’s much more to steal
if we stop negotiating and perfect the art
of the deal behind a wall. They’ll rape our daughters
if we play like squaws.
 
We need bravado and bombs; need
to abandon babes on beaches to die
until we've vetted their toddler hearts;
until Flint once more builds muscle cars.
 
This is how we’ll make America great again.

[billy]

Cock Robin

That bitchin' batman what a twat
all scalloped up with wings-spread cape.
His ego waits for light-beamed call
to make some joker take a fall.
He's throwing gadgets here and there
and driving rocket launcher cars
the one thing that the schmuck can't parse;
I'm stuck up robin's shitty arse.

[QDeathstar]

Straw Never Break's The Camels Back, It Only Buries The Needle.

I don't see red.

I'm not flawed moth torn sheets
stuffed in a cardboard box slowly suffocating

restrained by cheap tape struggling to hide gaps and tears;
once a prized possession one hard knock away from escape.

Forgotten in some past due storage locker receiving no bids-
dead weight. I am

bounced out of my box and shattered on the floor.
You can't sweep me up, You've slipped on my remains.

Suicide so public everyone screams in despair.

[Leanne]

I think I could have loved her
as my father loved my mother
though my mother loved another
so it's said

And my mother, my creator
knew that Ned could implicate her
so the Hand, now branded traitor
lost his head

I have seen sweet Sansa crying
and it's rather gratifying
how the lust's intensifying
without Ned

Every woman's secret scheming
leads to this; oh, how I'm dreaming
of the nights I'll hear her screaming
in my bed.

[Tracy Mitchell]

Hodor, Hodor, Hodor!

[RiverNotch]

I think I could have loved her
as my father loved my mother
though my mother loved another
so it's said

And my mother, my creator
knew that Ned could implicate her
so the Hand, now branded traitor
lost his head

I have seen sweet Sansa crying
and it's rather gratifying
how the lust's intensifying
without Ned

Every woman's secret scheming
leads to this; oh, how I'm dreaming
of the nights I'll hear her screaming
in my bed.

Wait, NED DIES?
But seriously, I got the perfect mixture of sudden laughter, rolling horror, and congregational admiration from this piece -- good stuff!

[RiverNotch]

got.....to.....finish.....

JUST BUSINESS

on one corner, always the oldest,
lady Babylon. beside her,
random geometric figures
resembling a penis --

no, a sword -- better yet, a pen,
a cross. then, Superman,
with bits of Nietzsche, of Kierkegaard
along the side. Schrodinger next,

petting a cat -- tumblr -- all
for something much cheaper
than emerald, than shiny kryptonite.
not your souls, as here in hell

we too have plummeting stock values,
but something more worth the effort:
your time. one thing we learned
from modernity, chains of outsourcing.

[Achebe]

Munoz

Writing for NaPM after April
is like shooting through unguarded posts
after the spectators have left their febrile
football chanting to the ghosts
and only the cat watches with shifty eyes.
Or like kicking the ball into your own net
and make a drug lord lose a bet.
Hello, Andres, that goal will fetch a nifty price
in five seconds, when I'm going to murder you
)but because murderers are human too
I'll only get eleven years for your ... fifty five?)
So let the cat watch from its pole...
Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9...ent_murder

[CRNDLSM]

Via Cruz

My name is Vincent David Ray.
I'm a demon with a legion of heathens
out to capture easy prey.
The last man i met was Benedict Joseph Labre.

I'm not going to beat around the bush,
light a fire under your tush,
or make you feel cush, but show you how
even the best laid plans can all turn to mush.

Satan called me to his lair.
He said he'd made a wager with the Savior,
that I was the best at possessing human pests,
and that's in fact why they call me the great soul slayer.

'Cause people to me are merely cattle.
My survival depends on their death rattle.
If the end of the ride, suicide would be his bride,
then I've won the battle!

I met Ben when he was just a kid.
His only goal was to do what God bid,
but under my spell he was soon expelled, and chose
to live the rest of his hell off the grid.

I'd grind his gears and torture him with all his worst fears.
People jeered, called him queer, 
his stench was severe,
and for 15 years he begged to disappear.

If you think I was glad when he died, I a'int!
Crazy hermit, no one heard him faint.
What newspapers paint, thousands arrived at the site
the next night, and declared him a saint!

'Cause Jesus went and sent Ben a vision.
He'd been given a friend, who again and again 
would tempt him to sin, but to win in the end
was a ticket straight to heaven.

I'd never lost a match to date,
couldn't let Satan seal my fate,
so pretending to surrender to my Benedictine dinner,
I attempted to infiltrate the pearly gates.

God's ways are always mysterious.
He saw right through me, knew I was delirious.
But, if He put me to work and I didn't go berserk,
He'd let me return, and He was serious!

My name is Vincent David Ray!
Guardian angel, with an angle to tangle,
and teach your kids to pray.
The man you should thank
is Benedict Joseph Labre!

[Leanne]

Interesting take on Labre, with some nice allusion to the cattle he cared for in his early life, and a rather cynical perspective on his death... there is much to like but I'm missing something and the disconnect is bothering me. I don't know the protagonist and I can't fit him into the tale. My failing, for which I'm sorry.