NaPM April 1, 2018

[Todd]

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 1: Write a poem where ONLY the title is a cliche.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?



~~
I'm looking forward to starting this with all of you. Some days are rough; some are easy. Though what I always get out of these NaPM exercises is that when constrained by a simple prompt, people break through and create some amazing things.

[just mercedes]

Day #1 Too many cooks ...


My mother appears as I chop apples.
‘You should have cored them’ but
why bother when they simmer,
skin, flesh, and cores, together?
I peel feijoas over the pot
so their skin falls in with the apples.

An old pillowcase becomes a jelly bag.
Leon’s mother calls ‘Don’t you have an old
pair of tights?’ No, Stasia, love, I don’t.
The pulp eventually drips through.
I drop chopped feijoas into the liquid.

Damn. I forgot to weight the fruit.
Auntie Win breezes by, mixing by guess
her always perfect scones, grinning.
‘Have faith!’ I add three cups of sugar,
a knob of butter to stop foaming.

Three hours at slow simmer, stirring
every three minutes. Relentless.
I open wine. My tiny galley kitchen hums,
replete with ghosts and memories that blend
into the feijoa scents: pineapple, banana,
mint, strawberry, guava.

Finally poured to set, I label this batch
‘Family Feijoa Paste’.
It’s perfect.

[RiverNotch]

L I V E  L A U G H  L O V E


i'm shitting and yer shitfaced.
shouldnta swiped right. next tome,
i won't judge a book
at all -- and grow balls like genghis khan
to more than a thousand thoilets.

[vagabond]

i love you

you´re using this every time
with a comma in front of your name
to write me a caring goodbye.
back when it was fresh it worked fine
to tickle emotions.

the line then became a reminder
of how i should end my reply.
but i fail to produce it so freely,
nursing this brittle bad conscience
for fickle emotions.

my frugal conserving of ink
took toll of your trust in these words.
this day you have added (in brackets)
how clichéd repeated love sounds,
a pickled emotion.

and then, unexpecting, i found
i still like it (i love you).

[CRNDLSM]

Water water everywhere

The look my mother's giving me
in a room full of down cast 
veils and running mascara

Shows she knows I know
She already tossed every drop
And reconciled the way

My grandmother would have.
Why we're all together today.
Blood flushes my cheeks.

Maybe the mints made it 
Obvious compelling her
To whisper me aside,

'I hope someone else drove you here'
Those eyes, torn, stretched to tear
me apart, to hide in my car.

I roll down my manual windows,
to keep from drowning

[Tracy Mitchell]

Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

I was taught to seek symmetry. 

The one-pan meal– chickpeas nurtured 
in tomato cream, nestled garlic cloves
capers, olives and, no shit– an egg. 
A mistake
not much correctable with a pestle or salt, 
but then, without doubt so am I.

Docks at seaport puff with plunder
from scamp-growing regions– mango,
buffalo, macaroon, cheese from the north,  
all thin-sliced and sold off.  Oh, my grocers –  
my butchers.

I am entitled to my own bread. 

Conformed with course rye ad infinitum
from that strain of sour dough starter
inherited 
along with a cherry wood clock
and my bulbous nose.  
This continuum of leavenings – 
dependable, no matter the conditions,
becomes the metronome of my existence.

An alpine meadow edges conifer stands,
cedar and aspen – a far walk into the hills. 
Red with white spots. White gills on bottom.
These mushrooms slice like day into night,
bad to good, and the converse; fly agaric -
 a misnomer to embrace.

A wicked business this has become.  
I find the spirit, one grinding bite at a time.

[Knot]

Guns Don't Kill People


On the table he lies face down
and the dissecting lights fill the holes
in his back with a liquid darkness,
seven wells of ink, enough here
to write one final chapter.

At the lectern he is authority,
uniformed and cognizant of the moment;
offering the balm of a prepared statement
that does not equivocate nor appear to dissemble,
but exonerates without test or trial.

[Richard]

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

I don't even believe in god,
yet she left me her bible:
half the front missing, so the title
becomes "The Holy,"
pages falling out,
but they always seem to be placed back
in the proper order,
the back cover barely hangs on
like someone scared to die alone.
My wife told me notes haunt the margins.

I just don't have the courage to read it,
or to throw it out.

[dukealien]

Fire Sale


Fakirs tread on winking coals,
watchers fill their begging bowls;
pickups burn on evening news—
hidden rockets lit their fuze.
False explosions, muzzles flare:
SFX to make us spare
cash for movies’ hokey smoke
over Friday’s soothing toke.
Any danger, we inquire?
No, just fakers selling fire.

[Todd]

Love Conquers All

In this field, nothing grows
and we remain 
year-after-year stiff
as scarecrows in the cast-off
clothes of our parents.
It would be natural 
to blame the moon,
which hangs limp 
in the sky, suspended 
between life or death,
a condemned convict,
an unblinking witness
like the flickering bulb
above our bed.

[Lizzie]

Absence makes the heart

Our computer is old. Not enough space
on the hard drive for all the programs we wanted,
all the projects we'd like to save.

We bought it when we first got together,
and now it takes hours to finish
routine upgrades. Nothing works

the way it's supposed to,
not like the advertisement promised.
The warranty deserted in the night or expired.

Maybe we'll find it someday.
Maybe I'll get used to Notepad
and hesitate to leave it behind

when we decide to start again
with a working backspace button
and a shift bar that doesn't stick.

[Leanne]

A drop in the bucket

For the glory of the Caliphate they muster
under floodlights so the blood upon their faces
fills the lens and shows this pre-pubescent cluster
as a poster that the infidel embraces

In the Western world the journalists hold races
to create the sharpest caption, while the edges
of the scimitars grow blunt with their disgraces
and the mud is thick with excremental pledges

Every popup ad for government alleges
to be fighting for the Levantines' wellbeing
and yet every time a politician hedges
about liberty, what is it that he's freeing?

On the battlefields the children wield the guns
and you show this to your daughters, to your sons

[Richard]

Hey all,
I'm enjoying what I'm reading here quite a bit. Nice work everyone

[just mercedes]

My sentiments exactly! A wealth of talent here in the Pen. Lovely to read it all on the same thread.

[milo]

Death be not proud

She waits for me all day
In her death chapel
Where machines moan
Life into the dying
Behind sea green curtains

But my day is spent
In the company
Of the living
Moving the markets
Or the boxes
Never thinking

Of her there
In the company
Of the urine-stench
Of her dying fellowship
And her missing hair
Beneath that knit cap
Donated by some middle school
Children hoping
to make a difference.

And I can’t make the trip
-this time-
Can’t make my legs move
After 10 hours on the floor
Up those final stairs
To lift her in my arms
Muscle her into the wheel chair
Her death-stench on my cheek
And push her out
To the fresh night air
To catch a glimpse of fireflies
And clear her lungs.

[Tiger the Lion]

Writer's Remorse

Enough with writing
about time-travel 
and rhino spunk, Peter

tap into your insomnia,
your anxiety, your depression...

my fucking dog's written three poems
on depression just this morning--
he can't even catch a Frisbee 

it's relevant, Pete
the kids are eating it up...

now the cat?
the cat's in love 
with tinsel 
and spends his days flirting--
I'd rather be him

I need to see something
I can use, Peter
anything...

Yeah, me too.

[kolemath]

If at first you don't succeed

Give up
Your gold
And let
It sink
Into the pond
Below

You change
Your mind
And dive

Where is
Your breath?

Up
To catch
A lungfull

The sun's
The same
Color

Give up
The gold

Move down
Move up
Up
Down
Circles
Until gills
Form below
Your toes
A beak
Becomes
Your nose

Eat the algae
On the floor

It's in
Your nose

There's
Your gold

[Keith]

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

I read myself into your fairytale
and head wrote extra chapters,
embellished the new characters
with parental ticks and DNA swabs.
We made our wax dolls but the pins
produced predictable responses.

To keep a princes's tired hand
any King would demand a quest.
I forged my own folded sword,
rode elephants into distant battles.
Brought back my own severed head,
and a quiet that looks for noise.

When happily never ever, fails
the poison needs to be sucked and spit,
the apple needs un-eating.
My castle was just a gatehouse to you,
happy to be the keeper, and so the bluebird
sings and sits on a white picket fence,
content with what he brings to the garden.