NaPM April 9, 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 9: Write a poem inspired by a mystery.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[cloud]

in hindsight

fuck it all, what does it mean
to swing the life and fuck the dream
binge watch netflix all day
then sit in a hot tub, bask away
seems to me more worthwhile
than to make sense these foggy memories
into one distorted picture frame, my life
wow, she looked fuckin ugly that day, my wife
where did all the time go anyway, oh well
might as well rub one out

[Keith]

Facing the boss

Your silver plated brush,
once blonde now white,
pulled clean each morning
by a stranger.

Slumped on comfortable chairs,
worn away sea shells, tumbled paper thin,
accepting the ocean’s daily routine.

Random words, expressions of the grotesque
all solving fragments behind rapid eyes.
Collectively unlocking
the hidden parts of the game.

[RiverNotch]

renaissance medicine


it can't just be confirmation bias.
not all geniuses back then were burned,
i'm sure. there's an element of truth
to it -- not enough of us believe in it,
anyway. we don't have enough phlegm,
or blood, or even that mysterious fiery fluid,
choler.

no one wants to wear a long-snouted mask
and stuff their nostrils full of rosehips
anymore. no one wants to swing a thurible
and chant the jesus prayer a thousand times
on the way to a patient. no one wants to diagnose
with the humors, or the stars, or the voices in their hearts.
no one wants to become a mind:
to abandon the body as immaterial,
reason as utterly gross.

i throw my head back. this is the answer:
this is the secret fire. the problem is scholars today
are too full of black bile.
we don't know what it means to be jovial,
or martial, or solar, or even venereal
anymore. we allow ourselves to be choked by green serpents
or swallowed by roasting chickens.
we don't see that mercury
is also melancholic:
that the material will always pass,
that we need to talk to our past

or forget it altogether.

[Knot]

It is a mystery,
not that
I understand
so much,
but that
I understand
anything
at all.

[Tiger the Lion]

Safe

On my life 
I am sure
I am close
to combination,

but any more time
with my ear on your chest
listening for clicks
cannot be justified.

It'll be some bumbling brute
with fat fingers 
who fumbles you open,

swings the door 
and squanders the spoils.

[dukealien]

Highly Qualified Deduction


Holmes knew this lady lied because
gore found on her dress didn’t match,
and from knots in a pull-rope which
had tied her to her chair deduced
a sailor was involved, which meant
an officer, for no deck ape
would dare have conversation with
a lady, as she surely was.

And so Holmes found the officer
commanding that same liner which
had carried her from India,
who struck a fatal blow and whom
the lady’s heart made her protect.

How perfect Holmes’ deductions were
in his Victorian domain—
when ladies never mixed with deckhands
and Lord Baden-Powell had not yet
taught each Scout a sailors’ knots.

[Todd]

Where Do They Go?
 
It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single sock in possession
of fabric softener, must be
in want of a mate. We remove
the lint traps, and wonder
if some sort of quantum entanglement
exists between dryers. Will our left
sock cross continents, and pass someone’s
right sock traveling to us? We hear
the wail of these widows,
and mistake it for the spin cycle.

[CRNDLSM]

What makes it a coincidence?
The succession of green lights?
The parade?
The three days you didn't do laundry?
The malfunction in the strap?
The loose dog that sent the kid into the street?
The rain?
The right of way?
The mother saying 'okay' today of all days?
Laundry is suddenly not so important anymore.

[danny_]

Been enjoying these!

Really liked Where Do They Go? Being married with a daughter, the sock mystery has also reached far into our family life.  

[just mercedes]

Even the egg shell is


I’ve lopped their heads, chopped off feet,
plunged bodies in buckets and plucked
them clean, singed pin feathers, gutted,
cooked, and eaten, my own chooks.

I never found a catyltic converter
in any body cavity.

So - how do they eat mica
and turn it into calcium?

A mystery.

[Richard]

Farrokh Bulsara

Even dead, you still elude us.
Some would say you play piano for angels,
while others prefer to think you're just gone
like a flame exhausted in the night.
We can't even agree if you're under that cherry tree.

You seemed scared to be yourself in life and death,
so is it at Kensal Green that you rest?
Ashes scattered carefree among the wind,
fear finally burned away?

Or could your urn be locked in a closet,
covered in dust, but not forgotten,
your silence louder with each passing day?
Surrounded by old dresses,
camouflage you no longer need.

---

This is another good batch of poems here. Nicely done everyone.

[vagabond]

always the clear skies

it is warm
and i taste drops of words.
i´m longing for more
but my breath is too dry
and the weather inverts.
when i open my eye, inhaling
your salty vapor,
the sky becomes darker.
i am trying to find you
in the turbulent clouds.
you´re more
than i´m able to swallow.
you remain
a mysterious sea.
somewhere
it rains.

[Leanne]

The Devil's Footprints

And from the Exe it rose; the river boiled
and yet the snows remained. The frozen white
rejected it and only hooves could mark
the purity. The passage of the Beast
ranged wide across the counties in the still
and witching hours when none of God's will roam.
What purpose but to fill with fear the hearts
of England's righteous men? The heathen will
raise speculation, pointless when we know
the Devil leads their minds to baser things
like Science; oh, they scoff, but can't explain,
and when they have no answer, call it "hoax".
I pity them, those faithless hearts, who mock
when Satan walks beside them in the snow.