NaPM, April 12, 2020

[Quixilated]

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: Do-over.
Write a poem inspired by second chances, new beginnings, etc.  

Form: any
Line requirements: any


Questions?

[Keith]

Epiphany

A two man job the foreman said
I was with Danny bow legs and his
Clarence dock walk.
"You apprentices are all the same
rushing to go nowhere", he grunted.

We knelt in the rain
on open steel grating,
belting hell out of a damper
with a four pound lump hammer.
I think maybe it was his initials,
stamped on the wooden handle,
but in that moment
the curtain went back
and my whole life was
mapped to his past and future.

In thirty years I would be Danny
knees shot, bitter and twisted,
angry with what I had got.
Telling new kids to slow down
in fear of them bettering me.

The realisation was as bleak
as the November evening,
I wanted to start again but
dad said Learn a trade son,
someone will always give you work.

But he hadn't seen Danny
and I had other plans.

[Todd]

Kryptonian Do-over


Superman suffered loss, first with a planet
he didn’t remember, and then with a love
that he wasn’t fast enough to save. It was complicated.
There were nuclear missiles, Lex Luthor, and beachfront property
in Nevada. Superman could be forgiven
for not stopping two missile detonations on opposite sides
of the country. The loss he felt while digging through the rubble 
and holding her broken body in his arms. Even great power
has limits. He couldn’t save her. So, he did
what any rational, near-omnipotent Kansas farm boy
would do. He unwound the world like we might an old clock.
He flew beyond light and beyond time. He could be forgiven
for being naïve. Love can make the best of us stupid.
He traveled 187,000 miles a second
because he wasn’t fast enough to be there in time.

[dukealien]

Setbacks


Don’t know much about
reincarnation but
those disgraceful men
or women who return
as dogs or snakes again
must enjoy relearning
wonders of those habiliments
scents on air feel
of earth rasping under scales
more than lukewarm human
souls arriving in fresh babies
savor their repeating trek
to dutiful adulthood.

[busker]

If I got a second chance at life -
I'd like to do it over again,
but with foreknowledge of what would happen at all times.
For example, when I was five-
and-ten, futilely campaign-
ing for that girl, my rhymes
flowing like water, I could win her
over in a jiffy,
spiffy and smart, knowing the future
and optimising it.
But the moment she fell to my charms, alack!
The future would be changed - I couldn't have it back,
nor take a hack at things unalive.