NaPm, April 20, 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: Celebrity Impressions
Choose a famous icon (can be current, historical, fictional, or etc.) and write a poem from their point of view.  
Form : any.  (though, if you think your chosen character would write using a particular form, then go with that.)
Line requirements: any

Questions?

[Todd]

Gwyneth Paltrow: On Seventy Percent of You

I’m speaking today to you,
to seventy percent of you.
I’m not a scientist, but I do research
from my coffee table. Coffee
is also like you, except for the caffeine,
which should be used sparingly,
on weekends, like a cigarette.
Remember, you can only get lung cancer
from a habit, not a treat.
But back to me and you,
We are fluid, or fluids, unpretentious, and clear—
not in the way of Scientologists,
unless you happen to be one,
in which case, you are clear in two ways.
You are mostly water. I turn on my tap,
and out you flow. You are water,
and you have feelings.
When people speak negative truths
about you, your water hears. Seventy percent
of you freezes under this contempt,
and not into chic ice cubes.
The other thirty percent is more resilient,
like leather gladiator sandals. Affirm yourself,
at least affirm most of yourself
and thank the water you drink.
It is your closest cousin.

[Keith]

What would Eccles say if he wasn't Spike

He would ask himself if being eccentric is deliberate,
to escape confrontation by going a little crazy.
After all, happiness without failure isn't funny.
He would ask when did I stop growing up
and resign myself to the purity of humor.

A mind always swimming on the edge
of the waterfall vulnerable to the torrent
with bubble bath and back scrub
just for comedic content.

The would be knight
calling out a grovelling bastard
and laying anarchic stones
later collected by branded followers
of a fashion that understood the obscure.

I would ask where is my cut
you thieving bunch of crooks.

[dukealien]

Yr. Obdt. Svt.

Oh, Gods I may address more straight than One
Whose Judgement I shall Face at His own Hour
Permit your Servant’s many Tasks be done
At Twelve, like Hercules of matchless Power!
Let one whose Mortal Strength could Not his Match
Depart to Peaceful Slumber neath these Trees
His own Hands planted in this Shady Patch
Which shall live after Death their Planter frees.
Complain he does Not, who in War has led
And in this Angry Peace has felt the Darts
Of Rumor without Truth, whose Heart has Bled
Beyond the Reach of Surgeons’ Healing Arts.
Now Jupiter and Mars attend my Shade–
Defend this Nation Mind and Might have Made!

Of two poems attributed to George Washington, one is an Elizabethan sonnet.  We moderns would call it rife with inversions and classical allusions, which were the fashion of the time.  His interest (some have called it an obsession) with trees is well documented.