LPiA Nov16

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 16

Rules: Write a poem for LPiA 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 the month of November. 


Topic : Seeing as we're half way through... write a poem about "getting over the hump" or entering the "home stretch."
Form : Something outside your comfort level (or not)
Line requirements: Eight or more

Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

[RiverNotch]

Sestina


March, summer for suckers, fills the cafe
with those who dress in vintage, ration
like it's wartime, and silently scream
into their phones, "This world's a stove
run out of gas! Who can raise a child
in this climate?" All while the old hyena

laughs, skulking for food. Here in Addis Ababa, hyenas
fill the streets at night, scavenge the cafes
and hospitals for left-behind children
like beggars for scraps of himbasha. "Wasted rations",
thinks the beggar tending an old stove,
"all a mother's labor, all her screams

dissolved by stomach acid." Every night, the screams
(or is it laughs?) of roughing it (or living the life?) hyenas
permeate the air like smoke from earthen stoves
cooking charcoal to sell to the cafes
who serve their coffee authentic. Such fancy rations
for the tourists and their spoiled children,

imported coffee and himbasha loaves and the occasional child
to be brought back home and shown the wonders of screaming
into one's phone, complaining about such meager rations
as foreign bread and coffee! A hyena
grins -- "Isn't she cute?" -- while the cafe
drives away the beggar from their stove

for the tourists to take their picture. "Back home, our stoves
are powered by electricity. They're safe enough for a child
to touch, so long as she's not metal." The owner of the cafe
musses his daughter's hair. "Come on, stop your screaming.
Out there in New York, there are no hyenas
and you won't have to save your rations

like it's wartime." "Baba, it's not about the rations
nor the burns on my arms this ancient stove
has all the right to inflict. Are you sure there are no hyenas
where you ask to send me? Where none of the children
seem to suffer, where none of them cry and scream?"
The sun sets. The tourists leave the cafe

with their new child. The grinning hyena
rubs her back against the dying stove, her rations
lying in a pile behind the cafe. Another scream.

[TranquillityBase]

Ahab got over the hump the hard way,
I’m looking for the highway,
but nothing seems to say
this journey will ever end.

I lay down my footsteps
watching out for Armageddon
stumbling over biblical mishaps.
I carry a map of folk songs
a lantern fueled by starlight
and a blank scroll six feet long
where I record each rising blight.

I smell the dust sing of the road:
it winds away over the next misdirection,
I slip and slide, this time over
the backside of Quasimodo’s indiscretion.

It’s an endless quest, this up and down,
back around, one hump after another
until I climb a final rise, a gallows, at dawn
and kiss the noose, my long lost lover.

[CRNDLSM]

Never Done (a kyrielle)

Another day, another week, month, year
Since I was born the end was always near
Only recently I've become a grump
Surely by now I'd be over the hump

I've eaten roughly 40,000 meals
The hole in my stomach time doesn't heal
Swallowing pride will end up at the dump
Surely by now I'd be over this hump

God I hope everything's downhill from here
I'm too exhausted for rational fear
Maybe the other sides a cliff to jump
Surely by now I'd be over this hump

Maybe this straight lines a rotating wheel
Centrifugal force is aging we feel
Each stress manifests into a new lump
Surely by now I'm over the hump

[Mark A Becker]

Flying Lessons

I.
The boy puzzles over it
like a new toy that’s broken.

He prods it with his slingshot,
prying red feathers open.

II.
Clumsy fingers claw the dirt,
scratching out a shallow hole.

He covers up the dark spot
with dead leaves, and a large stone.

III.
Thin blades push green from under
the stone, stretching for the light.

They flap, and flare, and flutter,
as if trying to take flight.

[dukealien]

death rainbow (Tanka)


auburn and pale green
and banana yellow bands
fall garden winding
down to winter’s weekend
drowsing against spring’s Monday