NaPM 23 April 2022

[RiverNotch]

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: Include a paean in your poem (and no, not the words "a paean" -- you could write a paean yourself, or describe the singing of a paean, etc.)

Form: Any

Line Requirement: At least 12

[Semicircle]

The man on the sidewalk holding a bit of cardboard


All hail
the windswept gale,
like bass strings
sending shivers
down calm pools.

All hail,
the storm that prevail,
wiping away everything,
cleansing the world
of impurity.

In the end
the gale so eloquently peters,
carrying the wind on it's back
into an endless void.

[TranquillityBase]

O Seventies
you led me into the Magic Forest
and left me no bread crumbs, 
just tabs of blotter acid
to lead me deeper into the Witch’s dark lands,
the Witch that turned me into this blind Worm.

I’ve awaited the Moment
that would transform me back into a Man
so long, so long,
but once lost, never found is the truth
of this half-century Kingdom.

Six decades of detritus
are my feeding ground, and having fed,
I leave a trail of hallucinations
but Anna Karina never finds me
though her close-up beauty
never leaves me lost for long.

[Mark A Becker]

Sprung

With layers unpeeling
we open our windows
unfurling that feeling
of finally sprung
on the wheeling
of Spring.

We're finally sprung
to finally sing
so let it be sung
that it's finally Spring!

Refreshing showers
that quench
thirsty flowers
blossoms all bursting
and a sheen
of new green.

We're finally sprung
to finally sing
so let it be sung
that it's finally Spring!

Feel the warm
whirling in
from the floor
to the ceiling
hear the cardinals
sing.

We're finally sprung
to finally sing
so let it be sung
that it's finally Spring!

[CRNDLSM]

The lighthouse new caretaker
buried the old one under
the big stones nearest the shore,
next to the previous two.
The next caretaker he knew
would need the light more and more
til obsession takes over
and he's also the undertaker.

[dukealien]

Paean to Apollo Expositor


Praise be to great god Apollo
second only to Zeus time-slayer
sing praise, O muse, to your immortal
master, striker with arrows,
healer of wounds he has inflicted.

Praise him, holder-bestower of
Hygiea’s rod enspiraled by
ancient Python slain by Apollo,
master, striker with arrows,
healer of wounds he has inflicted.

Praise him, patron of Asclepius
first of physicians, dealer with ills
Hygeia’s purity fails to avert:
master, striker with arrows,
healer of wounds he has inflicted

Above all praise great Apollo
bearer of sunlight he dispenses
to expose lies and false prophets–
master, striker with arrows,
healer of wounds he has inflicted.

[RiverNotch]

Do you hear the ancient chorus, a line of women
in their city's finest linen, their ears and necks spangled
with gold and silver, their throats intoning the words
of their black-haired chief?

"Deathless Aphrodite", they go, imagining
men in place of the woman their chief
imagined that the goddess would return
to end her longing.

High voices reach the goddess, while the low
drone that ties the performance together
honors with its pre-verbal "Na" the goddess
who rules the dead.

"Some say that an army of ships is the most beautiful
thing on this black earth", the chorus sings
to welcome the men returning from the perils
of vengeance and the sea

as the infernal queen prepares for her return
to her gloomy realm, but now she sits
where once she roused her husband grant the wish
of despondent Orpheus

with tears -- but now it is winter -- and the chorus
must rouse to more ardent action the men
for the polis to have new life. "Come to me now", and the ode
transforms into a paean

as the singers begin to disperse: the maidens start for the fields
where they'll weave crowns out of flowers they dried
over the summer, the wives march to their homes side-by-side
with their husbands,

and black-haired Psappho joins the low-voiced crones
to the temples of their protector Hera,
their preserver Hestia, and their bosom-friend
Persephone.

[Tiger the Lion]

Ode to a Non-Denominational Wedding Crasher

He's in every picture.

He is Fifth Business;
the Alpha and Omega
of the photobomb.

You see Him reflected
in the moistened eyes 
of the bridesmaids 
and groomsmen.

In one shot
He is superimposed
over the entire party;
a Ghost dancing in the bubbles
of raised champagne flutes--

and not a bad dancer, too,

it's sad we never got His name.