LPiA-23 Nov. 2

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 2

Rules: Write a poem for LPiA on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a New Reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for the month of November. (or one, or six, or fifteen) Prompts may be revisited at any time. All members are welcome.

Topic : Write a poem inspired by a fashion you wish would return. (Or one you'd like to see go.) 
Form : Any
Line requirements: Eight or more.

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

Questions?

[CRNDLSM]

What a croc
You can probably guess
A movie named idiocracy
To be about a modern day
America - a land where crops
Are dying on a diet of Gatorade
And everyone wears the same 
Shoes.  But you wouldn't notice 
The futuristic unparalleled design
Ahead of its time from a start up
Company making boat shoes
From Canadian croslite, as 
So ridiculous and affordable
To be featured in a movie
About a desolate land
Of the dumbest people
to then become so wildly
Succesful.

[dukealien]

After a Fashion


The custom I would like to see return
is opening closed doors for ladies who
accompany a gentleman.  I yearn
to let them pass through first; instead I rue
these feminist conceits which seek to bind me
when all I want is to be gracious, true–
and never let the woman get behind me.

[RiverNotch]

Modernity does not invalidate tradition
but creates its own -- and yet do not
follow the lead of your fathers for their sake
or for the sake of tradition itself
as tradition, if living, needs no thing
and the dead cry out only for justice.

Remember that Marx's so-called condemnation
was, in truth, a mere observation:
in the same breath as when he said
"religion is the opium of the masses",
he called it "the soul of soulless conditions,
the heart of a heartless world".

[Tiger the Lion]

I'll Never Wake Up in a Good Mood Again

Between seventeen
and twenty-two years old
I was an inch and a half taller.

We were in a Goth band
and all wore "Nosepickers;"

ankle high leather boots
with a zip on the inside
a pointed toe
and generous heel
just like the Beatles wore.

We'd stink them up
and wear them down
to the rivets 

until grunge came
and we gave them up for Dr. Marten's
and wool socks.

They don't sell them anymore.

[Wjames]

Grandpa’s teal ring
was not spoken for
in his will.

It circles the bone
of his wedding finger,
rotting with the worms
churning earth.

[TranquillityBase]

Battle of the Tears

Today on the Dueling Network,
it’s Madame Butterfly versus Joan of Arc.
If you’re new to our show,
each day at sunrise
we display for your vicarious view
a dreamed of single combat
not necessarily to the death.

This morning, before dawn,
each contestant has had glass tubes
inserted into their tear ducts
a la Pavlov’s famed dogs.

The oddsmakers favor Joan,
she has God on her side,
but Ms. Butterfly has an aria or two
that might be called supernatural.

Each will have ten minutes to weep
and the drama begins after this message
from our sponsors,
Daniel Defense, Smith & Wesson, Sturm Ruger,
Sig Sauer & Bushmaster Firearms
who will duel among themselves
for your more fatal impulses.

Stay tuned.

[rayheinrich]

< Freedom >

I wish that parents
could let their kids roam free again.

Freedom

Some kids at the library,
poking their noses into the room;
curious about poetry.

And here was an old man that promised to reveal its secrets.

Kids.
All five of them.

But they'd never hear of secrets, because one kid said he couldn't stay long.
He had to leave in half an hour when his mom got off work to come to pick him up.

And I said:
you only live a mile away,
you could just walk.

And they just looked at me like I'd said something crazy.

When I was your age, I said,
(I'm guessing they were about ten years old.)
I rode my bike to this library,
and I had friends who walked.

They couldn't believe it.

In the morning,
when I was your age,
I'd get on my bike
and ride two miles to school.

(My mom was a housewife, milkman delivered milk twice a week, put it inside
the door since we never locked it, small town behind the times, and earlier
my dad had taken our only car to work.)

Yes, I said,

alone.

Yes, I said again,

by myself.

(Small school, woods on one side, at recess the girls would make houses in the woods,
just a square of tree branches with an opening for a door.)

And after school,
I got on my bike and rode.

My parents only rule:
Be home by dark.

(We'd have supper every night sitting around the kitchen table, and afterwards
we'd listen to radio programs, we didn't have a television as yet.)

So after school
I got on my bike and rode;
In any direction I chose.

The subdivision to the east
with all my friends.
(Sometimes when I visited, I'd get invited to supper,
their mom would call mine, ask if that was okay.)

The library to the north;
Small wood building, single room, the scent of the books
as I opened them.

The forest to the south;
snakes and turtles,
with parts still unexplored.

And the bay to the west,
my favorite.

Some of my friends
lived on the bay
and had small boats.

We would row
to tiny islands,
made when they dredged the ship channel years ago.

A small string of islands that stretched about 3 miles.
Each one only 500 ft long and 50 across.
Old enough for bushes and a tiny tree or two.

We'd make forts (with one foot high walls),
from scrap lumber we took
from new houses being built.

We'd sit on the banks of our island,
watch the cargo ships pass by,
listen to the waves made by their wakes
splash up on our shore.

Our island.
Ours alone.

Every afternoon.
I could go anywhere my bike could take me.

My only rule:
Be home by dark.

Freedom.

---

[Fearful Symmetry]

Steelies and Windmills

Playing marbles, we haunted
the linoleum entryway

like the poltergeist
that rattles this poem,

bedsheet membrane
keeping curiously

out of sight.
In this, my brother displayed

an eloquent property
of matter — one thing

cannot occupy
the space of another.

He was a good brother
and molested me for years.