LPiA-23 Nov. 4

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 4

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 an unusual phobia. 
Form : Any
Line requirements: Eight or more.

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

Questions?

[TranquillityBase]

Before the sun could do more
than illuminate the gray of an early November day
I was having coffee with the last of the tree frogs
a conversation mostly of farewell.
Then came birdsong as I debated the value
of what was to come.
If only I had a script, an injection of passion or even just dry humor
to lead the way to each scene,
to tell me where to stand, whether to shake my head or cry.
Part of me knew what was coming
more pages of print revealing that my hero
was a cold-blooded killer.
His doctor’s detachment stood him in good stead
in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra.
But at least Ashbery’s poems have freed me
and light, artificial or otherwise, can no longer deter me.
There are always the pills
ready to invade my bloodstream, turn it into a river
of brain changing pulses, impelling me onward
across the chasms and around the quicksands
of simply living through another 24 hour era.
The essential problem is there’s no victory
to come, only endless, trivial revolution.
To accept that, I need a Buddha or a Christ
and both seem more at home as figures in the sky
and so my meditations end.
My wife is making her coffee
and the movie begins. 

[dukealien]

Entirely Rational


Islamophobia: now that’s
a strange and pseudo-psychic terminology–
for on one hand
it does not apply
to Muslims who aren’t terrorists

and on the other it’s not fear
but a kind of rational respect
for terrorists’ fanatical
and incorrigible
will and ability
to be evil
and to do it

which requires us
in full sad sincerity
to kill them, every one
man, woman, “child”
and all who aid them
in their villainy.

[RiverNotch]

The slabs of slate above his head,
the white walls around him, and the bricks
piled high beneath his feet

holding up his home: he's grown afraid
not of the vines whose roots dig deep
into the mortar, cracking much more than paint,

but of the house itself -- not of the skips
in the records he often played
when he was younger, but of the music

itself: their melodies and rhythms
serving lines too earnestly embodied
by those too young to know the world,

those with the audacity to rail
against their ivory towers.

[Wjames]

There are strangers in the room
laughing at a barb lobbed at your throat
without intent.

There is nothing to say,
smile and let the blood drip
down your chest and pool
in your navel.

You can wash it off tonight,
when you're alone.

[CRNDLSM]

I'm afraid of sharks
Until I'm afraid of drowning
I'm afraid of drowning
Until im afraid of starving
I'm afraid of starving
Until im afraid of sharks
I'm afraid of sharks
Until I'm afraid of blood loss
I'm afraid of the ocean
Until I'm afraid of dying

[Tiger the Lion]

Not a Neophobe

you don't scare me

you've got nothing 
on the taxman, the priest 
or the press

identify as dragons
for all I care

you don't scare me

paint yourselves purple
and talk like you're pink--

you don't scare me

whip your neck my direction
and spit false fire in my face

you don't scare me
you don't scare me
you don't scare me.

[rayheinrich]

                                < ice cream you scream >
                       
                        you just made it out of summer again
                        you're safe into the months of winter
                        safe
                        on the good side of equinox
                       
                        so close your eyes and forget about last summer
                        and don't think about the next one
                       
                        don't think about those god-damned sloppy kids
                        those sloppy kids dropping their god-damn ice cream
                        don't think about when it starts to melt
                        it starts to run
                        it starts running fast enough to catch you
                       
                                                    - - -