2025 NaPM 18 April

[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.


This year, there are no form requirements, only "tiers" or "rankings" given informally to all participants:

Bronze Tier: Participate at least once.

Silver Tier: Participate all days.

Gold Tier: Participate all days, and have all entries be the same form or have all entries be different forms.


Write a poem involving a hanging, whether Jesus on the cross or black bodies on poplar trees.

[poetry_zealot]

The Hanging Tree

there is a sole oak tree
somewhere in my vineyard;
the grass shines a golden hue
around its uninvited visage.

birds don’t dare approach;
rams graze quietly around it;
villagers speak in hushed tones
about the story of the great oak tree:

they say
when the grapes
are ripe for harvest,
it produces
the finest wine
from a lone noose
tied to a fraying branch.

[Mark A Becker]

The Family Tree

Even in broad daylight
as kids call him over
to the brand new tire swing
great-granddad won't go near

......... that gnarled old southern oak.

He has not forgotten
that night so long ago,
a chilly summer breeze,
his blonde hair flowing free.

No one can convince him
now, of his innocence,
or how long he should feel
what he saw wasn't real.

(Men swinging on that tree,
legs twitching, throats choking.)
His shock became frozen-
his story unspoken.



FORM: syllabic

This is a complete revision of an earlier poem

[busker]

Naguib Mahfouz

I dream of a world where American troubles
are confined to American bubbles
and don't pervade everything else.
Look at today's prompt: why should hanging knells
be for black bodies from poplar trees? Why black?
You could say it's because the men who strung up Barack
Obama lookalikes wore shirts and slacks,
not bearskin wraparounds in the Arctic cold
like their prehistoric ancestors,
but I say it's because the only tale that's told
is of American struggle, and lo and behold
we have only American prompts for inspiration.
Look at the Egyptian nation:
no one talks about Naguib Mahfouz. Even Cavafy's sold
on his 'last great Greek' reputation
in a dying outpost of Alexander's empire.
I shall turn to the Arabic fold
and shut myself out from America's oversold
problem-of-the-human-condition art, white and black.
Who cares about Kate and Jack
on the Titanic, or what some gifted hack
on Wall Street did in 1987?
Let him die, and be denied heaven.

---

The Family Tree

Even in broad daylight
as kids call him over
to the brand new tire swing
great-granddad won't go near

......... that gnarled old southern oak.

He has not forgotten
that night so long ago,
a chilly summer breeze,
his blonde hair flowing free.

No one can convince him
now, of his innocence,
or how long he should feel
what he saw wasn't real.

(Men swinging on that tree,
legs twitching, throats choking.)
His shock became frozen-
his story unspoken.



FORM: syllabic

This is a complete revision of an earlier poem

nice one. I was thinking that it looked familiar.

[dukealien]

Hung for Love


In two mass hangings I’ve participated– 
judged hangings, where those hung were mostly framed.
Our tool was twisted wire, and placards named
each object of our effort, indexed, rated.

The first was for a woman I once dated
whose psychedelic oils were featured there;
my mother’s water-colors, hung with care
formed part of the exhibit in the second.
That’s how it went when mom or sweetheart beckoned:
help at the gallery, and hang them square!

[Form:  Espinela]

Interpreting the subject... broadly   

[RiverNotch]

The Kankana-ey's honored dead
are hanged high off the sides of cliffs

in coffins small as casks of wine,
the curled-up way one enters life

is how one also ought to die,
at least according to that tribe

of not-quite-negroes once St. Louis
put on display like animals

for eating dog, as if they thought
such meals did not mean sacrifice

in fruitful times, while in the drought
imposed on them by their curators,

their not-quite-slavers, it was eat
or, in that level country, die.

[brynmawr1]

A Hanging

The question is always
how much rope to give.

Too short and they dangle
blue faced, eyes popping;

better long, they said, quicker-
solid sound of necks snapping.

The sound that woke us
too groggily, absently, fretfully

having dreamt of the rope;
how quietly it weaves

until we are all swinging.

[rowens]

Runed Dionysia


pagan wind sways my idle branch
I the tree himself hang
with sounds
and slide against my lover neighbor
our roots an incest hypnagogia
fungi networks

I hang upside down
pinecone phallic

[carahmellow]

Festive embellishments
hung with care and intention,
by hands so tiny,
from a cord of lights,
not from the sturdy branch
that begged to be adorned
with an ornament
of fading memory.
A tiny act,
a quiet lesson:
to let go, to smile,
to embrace
imperfection,
in all its glorious perfection.