LPiA-22 Nov. 17

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 17


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 : Write a poem inspired by an unusual hobby.
Form : Any
Line requirements: 8 or more
Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

[Mark A Becker]

Down by the creek
where I would always stop
with Jack (my dog),
there had appeared,
years after he'd died,
a fitting tribute
to him (and maybe me)-
piled neatly along the bank-
dozens of brightly painted rocks.

[Wjames]

Model Citizens

There is a village in your grandfather's basement.

It runs on a schedule
as firm as the gold in his ring.

The CN train departs in 1959
and arrives in the present
with a lonesome whistle,
crying with laughter
at the colours of the past.

[CRNDLSM]

Good ole fashioned honor system
If you can recognize the bird by it's call
It counts. Don't miss the next hurricane.
What's the farthest you'd migrate for one?
Time off work, time in planes, trains, boats,
Hidden in the woods, sneaking into grandmas
Yards, zoos, wildlife parks. No one's ever broke 1000.
Be the first, you always have next year.

[dukealien]

The Also-Walkeds

A hobby demanding
as chess or Parcheesi
more physical, true,
but one calling for strategy:
Spectating golf!  Spending
hundreds for tickets
and haunting a hole to watch
all of the brackets
or walking en masse
with umbrellas and patter-claps.

[TranquillityBase]

The Master sent me flies
to devour
they tasted metallic

so I began to collect the flies
for my spider friends

then birds 
to eat the spiders

but my keepers
deny me a cat
and so I drink the blood
of the birds.

They know not what they do

I must ascend to man
to assuage my hunger
for eternity.

[Semicircle]

Hobby Horse

In days passing
his irritancy grew
laden on his brow.

Departing
alone, he locked us
in the cabin.

We watched him stride
through the fairy ring
without turning back.

At night the forest whooped
as its branches rustled
with the same irritant.

Thunder cracked out
like a knotted spine,
hail pelted down like
wasp stingers.

From the darkness
arose shadow
defined in flashes.

From deep within
its tuba gut pronounced
an oath that bore
into the earth.

The shadow approached
the now shattered window
and bellowed like a freight train
going through a tunnel.

We pooled at our ears
and the youngest cried out.

The shadow lingered before
it drew away, but in the
darkness between lightning
we believed it was still there.




In the afternoon
birds chirped in blinding sunlight.

He shambled over to our picnic blanket
mottled and covered in scars
with uncharacteristic cheeriness.

I asked him where he'd gone.

"Fishing"

[brynmawr1]

You are gentle and do not
have a warrior's heart
my instructor told me
when I finished my college
class in Kendo (the way of the sword).
Twice weekly we gathered
barefoot in a gym to learn
the Bushido code wearing
our armor, shinai gripped
just so.  We charged each
other like rutting rams
to strike at head, heart, wrist
yelling Kiai with stomping
feet to show our warriors heart.
Not very convincingly, I guess.
Thirty years later, my shinai
sits propped against a wall
just incase he was wrong.

[RiverNotch]

Heartaches


If you leave your storage unit
unpaid, she pays for it

and claims all that's behind the door,
of course. She runs no charity

nor no business, she gives away
most of what she finds

to Goodwill, keeping for herself
only papers, photos, and the occasional

trophy or token clearly labeled,
the jar with "John's First Tooth"

or the ribbon that went "Third Prize
Barbecue, Waco, '72".

She gives them a week, then at her spot
on the playa, she builds for them

a pyramid of sticks
and kerosene. "Well?"

she asks the young
hikers taking indignant

selfies before the pyre.
"It's just a burning memory."

[Mark A Becker]

In days passing

Good one slicer

[Semicircle]

In days passing

Good one slicer

Thanks Mark, wouldn't have come up with it without the prompt.