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 02: Write a poem inspired by a hard truth (something true that people often don't like to admit).
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

Why Not Go Clean?

Totally clean.
Totally clean.
No alcohol.
No ganja or pills, straws or needles.
No processed food.
Take a shower twice a day.
Brush after every meal.

No masturbating.

Impossible.

3000 in Technicolor


Well in truth I always thought I was a far better fit
for the life of an actor rather than for the life
of a poet or a singer or a rapper or some other
artist using exclusively words, but then
color pictures entered the market
and when I had my picture
taken, no one, not even
the taker, came
to watch.

Kathleen Z



I don’t say every cop is corrupt, I don’t
say every Chicago cop is corrupt. I do say
that in this case
a young businessman,
law-abiding, innocent,
was stitched up by
one particular Chicago cop
and jailed for nineteen years
because his skin was black.

Not every cop chains a suspect
to a wall while he investigates.

Faced with the facts of a succesful career -
fine home, expensive car, Italian suits -
not every cop would say ‘Niggers
shouldn’t live like this’.

Not every cop lies in court, and
persuades others to lie,

not every cop fabricates
admissions of guilt,

but this cop did.

No multi-million dollar
compensation can ever
give my client back
those nineteen years.

The Same White Daylight

We have been invited to listen
to a child torture the harpsichord.
We would prefer to move 
the harpsichord for friends, 
up wet steps to the third floor of an apartment—
like Sisyphus and the damn stone.
Yet, we go 
and tell the child
how proud we are of them.
Even if we know, the lessons were wasted,
and if we wish we were wasted
when we had to hear them play.
We press our fingertips upon the glass
of their window and stare
through the square of our window,
and the same light blinds us,
and we comment on how stupid we are
that we looked into the light and cannot see—
Something we would never say
to the child.

Sunday's chore

A finger too fat for the ring
holds on to the gold, untarnished.
The cars get waxed, grass cut,
paving slabs scrubbed. A rebirth
of sorts.

Many times the house is cleaned
dusted, bleached and moped.
A thickening veneer hardens
the surface, only dreams can weave
between the could have been
that duty stops, and stays
but unpainted wood still rots.

Golly this woman is amazing -she only takes innocent clients telling them, 'you better be innocent because I will find out' she's even gotten a guilty party to confess on the stand, pays for her own investigations,  love it

(04-02-2017, 03:16 PM)just mercedes Wrote:  Kathleen Z



I don’t say every cop is corrupt, I don’t
say every Chicago cop is corrupt. I do say
that in this case
a young businessman,
law-abiding, innocent,
was stitched up by
one particular Chicago cop
and jailed for nineteen years
because his skin was black.

Not every cop chains a suspect
to a wall while he investigates.

Faced with the facts of a succesful career -
fine home, expensive car, Italian suits -
not every cop would say ‘Niggers
shouldn’t live like this’.

Not every cop lies in court, and
persuades others to lie,

not every cop fabricates
admissions of guilt,

but this cop did.

No multi-million dollar
compensation can ever
give my client back
those nineteen years.

---

Dream Car

A large white bull charging down the road
Smooth curves, sleek and sporty
Sliding doors
Removable seats
Automatic
V8

DVD player in the back

Democracy

I know now.
I know how many.
I know you live next door,
sit at my family table,
accept my dollar in payment
and officially represent me.

You fray the tightrope of hope
I travel, its length thinly stretched
over the hard fall of despair;
I see your faces below
me smiling, anticipating
the satisfaction of a fall
you are convinced will heal.

Every step forward
I have applauded
you would wash away
under the delusion
that we lived in a more fair
world sixty years ago,
that freedoms gained
have imprisoned you.

I know now
that optimism is just
that, the reach for joy
stretching further.

                           

                                                < George is drunk again >

                                His brain damaged by a stupid war
                                He's come over every night for the last four days
                                I'm supposed to be his friend

                                Tonight

                                I park my car on another street
                                I turn out all my lights
                                I lock all my doors
                                And
                                I pretend
                                I'm not here

Horoscope 

Sunday's planets align, they say that I'll
find confidence, a new side of myself
or meet a strange figure, a twin. For real;
I wish the stars would tell me what to give
the kids for dinner and which night the bins
go out. A worn moon guards an empty sky,
a paper plate slit through a torn black bag.

   Like A Train

Viable veins is the stumper, then
what once the garden served, with sun,
song, and hormones to incinerate from
the inside out, what little chance there
ever was, I never saw, you never said,
what cornucopia opened to make us
both translucent, to float with, like a train
we pretended would never stop,
not at the reservoir, not ever
in daylight, not ever in peace.  Is it
really pretense if I never lost faith?

(04-03-2017, 01:11 AM)Donald Q. Wrote:  Horoscope 

Sunday's planets align, they say that I'll
find confidence, a new side of myself
or meet a strange figure, a twin. For real;
I wish the stars would tell me what to give
the kids for dinner and which night the bins
go out. A worn moon guards an empty sky,
a paper plate slit through a torn black bag.

I really like the moon imagery.

The Queen of Hearts, they called her.  Headlines wrote
themselves; the tabloid papers would devote
at least an inch each morning to her shoes
and made of her a goddess.  Should their muse
walk down a street, she had "the common touch",
although she didn't touch the poor too much
unless a camera waited. She would pose
and look down her aristocratic nose
at those whom she would never see again,
and smile. Sometimes she'd take a mother's wean
to make herself look caring. Those would sell
her image best; such acts would help dispel
the rumours of affairs. A woman must
appear as the Madonna -- if her lust
got out of hand, the peasants would not buy
the paeans of the Sun. Oh, Lady Di:
not even still a princess when she died,
but just some Arab playboy's latest ride.

Basics (Jody call)

Innie, outie, some may say
everyone’s a little gay;
likewise, whatsoever hue
everyone’s a racist, too:
if you know your race is best
you’re a racist, that’s the test;
but if you think all shun you
they’d be worse - if it were true.
So when you shun them for that
you’re a racist, tit for tat.

The Pigs Understood


Democracy and free elections,
opportunity and trickle-down economics
the wall read: all animals were equal,
but not all animals had the burdens
of leadership. If the trough were full
then surely those who ate first
would slop some to the ground
so that others who were also equal
could eat.

Service

Beside the band the ladies choir’s unheard
-- yet lift together, up they call to God.
Their blessed cacophonies of shapeless word
together tumble to the shapeless good.
Like first raindrops reversed, they slowly cease.
Murmur. Thump-thump. Intones the man of God:
“All loving. Peace. To him your heart release!”
More to preach to us would be to be -- flawed.
The end! The broad beside me cries amen
amidst the shuffling feet and “where to eat?”
She’s alone upon the choirstand and then
through quickened flood she’s now beside my seat.
“Did you like it daddy?” as ‘gainst me she is leaning.
But how to say to her I couldn’t discern the meaning?

facial deconstruction

yesterday it was silk over fine china bone
I'm sure it was
but today it is a thousand tiny creases
each one to my eyes a grand canyon

Yesterday it was spandex tight and desert white
I'm sure it was
but today it is pleated like that plaid school girl skirt
it now would look ridiculous to wear

I'm broke

On the first day of my paycheck I gave to me:

5 lost scratchers
4 micro-transactions
3 traffic tickets
2 late fees
and a quarter ounce of primo weed.

Postpartum


It's the 4th night after giving birth,
and she thinks of how the doctor said to sleep
when the baby sleeps, but she's never felt the devil
in the doorway the way he is tonight.

He's slid in to the empty space
the OB/GYN created-–
the one who held her swollen hand on Sunday
then barely made eye contact on Tuesday,
ducking into her room at 8:00pm
to approve hospital discharge.

Her newborn sleeps in her arms, fragrant
as a moonflower. She thinks of the safety
box with a loaded 357 Magnum,
how its lead would eliminate her elemental ills,
about what a coward she is and how irrational.
She's trying to escape the darkness after all,
not run into its arms like a child,
giddy at daddy's return.

The suitcase she took to the hospital is still packed
in the trunk of the car, but she wouldn't be able
to back up past the driveway's end
before the stabbing pain of the crescent incision
crowning her pubis brought her to tears.

Its not true, but she believes she must choose:
life for herself or for others. Is it virtue,
laziness, or prescription oxycodone
that helps her stay? Or is it fear of hell,
the bottomless well she'd fall eternally into
if she left a hole in her baby's heart?

Breathing the dopamine-blonde of the newborn's head
is the only sedative that works for her,
so surrender is the inevitable victor.
But, there is no climax, not really-–
her choices were made when she accepted the part
nine months ago. And the play's the thing.

Taking Notes

Darkened goo drooled
just enough to tear the place apart.
She had hidden a trusty bottle of Nice 'n Easy
in a secret compartment under a couch
in the old travel trailer.
Even on camping trips, for only $3,
she fooled us all.
She died very young, only 65.
Dad, a white haired man,
lived much longer.