Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 21
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 Holiday Traditions. 
Form : Any
Line requirements: 8 or more

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

Questions?

That Guest at Christmas

My grandmother invited that girl I married
to celebrate Christmas.
We were placed at the kid’s table,
served brown meat
with my cousin whose neck
was red from the codeine
in grandmother’s bathroom.

Paper was ripped from presents
with the warmth of an assembly line,
piled at everyone’s feet.
My mother and aunt stacked
unopened presents
in towers on the pool table,
their annual duel
over who was more loved.

She watched my family
like something feral
circling Christmas.

Deserted Ark


The Company gave Dad Good Friday off
(which was, if I recall, a common thing
back then, when faith was not forbidden us
as motivation for paid holidays)
and we, by firm tradition, spent it at
the Zoo.  For company (small “C”) we had
sparse vendors who, it seemed, outnumbered guests
and animals who in gray, early Spring,
endured missed crowds with equanimity.
It never did occur to me back then
that we, like Noah’s family, fared forth
with two (or more) of each beast to be found
in that great concrete ship tossed on a mount.
Giraffes stood silent, chimps did not perform;
great apes, alone, showed interest as we passed.

"Spooktober Traditions"

I rise like a revenant from its grave
to dress my lair for the spooky season.
Those hallowed nights when ghosts and spectres rave,
when costumed revels scarce need a reason.

Black tinsel garlands span the vaulted dark,
the air bewitched with incense, spice, and songs.
Skeletons dance as cardboard vampires lurk,
and carved gourds leer thru candle-lit wounds.

My guests arrive, a demon host unbound,
their costumes stitched from nightmares wrought of thread.
We toast the dusk, then revelries resound,
and we dance as though the sun itself lay dead.

I dream of Autumnal masques all year round;
Ghosts aren't real, but my parties are profound.

(11-21-2025, 12:19 PM)Todd Wrote:  My grandmother invited that girl I married

Haha omg, did she ever forgive you?

(11-22-2025, 07:50 AM)Mostly Holy Wrote:  "Spooktober Traditions"

I rise like a revenant from its grave
to dress my lair for the spooky season.
Those hallowed nights when ghosts and spectres rave,
when costumed revels scarce need a reason.

Black tinsel garlands span the vaulted dark,
the air bewitched with incense, spice, and songs.
Skeletons dance as cardboard vampires lurk,
and carved gourds leer thru candle-lit wounds.

My guests arrive, a demon host unbound,
their costumes stitched from nightmares wrought of thread.
We toast the dusk, then revelries resound,
and we dance as though the sun itself lay dead.

I dream of Autumnal masques all year round;
Ghosts aren't real, but my parties are profound.

(11-21-2025, 12:19 PM)Todd Wrote:  My grandmother invited that girl I married

Haha omg, did she ever forgive you?

I'm surprised we're still married.  You need the eye's of someone else to show you how fundamentally strange your family is.

(11-22-2025, 04:49 AM)dukealien Wrote:  Deserted Ark


The Company gave Dad Good Friday off
(which was, if I recall, a common thing
back then, when faith was not forbidden us
as motivation for paid holidays)
and we, by firm tradition, spent it at
the Zoo.  For company (small “C”) we had
sparse vendors who, it seemed, outnumbered guests
and animals who in gray, early Spring,
endured missed crowds with equanimity.
It never did occur to me back then
that we, like Noah’s family, fared forth
with two (or more) of each beast to be found
in that great concrete ship tossed on a mount.
Giraffes stood silent, chimps did not perform;
great apes, alone, showed interest as we passed.

The boomer-esque dig in L4 at a non existent problem aside, a fine piece 
The last line has an elevated sort of humour