NaPM April 18 2016

[milo]

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 18: A time -honored tradition amongst poets is the response poem wherein a poet responds to a favourite poem or one that inspires her.  Write  response poem to a poem that you like or one that inspires you.

Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[Achebe]

Does it need to be a pome from this NaPM, forum, or can it be any poem written by anyone ever?

[just mercedes]

The Idiot’s song


I see you from my solitude, we’re free to meet
but knowing there’s no use, I stay away. Everything
must be the best it can be, already. As expected.
Everything is the best it can be already, turning
in quantum tides around an arbitrary centre
that’s not there when I observe closely.
As expected.

I have to remember that observation can be
dangerous. Light beams become nano particles
when I’m not looking. I am made of light
and I change from wave to rock, to dust.
I often wonder why I bother. No one knows.
As expected.

Look at this ocean, such lovely peacock colours
but when I cup my hand the water is clear.
That’s clever, I think. Same with the sky.
If only human eyes can see it, is it real?

Everything moves in fractal patterns
of change, gathers together, spreads apart, in tune
with everything else. It all exists only in my head.
As expected.



a response to Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Idiot’s Song https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=sTwNYG9qvFsC&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=the+idiot%27s+song+rilke&source=bl&ots=GEMbWEOObB&sig=PKuDCrv1bBqboPiasEkE81UqxR8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6rO6vkZfMAhWB36YKHU6fCtUQ6AEIUTAI#v=onepage&q=the%20idiot%27s%20song%20rilke&f=false

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Does it need to be a pome from this NaPM, forum, or can it be any poem written by anyone ever?

You can make an executive decision!

[milo]

Does it need to be a pome from this NaPM, forum, or can it be any poem written by anyone ever?

any poem written by anyone ever

[Todd]

Hansel in Darkness
 
The world is never what we want
that was the lie of the candy house.
A veil of confectionery covers our hearts
and we forget the stones in moonlight,
the broken bread, and the lesson
from the birds. God sees.
 
The finger bone reminds me
of the hunger I still have. The witch
fattened me in a cage,
ravenous in her own, in a room of food.
Sister, we cannot bar
the door from ourselves.
 
You collect your shadows
on afternoon walks, and press
them like flowers into a book. Memories
rise, a fragrance from the pages,
suckling pig of melted flesh. It is enough
to cast my own shadow in the morning.
 
Nights I search for the path
to retrace our steps.
We are not safe, Gretel,
the black forest never left us.
The fire burns our tongues
so that we only think we speak.



Gretel in Darkness Louise Gluck

[LunaDeLore]

Does it need to be a pome from this NaPM, forum, or can it be any poem written by anyone ever?

any poem written by anyone ever

so cool, so cool

[Tracy Mitchell]

A Response to Thunderstorm Coming by Thomas Hennen


By the Chicken Coop Dust

By the chicken coop dust
I feel it too.
My ankles become electric.

Frogs and crickets
cut fringes on the bottom of the night.
 
Clouds ripple
above the yard light
as though they are blankets
on a clothes line
strung
between stars.

[Todd]

Teagan, that's gorgeous imagery. Holds together well with some great lines.

[LunaDeLore]

Everything must begin
 
My daughter comes home from college for spring break
And tells me she is the universe, holding
A red giant in her hand; the rings of Saturn
Are her sisters drawn with Uranus breath and born from elephants.
 
Jill, your father will lay eggs if he hears you talking of these things.
The world only understands the universe in physics-
Big boom theories; Newton’s Apple, and I love fucking science.
Nothing connects the creation of the universe to human being.
 
Mom, metaphor makes anything possible; I love you like an orange
And humans created it. People weep in irony, walk in simile; speak in theme,
And believe in paraphrasing as they fight over the apostrophe.
Why can’t I be the universe in MFA?  
 
 
 

Inspired By Dean Young's "Everyday Escapees" and from "Shock by Shock"

[Tracy Mitchell]

Thanks Todd. I was haunted by the full sheer cold you brought to the Hansel side of the talk.


"Jill, your father will lay eggs . . . " - delightful writing Luna, so full of the essence of that moment.

[Leanne]

They pulled the ivy from the walls, my love,
and yesterday dropped from the cracks,
unboarding the windows, forming the key
again in my hand. Your eyes,
dark against the ground, do not track
the flipskirt fancies tripping along the road.
You, who envied my idleness, are idle now
while I was always occupied. You didn't ask
about the thoughts that filled my mind, or why
I didn't speak. You knew me as space
begging to be filled by your secretive smiles.
The key unfolds. My words fill gaps
left in stone by the passing of a parasite.
Leaves are ground to dust beneath my heel.


On Always For The First Time by Andre Breton

[LunaDeLore]

Thanks Todd.  I was haunted by the full sheer cold you brought to the Hansel side of the talk.


"Jill, your father will lay eggs . . . " - delightful writing Luna, so full of the essence of that moment.

Thanks Teagan. I enjoyed your poem as well.

[Todd]

Leanne: That one has an edge to it. Enjoyed a lot of it, especially "the flipskirt fancies tripping along the road." And these last lines:

I didn't speak. You knew me as space
begging to be filled by your secretive smiles.
The key unfolds. My words fill gaps
left in stone by the passing of a parasite.
Leaves are ground to dust beneath my heel.

You have a great ability set mood and give the poem movement and action.

[Leanne]

Plus, I really don't like romantic poems so feel the need to constantly undermine them

[bedeep]

Hope's Unkind Abundance

Hard to think of a garden
when April's so dry.
I trade my usual hat
for a big straw one
and the kid takes off his shirt.
We water each other down
with the hose for fun and then
water the brown ground darker
where a few rows
of a few sprouts
are just barely there.

Oh the boy wants
his carrots to grow!
But I know if leaves are already
yellow, this late in the day and
early in the season, it might not be
outside of reason to think
we'll fail all around.

I watch pale leaves
flutter down out of season.
I side-eye the boy
to see what he notices.
His skin is already
too bright.
It's a sick feeling
to stop lying and let him know
not much is likely to grow
in a drought this bad,
a dangerous feeling,
like we've been had
and black death is grinning
just around the corner
of this calm afternoon.

I'll have to tell him.
I will.
Soon.

~~~

Very loosely after A Yellow Leaf by Ariana Reines.

[Leanne]

I live in the tropics now, but as a kid drought was a constant companion. My little brother was 4 before he saw rain, and for most of my formative years I knew that you could only flush the toilet once a day, so you'd just have to put up with the smells.

The rain always comes, of course. Doesn't it? Sure. Last time it did, after all. This is quality writing, bedeep.

[bedeep]

High praise, coming from you, Leanne. This poem had other inspirational streams than the prompt here. I have been worried about my own garden because April is so dry, so that was a natural start. And there is a weekly picture prompt on another site that I like to keep up with; the current pic is a tree trunk in a dry field, with a man's hat and a boy's shirt hung from it.

So I had extra help.

Now I have the treat in store of backreading today's entries here. A quick glance showed there is some fine stuff posted.

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Some favorite jewels:

Favorite lines:

JM:
Look at this ocean, such lovely peacock colours
but when I cup my hand the water is clear.
That’s clever, I think. Same with the sky.
If only human eyes can see it, is it real?

Todd:
The fire burns our tongues
so that we only think we speak.

Teagan:
on a clothes line
strung
between stars.

Luna:
she is the universe, holding
A red giant in her hand; the rings of Saturn
Are her sisters drawn with Uranus breath and born from elephants.

Leanne:
The key unfolds. My words fill gaps
left in stone by the passing of a parasite.
Leaves are ground to dust beneath my heel.

[Tracy Mitchell]

bedeep - what a select collection of snippets from today's gems you posted. 

To add one of yours I first thought of ". . . death grinning /just around the corner / of this calm afternoon."  Its a great passage.

But after several readings I came to prefer the fun of the out loud reading of the marvelous rhymes, sounds and word play of this:

We water each other down
with the hose for fun and then
water the brown ground darker
where a few rows
of a few sprouts
are just barely there.

[Achebe]

Leanne - did you grow up in Mt Isa?
Bedeep, lovely lovely pome

[bedeep]

Teagan, and Achebe, thank you!

Teagan, I could not say the lines I chose are truly favorites, because each poem had other places as appealing. But, this group did kind of fit together.