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		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 23: Write a poem inspired by a physical law, law of nature, or commonly accepted idea no longer being true.
 
 Line requirements: 8 lines or more
 
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
 
		
	 
	
	
			just mercedes Unregistered
 
 
		
 
	 
	
	
		Tallulah, still young and beautiful
 
 Dahlings, I was wonderful.
 Once, when I was young. Now
 I wish always, always for death.
 I’m too old, worn, to attract a lover.
 I’ve always wanted death,
 sought oblivion in sex, drugs, booze.
 Nothing else I want more.
 Children? I had four abortions.
 There is less to this than meets the eye -
 I couldn’t be sure of provenance.
 I’m as pure as the driven slush.
 Like Nietzsche I link art to frenzy
 I’m top of the Hays Doom Book.
 A hysterectomy almost killed me.
 I’m ambisextrous.
 It wasn’t a woman who gave me the clap.
 Blanche DuBois immortalized me.
 
 
 (every unevenly numbered line is a direct quote from Tallulah Bankhead in interviews. The lines in italics are mine)
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		The world is flat
 I know you might think these characters flat,
 but they think the world is.
 
 Ships sinking below the horizon,
 must be a deadly waterfall
 off the edge of the known.
 
 That was a few centuries ago.
 
 Today flat earthers have rediscovered the hidden truth.
 The world is flat again!
 The the edge is not a waterfall,
 rather, a ring of ice!
 
 What is the government hiding?
 Why won't it let us see?
 
 The earth doesn't rotate
 nor the moon!
 Rather, the sun and moon spiral in circles
 Just above the flat Earth dome!
 
 What is the government hiding?
 Why won't it let us see?
 
 It's like the Truman Show!
 Although if I never saw that movie,
 I'm not sure which analogy I'd use.
 
 Who is this government anyways?
 What is it I want to see?
 
Thanks to this Forum  
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		Mercedes that's an incredible way to show found poetry. Impressive piece on the whole.
 Kole, my wife recently had a conversation with a friend who is a flat earther--more of a thing than I thought it was. I'd read on the ring of ice and then had the same question your poem raises (very well done)...What reason would the government have? What is the gain of it all, if true?
 
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		Bowling balls and feathersdon't fall to earth equally
 in a vacuum
 for mass determines gravity.
 Distance determines gravity;
 the same ball drops faster
 the closer its
 proximity to earth's center.
 ------------------------------------------------
 Time is relative to velocity
 or it wouldn't slow down
 as it reaches
 the speed of light, right?
 Due to earth's constant rotation,
 an object on top of a mountain,
 travels faster
 through space than in a valley.
 In theory, if faster travel slows
 time, then life along the equator
 will last longer
 than settled near the poles.
 ------------------------------------------------
 Margaret had to move, they said
 Florida would be good for her.
 The sun provided,
 but the hurricane took her away.
 
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		 (04-23-2017, 08:26 PM)kolemath Wrote:  It's like the Truman Show!Although if I never saw that movie,
 I'm not sure which analogy I'd use.
 
 Who is this government anyways?
 What is it I want to see?
 
Good food for thought.    Especially like the end line.
	 
		
	 
	
	
			just mercedes Unregistered
 
 
		
 
	 
	
	
		Thanks Todd, was scratching my head for this one. Seven more to go - I'll be barrel-scraping by the end of the week.
	 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		Upend
 A fifth and a sick remix
 of god save the queen,
 a treasonous jungle joint
 with the amen break rolling out
 beneath. Then the coppers roll in,
 fucked as well, a drunk piano
 gets locked behind bars
 'for minor infractions' giggling
 filth, the law, they tighten
 the drum head till he squeaks,
 beat him silly. Police all
 nose deep in the evidence
 and the taut snare is a masochist,
 so there's nowhere but higher,
 eventually the cells are all wide
 open, it's truncheons and glow
 sticks till sun up. Some are dead
 and some are still dancing,
 a wild hog in the bass bin
 squealing seeya next saturday.
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		Malcolm Forbes Is The Bright Light With the Most Toys
 -February 25, 1990,  in a Parking Garage in Far Hills, New Jersey
 
 We were blinded
 by the single headlamp
 of Forbes crossing
 from the other side.
 He rode on the back
 of a 1966 Velocette Thruxton--
 ectoplasm puffing from the exhaust
 like an answered question.
 Proving that with the pharaohs,
 he had been right all along.
 You can take it with you.
 
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		 (04-24-2017, 08:21 AM)Todd Wrote:  Malcolm Forbes Is The Bright Light With the Most Toys
 
 Proving that with the pharaohs,
 he had been right all along.
 You can take it with you.
   
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		![[Image: mcmda.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im18/mcmda.jpg)  
                                                            dinosaurs and people 
                                                            just floating around
 
                                                                before we 
                                                                believed 
                                                                in evolution
 
                                                                before we 
                                                                believed 
                                                                in gravity
	 
                                                                                                                           a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions 
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		Albert Eulenspiegel 
Till Eulenspiegel, public jester 
medieval fool, was questioned by 
wise and titled doctors 
of his day.  They demanded 
that he say where the center 
of the universe was located. 
Disdaining Rome, Jerusalem, and Eden 
“Right where I’m sitting,” 
Till replied.  “Prove that it’s not!” 
Later, after more disruptive pranks 
they hung him.
 
Shortly after, better-learned men - 
Copernicus, Galileo - 
made Sol the universe’s center. 
In five centuries it moved 
to galactic core, then 
Big Bang’s detonation point 
until one Albert Einstein showed 
that no non-accelerating point 
is privileged: there is no center, 
no true universal frame of reference; 
all’s relative, a universal flux.
 
Despite this discovery 
being used to overturn all decency 
as merely relative, 
they didn’t hang him 
this time.
 Non-practicing atheist 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		An out-of-work poet
 reciting her resume
 curses the scansion
 of her telephone number
 she’d kill for
 681-3121
 expecting their applause --
 enjambment of her reference section
 fell flat
 too many allusions
 she exits, thinks
 it’s hard to make a living now
 that poetry’s popular
 everyone vies
 for Poet Laureate.
 She cries in her berete.
 “Next!” they say.
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		 Once dinosaurs 
 
 Once dinosaurs had scales
 now it seems that they had feathers -
 were they big birds after all
 and naught of evolution true?
 Because dinosaurs flew,
 I portend brisk ticket sales
 from the Trump card carrying bubbas
 at the Museum of Creation's human zoo.
 What were they thinking,  paleontologists,
 in digging up those fossils
 that showed how long the wings of a diplodocus grew?
 But stress could make poor Ross ill,
 a subject for oncologists,
 and so I'll hold off on blaming that bumbling crew.
 
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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 Joined: Nov 2013
 
	
	
		Blake 2  
 
 
 ((burgis))
 
 We.
 Who are we?
 
 We.
 There is no we;
 only me and you.
 
 Word.
 What I say
 you won't get.
 
 Speak.
 I don't have
 my own voice---
 you have it all.
 
 Work.
 You have it all.
 
 
 
 ((revolution))
 
 God.
 He exists,
 we fucking don't.
 
 Learn.
 I know
 who you are:
 you're my problem.
 
 Love.
 All I want
 is to fuck you,
 
 Lust.
 but he hates fucking.
 
 Lost.
 In the end
 it's you.
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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		The gravity of having none
 They had been predicting a slight shift
 and then it happened, I woke on the ceiling
 with a droplet of drool floating
 in front of my pillow, books and clothes
 seemed to have a life of their own.
 I was like a child who had just discovered snow
 on the last day of school. This is fucking epic
 I thought and then I saw the bathroom.
 
If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
	Posts: 2,357Threads: 230
 Joined: Oct 2010
 
	
	
		 (04-27-2017, 05:31 AM)Keith Wrote:   ectoplasm puffing from the exhaust.....sweet 
Maybe something for the next Ghostbusters movie.
	 
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
 
		
	 
	
	
	
		
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 Joined: Feb 2017
 
	
	
		Poison Tomatoes
 Funny
 red and juicy
 green felt Jughead hat wearers
 who hold flaming swords
 to the entry of my Eden
 
 cleverly disguised
 as tasty pizza smears,
 or pasta's marinara.
 
 Who'd have thought
 my mortality is controlled
 by plump little cherubs,
 sprinkled with cheese?
 
there's always a better reason to love
 
		
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