NaPM April 30, 2017

[Todd]

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 30: Write a poem inspired by final moments, final words, or final plans.

Form : any

Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

~~
I appreciate all the participation and great poems. We are now at the end.

Best,

Todd

[rayheinrich]

       

[just mercedes]

Rachel


Witness #1

demolishing time house gathered way called
area went meters backed out house knew Rachel
were bulldozer doing activists shoot Palestinians
stood demolitions shouted gunfire were snipers
saw director turned hospitals demolish doctor
saw children standing night say houses
accompanied children said attacks including
killed shooting sleeping attacks

Witness #2

didn't see cabin looking stage turned
building moving bulldozer slipped
plough fell bulldozer moving shovel
guess operator dragged loudspeakers
stop shouted going stopped shovel
backed up it ran Rachel still breathing

Witness #3

knelt fluorescent jacket waving
bulldozer shouting arms had activists
done earth got close pile of rubble moving
bulldozer climbed head being upper torso
pushed bulldozer’s blade were operator see
co-operator continued operator caused driver
fall back bulldozer continued arms continued
activists scoot megaphone pulled operator ran
Corrie waved shouted continued was
central section of the bulldozer


Israeli Occupation Forces

searching army struck explosives stood border zone
created mound of earth operating engineering vehicle
hidden area continued work Corrie struck dirt resulting
slab of concrete finding death finding shows
operational investigations run Rachel Corrie over
engineering vehicle struck hard object moved
slab of concrete slid mound of earth moved

[Todd]

Neither Here nor There

I’ve never had a message for the dead.
How could they hear me, and if 
they could why would it matter?
Last words can be a trick
the brain plays when the valve of oxygen
gets turned off in the blood. 
You expect hallucinations and are surprised
by sudden clarity. She seems
to be looking at another person
when she says, “You
have to forgive yourself.” This was before
someone switches off her eyes
and she stops

crying forever.

[CRNDLSM]

Living fast with no regrets,
A sordid past, I've confessed
I'll never settle my debts.

I'd laughed when people placed bets.
Each adventure was a test
living fast with no regrets.

No kids, I adopted pets.
My dog can be a real pest.
I'll never settle my debts.

It's my fault they'll get Tourettes,
clean his mess and never rest,
living fast with no regrets.

Should have set up safety nets,
then who would have been impressed?
I'll never settle my debts.

Left behind, my family frets,
pawning off our family crest.
Living fast with no regrets,
I'll never settle my debts

[nibbed]

the end

it's as though he knew
I entered a dark room
brave & bright
but not strong enough
not together enough, yet
so he made a way
for me to leave, dignified
and that is just another reason
why I love him

[Tracy Mitchell]

#30

shadows ~ silence ~ snow
silence on snow
shadows in silence
snow in the shadows–

We are about there.

I expect to remember this–
I have a plan to remember.

In the house, the stove still clicks away.
Water runs cold in the sink.  
Cats paw open a new bag of food.

I pull the driver’s door shut.
On the truck’s roof above
in shadows of snowy silence
my coffee cup cools to the air,
melts a circle in the incipient frost.

I see birds pecking each other
on the snow white ledge above
the shadows of the open porch.

They stop and look at me in silence.
They know. It’s NaPo, and he’s off
to deliver poem #30, which flutters
in the breeze, next to the coffee cup.

[just mercedes]

@Teagan - I've really enjoyed your poems- but have a confession. I thought you were a woman. The name threw me I guess. Assumption. Doh. I thought - Now there's a strong woman. Never questioned it until I read the 'he' in this poem.

[dukealien]

Unendings


Does day end with a sunset
or the next day’s dawning -
with sleep, or with awaking?
Is daytime truly done before
its conflicts play out unexpected,
dramatized in dreaming?

Do friendships end with death,
renunciation, harsh unfriendings -
or linger tepid, cold, or hot
in background climates
for each next befriending?

Each day begins somewhere
by dawning runny gray or bright -
but never fully ends;
each person marches on accompanied
by current, quick, and late
unceasing friends.

[Donald Q.]

RELOAD


THE CITY BREATHES OUT
ADROIT BUT SMOKY,
A GUN BARREL CHOKED
WITH THE GHOST OF
TURBULENCE:  AFTER
A WASHOUT COMES
NOT CLEANLINESS
BUT SOME SNUG
REMAINDER, A
SLY LICHEN,WAITING
FOR THE PAVEMENTS
TO BE SCRAPED,
READY TO GO
ANOTHER ROUND

[Lizzie]

Nice one, Teagan.

[Franklin'sMan]

October Prognosis

I had until December. Fitting
years in days numbering less than
50 proved possible. 50
days of snowing in the mountains,
where snowflakes multiply before
the eyes, buries trees like people who
stand upright in their graves. Mounds drift
15 to 30 feet like steeple
peaks caressed by wind, finger
of Death. What lies beneath forgets
the sky like I’ve forgotten. Thoughts
before my eyes had multiplied.
Independently light, they’re
heavy enmass, crystallized moments
of life distilled from my mind; they
tumbled in eddies, settled in.
Beneath a blank expanse of what
had been my being is dead
and buried.

[rayheinrich]

@Teagan - I've really enjoyed your poems- but have a confession. I thought you were a woman. The name threw me I guess. Assumption. Doh. I thought - Now there's a strong woman. Never questioned it until I read the 'he' in this poem.

    Birds are notoriously hard to genderfy. If they have a similar difficulty, then Teagan's and/or the protagonist's is still in doubt as well.
    @Teagan: Liked your poem -- the birds, how 'coffee' worked, and (I'm always a sucker for this) its self-referential heart.
    P.S. As David Bowie once remarked: "Androgynous?"

[kolemath]

Word Circles

Done: Cooked sufficiently; completed.
Complete: Having all parts lacking nothing; concluded.
Conclude: To bring to an end; terminate.
Terminate: To put an end to; to dismiss from a job.
Dismiss: To direct to disperse.
Disperse: To drive off in various directions; vanish.
Vanish: To go away, especially mysteriously; finish.
Finish: To bring something to an end.
End: The last part or extremity lengthwise, of anything that is longer than it is wide; done.

[Tracy Mitchell]

@Teagan - I've really enjoyed your poems- but have a confession. I thought you were a woman. The name threw me I guess. Assumption. Doh. I thought - Now there's a strong woman. Never questioned it until I read the 'he' in this poem.

Hello just mercedes,
 
Easy assumption to make. I fall into the same thing regularly.  I also too easily assume the author and the narrator are the same person, which is usually true, but not always.  For myself, I think it helps my writing to sometimes use a Narrator of different gender.  For the record, I am male, my current avatar is genuine, and I am complemented to be thought, based on my writing, to be a strong woman.

And thank you for the freedom you have given me this NaPo season.  Each day when I log on to get the new prompt, I see your poem, already posted, which blows the doors off.  You set the bar so high I feel free to run under it in any direction I want.

T

[rayheinrich]

@Teagan - I've really enjoyed your poems- but have a confession. I thought you were a woman. The name threw me I guess. Assumption. Doh. I thought - Now there's a strong woman. Never questioned it until I read the 'he' in this poem.

Hello just mercedes,
 
Easy assumption to make. I fall into the same thing regularly.  I also too easily assume the author and the narrator are the same person, which is usually true, but not always.  For myself, I think it helps my writing to sometimes use a Narrator of different gender.  For the record, I am male, my current avatar is genuine, and I am complemented to be thought, based on my writing, to be a strong woman.

And thank you for the freedom you have given me this NaPo season.  Each day when I log on to get the new prompt, I see your poem, already posted, which blows the doors off.  You set the bar so high I feel free to run under it in any direction I want.

T

Yeah, she's too damn good... but since I get to read her poems, there's a positive trade-off.
Oh! And she cheats! She's a New Zealander and when the topic was posted it was 4pm her time.
This does not explain how she was usually able to complete her poem in a few hours, but I does help to know
she was awake when she was doing it (even though I suspect she would be able to do it in her sleep as well).

[Keith]

And with this earth

It would be a glance across a crowded bar ,
a nod to the wise and a pint half raised.
We were never any good with words.

A mound of fake grass masks the reality
of freshly dug earth. You've been hiding
while the word spread, flowers wilted
and everyone who knew you was your friend.

Finally you arrive and I think of fulcrums
and moments as little Joe shoulders
all your weight again. I didn't recognise you
as they spoke of a child becoming a young man,
but I saw you in your mothers eyes.

Later we'll bring you back to life
with good whiskey and sell each other
stories of how it was with you,
I'll see you across the crowded bar, raise my glass
and you'll know we were never good with words.