Posts: 1,139
Threads: 466
Joined: Nov 2013
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.
This year, there are no form requirements, only "tiers" or "rankings" given informally to all participants:
Bronze Tier: Participate at least once.
Silver Tier: Participate all days.
Gold Tier: Participate all days, and have all entries be the same form or have all entries be different forms.
Write a poem about fortitude/courage.
Posts: 695
Threads: 139
Joined: Jun 2015
Bear in the Middle
To Hell with the Devil-
Butkus is waiting for you
on the other side-
don’t test him.
(Dick Butkus- former Chicago Bears fearsome middle linebacker)
and this one:
Fear
If someone asks me what I’m most afraid of
I’d need to think awhile before I answer.
Would it be hate, deceit, or maybe even love?
Or some condition, like insanity, or cancer?
It’s not a look I see on peoples’ faces.
It’s not the way that people look at me.
It’s not about somewhere, or other places.
It’s not about someplace I’d rather be.
It’s not gaining weight, or losing all my hair.
It’s not money, death, or taxes that I fear.
It’s not ice, or snow, bad water, or bad air.
There is no need to ask because it’s clear-
what’s really scares me could not be clearer
It’s staring back when I look in the mirror
FORM: sonnet
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Threads: 250
Joined: Nov 2015
Taken for a Blessing
Madonna, you require a real
unyielding attitude to make
of this annunciated deal
no more unease than you can take.
To feel a child’s unsettling ache
without a wife’s conjoining bliss,
shamed for your and your husband’s sake
seal still intact, alone like this.
Was angel but an artifice
of mind unstrung, of womb-disease?
Was what she carried child of Dis,
which waited to erupt and seize?
Madonna, courage, fortitude:
doubts conquered are beatitude.
[Form: curtailed Spencerian sonnet]
Non-practicing atheist
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Threads: 203
Joined: Dec 2017
About Scotsmen
From where does a Scotsman get his courage?
They say a bowl of porridge,
an utterly horrid
breakfast to some. Don't be fooled by their charms,
the Scots are prone to taking up arms.
Not fighting makes them anxious, worried,
and raring to have a go.
It also doesn't help that their national dish is tripe,
for that makes the Scotsman a different type
of trouble than the German. The latter fells you low
and builds a blaxball factory where once stood
houses in row by random zigzag row,
while the latter kills with a solitary bagpipe
blown. The German is kinder, says Berlin.
They play autoball, not curling.
Posts: 1,139
Threads: 466
Joined: Nov 2013
Beside her stands a lion with her hands about his mouth,
whether to pry it open or to firmly seal it shut
few witnesses are sure, and yet like Arethusa's flight
from her unwanted suitor and his riverine delight
bringing the nymph so deep into the earth, she caught King Dis
hopeless to give his future queen an ill-begotten kiss,
so Fortitude would shovel over us humility
if we would be some kind of vital font across the sea,
her rule, plain yet profound, is to accept reality,
to struggle, though the end be fatal, with serenity,
sure that a martyr's blood possesses both the broadest sweep
and the least doubtful hand to lard what our descendants reap,
wherefore she is not so arranged to brandish violence:
instead she merely fondles her least sanguinary pet.
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Threads: 374
Joined: Sep 2014
Whore
She started off the wheel on the wrong
foot,
as though she had a choice.
She
had never even had a friend.
Balancing her duty and Duty,
she turned her eyes to either side of her head
and fought for triumph on both sides.
Change was all she knew
having never known it.
She closed both eyes and gave
in
