NaPM April 22 2014

[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 22: write a poem inspired by a line from one of your favourite poems.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[Keith]

Ok so I have wrote five erm poems today so im entitled a cop out this is a piece of prose I would like to work as a poem so this is a start.


as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood--
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

Pablo Neruda (Lost in the forest)


Pockets of Gold

Standing alone in my old house,
residents carried away by cancer,
yet still their presence remains in each coat of paint and flowerbed,
all now partly concealed by my much needed indifference.
The home is bare, stripped back to its shell,
except for the ghosts of old furniture that appear,
just for a second, as I enter each room.

I place my hand on the wall to check for a heartbeat.
Can it be that traces of lost childhood
are captured in the fabric of a room,
dwell in wooden handles of old tools
or crayon scribbling’s trapped behind wallpaper.
Can it be that if we close our eyes
and breathe in the essence of childhood haunts
then chemistry alone can unlock memories
once keyless and forgotten,
And in doing so can you retrieve something
so precious it can twist your body,
crumple your face and turn sobs into shouts.
I’m shouting now as I slide down the wall;
I felt its beat before pulling away.

Such places can be found in most of our footsteps
and if you know how to look they can almost be touched.
But my other places do not compare to this home,
I could linger here for an eternity, drifting as a child,
growing on thought and melancholy,
surviving on smiles and laughter unlocked from memories.

I cannot linger,
the house is sold to the highest bidder.
I have offered up my most prized possession,
my touch-stone, my portal,
for a pocket full of gold.
Now when I need to look,
how can I return to these places that hold me in their essence,
that tell my story,
Who now will listen to the beating fabric of my old home.

[ChristopherSea]

I sing the body electric,
the armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them…

-Walt Whitman-


Sing the Light Botanical


Photons
of light conduct
an infrared chorus
to inspire the weeping willow,
spark tulip blown kiss and rosehip embrace
Photosynthetic energy
rouses callow gardens
with resounding
photons

[Erthona]

Gyre*

And are we come around
again—the falcon back to ground,
upon the sturdy arm of the falconer?

Now 14 years past, I fear,
that point—I have yet to hear,
of the coming of that slouching Beast.

For word, look to, the East
and hear of his entrance—at least,
the fault lies in the multitude of none.

For in seconds comes
the words—of the news that hums,
with light the whole world ringed 'round!



*Yeats "The Second Coming"

[Todd]

One must have a mind of winter – Wallace Stevens “The Snow Man”

One Must Have a Mind of Winter

When spring births
make joints ache
like a change in barometric pressure.

When the green, green
grass of summer
has the sickly glow of a neon sign.

When autumn leaves
lay beneath bare branches in a vomit of color
like the worst mixed-drink hangover.

[Mopkins]

a favorite of mine is The Lady Of Shallot by Tennyson


On either side the river lie
paddocks of sheep beset by flies,
the pebble-like dung it dries,
I hear the sheep’s baaing cries
in boring Boyup Brook.
Up and down the locals go
on Abel Street, the traffics slow,
trucks hauling their heavy loads
in boring Boyup Brook.

The brook it feeds into the river
where the eucalyptus shiver
in the wind, their leaves a’quiver
the reeds alongside dry and wither
in boring Boyup Brook.
One main road, one supermarket,
a cemetery for the departed,
several churches that have started
in boring Boyup Brook.

A petrol station for the cars,
a hotel with a public bar,
a small golf-course, nine par
The streets are wide and long and sparse
In boring Boyup Brook.
The shearers and shed hands
there outside the pub they stand
drinking from glasses or cans
In boring Boyup Brook

For twenty years I have dwelt here,
the brook across the road quite near,
to the locals it is dear
but in it I find little cheer,
in boring Boyup Brook.
For a new home I have hankered,
I wish that here I had not landed-
I’m altogether disenchanted
With boring Boyup Brook.

[cidermaid]

My inspiration came from:- Gillian Clark – The field mouse.

Mice and Children

Two factions filed off the bus
in tight formation and split
according to rank and regiment.
The attack party set off,
lobbing word grenades.

The war of hatred was halted
when they saw it.
Just a slight ripple, a tell
that fell counter to the wind
on the long march home.

Slinking in single file,
the lone child espied the stricken beast.
His curtain of blades twitched
by whiskers and feet;
a mouse was enough for a cease fire.

For a moment,
it was Christmas eve replayed;
the weapons were laid down
and children gathered around
to share a paradigm shift.

The sun reflected
off his eye, which gleamed,
a tear drop refraction of light
to pierce the leather bound hearts.
Then the wind changed.

All but one marched off.
Two children carried the creature
and made it a shoebox home.
But mice and children cannot survive
on hope alone

and true to life it soon died.
One name on a grace list
was not enough to shift
the ingrained mistrust and ancient
power lust that filled the sunken roads,
they remain war zones.