NaPM April 20 2015

[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 20: Write a poem inspired by things that happen while you are sleeping.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

gates of horn, gates of ivory


skull-cradled
by a timber pillow
I sleep, intent
on dreams

they thicken the air
weaving veils and shrouds
around ministering angels
with their pipes
and molten blessings

a sluggish quiet reigns
somnolence
and slowed blood flow
low moans

no easy way
to distinguish ecstasy
from anguish

sand contains the pain
of mountain’s dismembering

water carries the memory of ice

we breathe each other’s lives
even here where my dreams take me
beyond both gates

[cidermaid]

love your first stanza Mercedes.
skull-cradled
by a timber pillow
I sleep, intent
on dreams

Brilliant.


No time for any edit today - the sun is shining and peopel are drinking cider - how rude when I want to be wring poetry!

Murder on the patio.

Garden parties are messy affairs,
the lawn is left littered
with burgers, peanuts and buns
under the tables and chairs.
We are so well off we do not care;
the cleaning crews work hourly shifts.
                                                                                                                                           
It’s the bonus that brings
them in from the fields;
each clan, doing their thing.
The grubbers are prickly fellows,
next the red coats, feather pluckers
by trade; drinking the dregs of pale ale.

Finally the big boys lumber in,
bullies and bruisers each one.
The redcoats retreat from fireside seats,
grubbers assume the foetal position.
The bonus turns into a food feud,
a grubber is un-curled, becomes lunch.

[rayheinrich]

                                < when you're asleep >

                                when you're asleep
                                the tooth faerie comes looking
                                chairs stand still
                                beds behave badly
                                dust never sleeps
                                shadows move
                                what's under the bed waits
                                storms storm
                                daemons pause above you
                                clocks tick then tock then tick then tock
                                angles of death ignore you (for the moment) and move on
                                ceilings droop, their plaster fingers reach out for you
                                your polyester blanket thinks it's wool
                                (moths just sneer and move on)
                                someone beside you snores
                                (or was that you?)
                                dust sees your death
                                (ashes do too)
                               
                                            - - -      

[ellajam]

The Dentist Prescribes My Least Favorite Drugs

Last autumn's leaves that blanket the beds are lifted.
Crocuses have passed; I'm brought newborn hyacinths, buds tight
against their stems. They catch bits of sunlight
through the window, opening to scent the room
while I sleep.

The water pump's whine ceases as well water flows.
On a cottage down the road a second story rises
clipping my side-view sunset; in a burst I rearrange
the furniture, each piece facing sunrise.
My body's awake, brain asleep.

I pass on pre-wedding panicked calls,
line my eyes and turn the swollen cheek.
On this first warm day my first-born niece strides
down the aisle on her own two feet;
even she laughs as a peacock's mating call
punctuates her vows. No more wobbly
on high heels than bare feet, we dance.
Spring has happened, even though I slept.

[bena]

these are all so wonderful, I hate to post mine


Spectral Luminous Efficiency

I toss and turn for hours,
adjusting and readjusting the octopus stuck on my face
before drifting off slowly.
My tongue turns into moths.

I am explaining to scientists
the teleporter I've invented,
but they are thick like jello
and don't understand the psychics.

Frustrated,
I climb the nearby watchtower
and begin sniping them.
[insert Jimi music]

The Ghost Parade hacks in,
ghastly faces spewing names and facts
I know I won't remember,
demanding little shits, they are.

When I wake I remove the octopus,
gulp some water to drown the moths,
and put pen to paper,
wanting to jot down what I remember,

instead, I write a poem.

[Tiger the Lion]

 
Hypnagogic Jerk
 
I’ve been called many names,
but never been so affronted
as when that blonde-haired-blue-eyed “doctor”
in the Emergency Room
tossed insult upon injury;
saying it took a certain kind of jerk
to murder his own foot in his sleep.
 
It was World Cup 1990;
Waddle blasted it over the bar,
through the atmosphere and into space,
into history; the Germans would do it again.
 
Poor Chris watched it looped on the news.
I fell asleep to the footage, twelve ciders deep on the couch.
 
I remember approaching the ball with speed
and envisioning the net just barely absorbing
the full weight of my intent.
 
The corner
of my cut-glass
coffee table
ripped my foot into bloody red ribbons,
as if lions had been at it.
 
I was still wearing the blood-and cider-soaked strip
when the doctor finally had a look.
 
The bugger asked me if I’d seen the game.

[cidermaid]

Ray:  ? the angle of death ...it was obviously  an obtuse angle  to ignor you like that 

so many things to like in your offering today.

favorite lines:        
      your polyester blanket thinks it's wool
      the moths move on

[Todd]

Spider Woman

I imagine there is one person in the Midwest
for whom everything is true.
She would exist as a lightning rod
for the weird, so the rest of us could sleep at night.
There really was a hook embedded
in her car door on prom night. She woke up
in a bathtub packed in ice
with one of her kidneys gone.
Then when we think she is finally dead,
before we bury her alive,
a scalpel will be drawn across her abdomen,
and spiders will break forth like a Halloween piñata—
eight for each year while she slept.
We will pull out our calipers and measure her age
like in dog years, like with the rings of a tree.

[Erthona]

Fleeting

Looking through the tinted glass, I see a field,
greener than green.
It seems so smooth, a carpet of moss.
Stopping my car, I get out.
I walk towards the field, but it flees from me,
no longer so green, no longer so smooth,
just weeds not yet grown.
Raising my head, I see a forest
of trees enshrouded by a gray mist
that softly stroke the trees like soft fingers,
and they live!
I run towards the forest,
but it flees and hides.
As I approach, I find that the
mist is no longer soft,
but cold and damp
and the radiance drains from the trees,
and they become dull and too real.

Erthona

[rayheinrich]

Fleeting

Looking through the tinted glass, I see a field,
greener than green.
It seems so smooth, a carpet of moss.
Stopping my car, I get out.
I walk towards the field, but it flees from me,
no longer so green, no longer so smooth,
just weeds not yet grown.
Raising my head, I see a forest
of trees enshrouded by a gray mist
that softly stroke the trees like soft fingers,
and they live!
I run towards the forest,
but it flees and hides.
As I approach, I find that the
mist is no longer soft,
but cold and damp
and the radiance drains from the trees,
and they become dull and too real.

Erthona

The depth of this, I hardly ever see it. The surface is fine, beautiful, there
is no need to go deeper, no status to be obtained, its simplicity is quite enough.
But if you desire, there are a thousand meters more.

[Keith]

Ryan Air

I arm wrestled
for an elbow position
and settle down.
The cabin crew
check my blankets
and start their nymph like dance,
singing me a lullaby of
life jackets, oxygen masks
led lights and the exit
escape hatch.

The plump clouds pillow my head
and I disappear.

The coffee comes first
in melt your hand cups,
ham and cheese toasties
dropped hot into laps.
coke and crisps,
Pringles and Twix,
bin bags come twice,
just to make sure
that none of the crap
gets left on the floor.
Seventeen people get up for a pee
and they finish it of with duty free.

As the aircraft thumps down,
I crack into place,
wake and wipe drool
then say like a fool
"that was a quick flight"