NaPM April 10 2016

[ellajam]

@Keith, this poem says so much, a keyhole into the big picture. Well done to leave it til the last line, and beautiful to read.

[bedeep]

@Keith, this poem says so much, a keyhole into the big picture. Well done to leave it til the last line, and beautiful to read.

I agree, Keith, this is a delight to read, and a killer ending to it.

[Tracy Mitchell]

   It’s Not the Nutmeg

Its not the heat of the light
or the weight through the window,
the light gaining speed
in high skies above the garden -
gliding in over beet leaves, carrot
tops, over dew spanked onion sets,
pepper plants, and the horseradish
sentries on guard for the potatoes.
 
Its not the light, the way light knifes
through a kitchen window to pinpoint
flashes on the syrup - warm amber syrup
from early spring’s run of maple sap boiled,
nudged and cuddled into the Red Wing jug.  

Its not the sparkle from the light catching
the syrup sliding over hot melted cheddar
on egged sourdough, pan cooked french toast
layered on plates for those now starting
to make noise upstairs, dressing, assembling
for the day - its not the light.  Its not you.
But it could be.

[bedeep]

Teagan I really like that! All fresh, and a chuckle at the end. Really nice.

[billy]

well done for staying the course teagan

[Tracy Mitchell]

Bedeep - thanks for the kind comments. Thanks Billy'.

[RiverNotch]

WEATHERTOWN

I will not leave for Weathertown,
will not Desire -- its spires,
for though I like the weatherman,
I've yet to catch -- his Lies.

The TV and the radio,
they never ride my wave --
and when I search the web for rain,
I always fail to save.

And people -- though I took no vows,
I comb the hermit's fill:
my wilderness, a shuttered home,
my hieromonk, a pill --

for past the weatherman's vane charms,
you chickens are a chore --
aside from belts of blood and breast,
this business is a bore.

Or rather, how I dread romance --
to Love is like a storm!
and cities, hated opposite --
great droughts -- past all alarm.

No, I'll not leave for Weathertown,
and treat the 'Self' -- applied,
for Truth is not a gale without:
I'd rather Live -- a child.

[Leanne]

I am no kind of saviour
I have shorn my own Samson lock
and served it up, silver-plattered, to
a Bathsheban stand-in starlet waiting in
wings of rotten traitor-bearing planks

until, pirate-fashion, the hook spikes
through necks bared to unremembered
never, never agains
and hands bleed from crowning
thorny heads with silken gloves
slid elegantly across
throats of rose-petal softness
to tie knots in breath-filled memories
and caress what should have been

As time passes in the belly of the beast
and lost children’s stones bring down giants,
so must I rest
just a while
and remind myself that next time
I should fire first
and keep a blade for my own back

[Weeded]

Hands gravelly, stained, fragments of Earth
encrusted in every divot, under fingernails
unclipped, ungroomed lifetimes of digging wells
form callouses which ease the burden,
scars that teach and tell tales of serfs
pride. Hardening the shell
to no surprise softens the fell
for it is every mans job to die.

I am not of this cruel, cold Earth
it seems unwilling every job I fail
miserably. I am tired of this concrete hell
in which I must dig into dirt to plant a seed,
I want to sing, no longer serve
this pagan worship of shale
grinding and mud slinging ails
me. The lost son can only look to see.

[Tiger the Lion]

Quiet
 
There's no calm in these cigarettes— no quiet—
no muffler to be fashioned from wine bottles,
no sport in popping corks,
 
no cavalry in polite Good Mornings,
no liberty in free verse,
no photograph to finally frame in wise corners,
no children to put to bed.
 
There's no perspective in swollen eyes,
no tear with salt enough to cure this meat,
no teeth to chew what will swallow me first.
 
There’s no land in sight
and if I’m right
no tethered oaks will float this weight for long.
 
There's no wind when a clock stops—
no breath for these candles,
no lungs to blow smoke;
no liberty in free verse
if no voice has air to speak it.
 
There's no calm in these cigarettes— no quiet—
no bottle deep enough to contain us,
no bottom to ocean floors,
no oxygen in polite Good Mornings.
 
There’s no land in sight
and if I’m right
no tethered oaks will float this weight for long.

[Todd]

@Paul: Loved that!, oh and one of many great lines: "no oxygen in polite Good Mornings."

[heslopian]

Postmodernism's Your Friend

I'm not a big reader of postmodern books.
And yes, I know, I've heard it before,
that Postmodernism's Your Friend,
that any book written since World War II
is postmodern, baby.

Well, balls.
Give me the broken cross of East Lynne,
the rain-swept maidens moulded by Ann Radcliffe,
the white hopping-things and sacrilegious tomes
of M. R. James, with the mountains like a woman's breasts
in H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.

I am a discerning sort of chap, I swear.
I'm just more music-hall than coffee shop,
more cottage than studio loft.
Oh, I can sit a good long while with Virginia Woolf,
and even pass a pleasant conversation
with James Joyce.
But inside, I'm ashamed to say,
while Finnegan's wake prattles on,
and Mrs. Dalloway enters, suddenly,
I'm thinking about Vampyres.

[billy]

a good showing you vampire lover

[heslopian]

Thanks, Bilbo