NaPM April 10 2016

[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 10: Write a "negative" poem or a poem that defines something or someone or yourself by what it or he or you are not (I am no friend of cats . . .)
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[Todd]

So, let me try to parse this: write a negative poem about someone, something or yourself but the position you write from is wrong. In your example: You would right I am no friend of cats, build on that idea, when it actuality the speaker is a friend of cats. Did I get the right of it, milo?

[just mercedes]

"Ceci n'est pas une guerre."*



This is a peace-keeping mission.
Straight lines, curves and angles
of destruction, weapons of
mass communication
primed and pointed
from the planet’s far side
at this framework of dross
and fires flowing.

The structure of matter
reflects awful symmetry;
straight lines, curves and angles
of canvas camps, forced migrations
while contemptuous thunderbolts
cruise the airwaves,
precise as scalpels.

Man strikes at the shadow.
Confused, blind, he kills and dies
locked together with his enemy;

himself.










"This war is not a war" - from "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" - This pipe is not a pipe - title of a painting of a pipe by Magritte.

[milo]

So, let me try to parse this: write a negative poem about someone, something or yourself but the position you write from is wrong. In your example: You would right I am no friend of cats, build on that idea, when it actuality the speaker is a friend of cats. Did I get the right of it, milo?

lol - no, you define it by what it is not:

"I am not a crook"
"This is not Sparta"
"I am not the one she loves"
"This is not my favourite sweater"

Whatever.

Many things are defined by what they are not.

[billy]

Well I Never

I am not 'The Donald'
We are not mark Anthony and Cleopatra
cats are not cuddly balls of cute
and a hairy fanny needs a better wash.

My world is not a delicate finger bowl
filled with perfumed petaled rose water.
Four wheel drives or dog shit have no room;
in my world, sex, lies, and rock do not roll.

Okay maybe sex but with someone other than you

[Achebe]

and a hairy fanny needs a better wash.

was the whole point of the poem, wasn't it?!

---

Wait, do you mean the American fanny or the British one?
Keith Bishop was particular about the difference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R7UHKfqXYTU

[billy]

you know me so well

[RiverNotch]

and a hairy fanny needs a better wash.

was the whole point of the poem, wasn't it?!

---

Wait, do you mean the American fanny or the British one?
Keith Bishop was particular about the difference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R7UHKfqXYTU

I always thought it was called a fanny pack because it was so close to one's, er, cun-- I mean, er, what do you mean "British" one? Isn't the language called American for a reason? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eUrwYQe3Dw

Otherwise, damn billy, that's hilarious!

[cidermaid]

Evensong confessions.

Give me a long hot night to scythe through.
My lithe body will provocatively writhe
before your eyes.  Mesmerized,
you will forget how to speak; peachy words
become staccato stutters,
when I schmooze the stage.  
I am famous.  You filthy, faux
tears of love oozing
from your bloodshot eyes
revolt me.
You are not worthy,
do not wash my feet.
I despise you.

[Achebe]

J/s I'm 0

I'm hurriedly writing a poem about things I'm not.
So I'll begin with the obvious - a Huguenot
digging up the grave of Catherine de Medici,
bombarding the Pope with stinky tofu fettucce - 
these I'm not, nor a Polish ployglot*.
It is easier to define me by what I don't like,
such as Martians gone postal on the Jersey turnpike,
shooting phlegm bullets at the NYPD forces
singing the Marseilles ten hours on the trot,
than for the things I genuinely fancy - 
I'll politely wait for you to ask me "what?"...



*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POrHkdojbNc

[ellajam]

Blank

Today I am not a poet,
not fifteen or fifty-five
when every thought became a line,
words shifting places,
crystalizing.

Today I am not the poet
of a mere few months ago,
searching for new chain threads
to write a triolet
or terza rima.

Today I am not a poet
whose brain can take a spark
and light a fire.
Prompts land like bricks,
unmoving.

[Achebe]

@cider - great lines, except the last four. Good material to come back to at a later stage, IMO
@ella - my sentiment exactly
@JM - was confused about how the poem related to the prompt, then I looked at the title. Clever take!!

[bedeep]

(I had a better title but I forgot it, so)

NOT

I roam the space
where you are not
I breathe the air
you have not got
I fill the skin
you are not in
and where you end
I can begin.

If there's an answer
you don't know it
and if it's secret
I'll not show it
I'm a quite contrary sort
I could be tall
except I'm short --
Is this a poem?
Mission abort!

---

No no no, I couldn't bear for that to be it, so, this is. If it's not cool to have two poems up (very loosely speaking) I'll happily delete the preceeding.

This one, well, needs work, and the last two lines are a bit flaccid, but I think it's a better read, at least, than the previous doggerel.  

What Didn't Happen

I read in a novel about a pact
two people made to meet years hence
at a certain grave, but never kept
because one of them was dead.
And suddenly I recall
I made such a pact when I was young
with one, no, two friends and now
I cannot remember who they were,
where we were to meet, or when.

I'm not dead yet but they may be
whoever they were. I think we meant
to meet in New York or maybe San Francisco,
on a significant date, say, the century's end,
and we swore, we promised each other that,
no matter what, we'd turn up then
and greet and compare our lives.

That insistent road not taken jingles
in mind again; I have no idea
who I was, even, or who I'd have been
if things had turned out so I knew
those friends well or long enough to fulfill
our promise. I feel sure this was not
my idea as I always knew myself for one
whose road would take many turns.

It seemed fine at the time, to say I'd join in.
But, who were they? And did they meet,
and miss me and wonder if my life had been
as good or bad or mixed as theirs?
Or did they not even think of me except
to ask, was there not a third of us?
No, I don't think there could have been,
and then gone on to have drinks or tea.

I'm better off, I think, not to have lived
that life, but to be living this one.

[Todd]

This is not a poem
 
You remember the petals
that led to your marriage bed,
how they now glisten
like so many fallen tears.
You collect each one

till they overflow through
your fingers in a rush,
like from a deep spring
gushing to finally settle,
into what is now predictable
brackish immobility
and the gauzy uncertainty
of dark water. So you cast
 
your line, and ripples circle
till all is a tangle with nothing
surfacing. They circle,
and swirl, the water empties,
is empty, was always empty.

And this too is not a poem.
It is what we remember
when the world ends.

[milo]

(I had a better title but I forgot it, so)

NOT

I roam the space
where you are not
I breathe the air
you have not got
I fill the skin
you are not in
and where you end
I can begin.

If there's an answer
you don't know it
and if it's secret
I'll not show it
I'm a quite contrary sort
I could be tall
except I'm short --
Is this a poem?
Mission abort!

---

No no no, I couldn't bear for that to be it, so, this is. If it's not cool to have two poems up (very loosely speaking) I'll happily delete the preceeding.

This one, well, needs work, and the last two lines are a bit flaccid, but I think it's a better read, at least, than the previous doggerel.  

What Didn't Happen

I read in a novel about a pact
two people made to meet years hence
at a certain grave, but never kept
because one of them was dead.
And suddenly I recall
I made such a pact when I was young
with one, no, two friends and now
I cannot remember who they were,
where we were to meet, or when.

I'm not dead yet but they may be
whoever they were. I think we meant
to meet in New York or maybe San Francisco,
on a significant date, say, the century's end,
and we swore, we promised each other that,
no matter what, we'd turn up then
and greet and compare our lives.

That insistent road not taken jingles
in mind again; I have no idea
who I was, even, or who I'd have been
if things had turned out so I knew
those friends well or long enough to fulfill
our promise. I feel sure this was not
my idea as I always knew myself for one
whose road would take many turns.

It seemed fine at the time, to say I'd join in.
But, who were they? And did they meet,
and miss me and wonder if my life had been
as good or bad or mixed as theirs?
Or did they not even think of me except
to ask, was there not a third of us?
No, I don't think there could have been,
and then gone on to have drinks or tea.

I'm better off, I think, not to have lived
that life, but to be living this one.

I is more than cool to have 2 and it celebrates a long tradition

[bedeep]

Thanks, Milo.

[milo]

I am not my mother's favourite son -
she's made it clear that she prefers another.
It wouldn't help if he was not the one
cause I am not my brother's favourite brother.

Why bother to be smart but not the smartest
and if you're not the fastest, why be fast?
As making art won't make you an artist,
when you're not first you might as well be last.

A grackle sits alone outside my window
entreating me to join him and make two.
Perhaps he'd like for me to let him in, though
it wouldn't be the proper thing to do.
For even in my gloom I know it's wrong
to bring him in a place he won't belong.

[billy]

enjoyed the [not] poem bedeep

[bedeep]

Thanks, Billy. It was too easy; I don't trust that.

[Keith]

Not allowed to buy sweets

Push on the door of the old corner shop
it sticks a bit but opens with a ding
walk past the veg and ignore crisps and pop
then take out the list that mam made me bring.

Now then young man what would you like
something exotic frey bentos or spam
baxters veg soup or a nice piece of tripe,
no none of that, I've a list from mi mam.

You sure I cant tempt you with summat sweet,
spangles or pear drops in a six once bag
come on now daft lad, you're young have a treat
flying saucers or a sherbet dib-dab.

All right give it here, lets look at mums note,
a quart of whiskey and two packs of smokes?