NaPM April 08, 2017

[Todd]

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 08: Write a poem inspired by a transformation.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

Rosalind


Surprised by how much fun this is,
to dress and live as a man. My body
feels freer in this tunic and boots than
ever I felt in a dress. Getting ready for
a meal takes two minutes; wash face
and hands, comb hair. Takes two hours
as Rosalind. And striding. I’d never
strided before in my life. As Ganymede
young shepherd, I stride about the forest
of Arden, full of life. How differently men
speak to each other, without ladies about.
At ease. We seem to live a much more
simple life.

[CRNDLSM]

The D's Lee

He approached me in the parking lot after the show,
like a ghost in front of me all eyes and smiles.
'You were amazing up there tonight!
I've seen all your shows. Heres a website
I set up with your photos and lyrics.'
And he stood there in the parking lot until after I left.

Everything was in there, even my favorite foods.
How could he get all this information?
Details! I searched the whole site, unbelievable,
I had to do something, within a few hours
I found his address linked to a profile with his picture.

Seven in the morning, sure enough, the fan
steps out of his house in a suit in a hurry.
Acting fast, I sprint across the street, 'hey buddy!
Hi! I thought you did great work with that website,
here's a few more pictures, and my phone number,
if you want to set up an interview, all right! See ya!'

Two in the afternoon, why hasn't he called?
Good thing I have his phone number, I'll try it.
No answer!  Maybe he was busy, I'll try again.
Jeez what's going on? I hope he's okay.
It's been an hour, he hasnt called me back.
I better try the hospital, it could be any of them.

Five of clock! His car is there, thank God!
Knock, knock knock. Try the knob, locked.
I can't see anything through the window,
any Windows around the side? Here's one,
tap tap, tap!    *CRASH*     'What the hell?!!

Where have you been? The doors been locked all day!
I tried all the hospitals!'  And he stood there,
like a ghost in front of me all eyes and smiles,
'No one's ever cared this much about me!'
He cried, we hugged, he comes to all my shows,
my biggest fan, happily ever after...

[Tracy Mitchell]

Water Waits Forever.

Seeping still, in saturated fields
to join edges, make a pond
or stream through gullies, waiting
for more- to cut new valleys
to puff back up some prairie pride.

Tonight, with sandbags soaking
atop dikes, futile- as it turns out,
brown stagnant meanderings
come alive.

Water waits forever–
locked in a body, frozen at the pole
or reaching at the fringes of black
hollow spaces, with stirrings again
of an inland sea.

[rayheinrich]

               

                                                        < transformation >

                                        the ferocity of anxious motion
                                        of brilliant consideration
                                        neural condensation
                                        incandescent subatomic collisions
                                        strained ironic culminations...

                                        the sun showers into the blood-stuffed soup of us
                                        its stellar fragments slicing through us...
 
                                        the divergence of permutation
                                        the distortion of novelty
                                        the fragmentation of sense
                                        our space escapes us
                                        sends us tumbling end for end
                                        rotating about an ambiguous center

                                        bones stretch
                                        fingers swell
                                        the sun submerges us in uncertainty
                                        history preceded, transcended, exceeded
                                        illusion gleams
                                        reality glares
                                        myth's image beats against us
                                        travels bone to bone
                                        neuron to neuron
                                        undeterred and unmanaged
                                        shifted, switched, stripped, and transported
                                        and that was just what happened before breakfast

[dukealien]

Semiotics (Guess That Makes Him an Elephant)


Nothing transforms quicker than words in sequence
meaning unfolds into its opposition
from dismissive (branding her cheap) to praising,
“Cheap at the price.”

Nor is sudden spinning of meaning only
brought about by adding more words.  A simple
lifted eyebrow’s irony signal twists all:
did she say “Perfect?”  Perfect...

So it is not only in Japanese and
German that the listener must await the
final word to learn what the sentence meant.  No
sentence rests ‘til it’s over.

Sometimes, rarely, sentences’ incompleteness
makes their meaning.  Think of the general who
cheered his troops by shouting, “They couldn’t hit an
elephant at this dist...”

[Lizzie]

Sometimes, rarely, sentences’ incompleteness
makes their meaning.  Think of the general who
cheered his troops by shouting, “They couldn’t hit an
elephant at this dist...”

[Donald Q.]

Hydroponics
 
There are fingers twisting
on the rounded edges.
 
We didn't realise;
life's absent sorts,
peas in a pod,
we both forgot
to read the blurb.
 
Years ago
we were huffing glue
by the church hall,
but now we see the face-
up playing card.
A sleight of hand,
a smooth cut;
a flipped femur
turned to orbit.
 
Head-spinning too high
to see the deal, to hear
our names trumpeted;
we watched our Earth
rolling away like a marble,
same as any day, just
through a smaller porthole.
 
Whoever owns the digits
is no matter. We were folded
through space surrounded
by floating textbooks and
vacuumed seedlings. Us,
the royals of his second
garden! Roots weave
like wild brain patterns
and we swell full like
tomatoes, proud, flushed,
pure as the forged air.
 
We distribute fenugreek
leaflets by the fistful.
I run my baton along
the gas compressors, singing.
We made our luck turn good again.
 
Free from all habits,
thrown clean past Venus,
cut lose by kismet. We are
the palmed off pair, lungs
full of our own gust,
sailing on the brink, chasing.

[nibbed]

Ignored

They rested
for decades
on the arbor,
sole purpose,
grape jelly;

then rolled
with rice,
a squeeze of lemon,
lean lamb,
parsley,
salt and allspice;

Maybe it was all wrong,
but it sure tasted right.

[Franklin'sMan]

Beside

The sun came cracking blinds
like aliens on X-files do.
Apocalyptic scenes sundered dreams
of making love to you.

I’m awake. You sleep still.
Spoiled yogurt feelings pierce me through.
I kiss your hand, and wish that you were here.
I dream of making love to you.

Your name will not escape my lips.
I’ve no breath to force it through.
The piercing now has crushed my heart.
I’ll dream of making love to you.

[Lizzie]

I used to dream that I was falling
head first into bottomless darkness.
My stomach would reel
from the gravity sucking me down,
the bottom of my world always falling out.

Now I dream of a world without guard rails,
without fences, without gates –
and you, son, forever running
right up to the edges,
and you are always

about to fall.

[RiverNotch]

eyebags (the morning after prom)



weeks taken
toll, o beautiful
morning once a face
owned -- worn took, when once
before love, God's labor
was all around
and said:
                let it not that i
                only from a distance touched
                another, long before i've touched
                another, locked in struggle
                loved -- 
                             and cracks upon the mirror,
                             tears upon the over not.

[kolemath]

FIRST AND FINAL LOOKS

Oh my God!
You're so cute!
I mean, everything you do,
so cute!
Everyone knows it too!
The way you dress.
The way you eat.
The way you slurp the last sip.

It's just so
fucking annoying.
I'm sick of even looking at you.
Everyone looks at you.
I mean, everything about you
is so annoying.
Oh my God!
Your ugly clothes.
You never stop eating.
Don't you know it's rude to slurp?

[Keith]

The eye of the beholder

He was waiting for her
in the apartment,
smart suited enough
to know about property.
The rain hadn't stopped,
Claire burst through the door
as colourful as her language.
Jesus Christ I'm soaked.
This friggin dump better be worth it.

Oh wow, she forgot the rain
forgot her wet clothes.
Its fabulous, can we take it?
I haven't shown you the rest
of the place yet, he laughed.
Reaching for a bottle of champagne
and two glasses, he followed her into the bedroom.
A toast to our meeting place.
Oh you are naughty, you knew I'd love it.
She spun like a child too small
for her mothers dress and shoes.
As the glass emptied
she hit the floor.

Over a pint the boys swapped stories.
How's Claire these days?
Ah yes, Claire, she wasn't really right for me,
too fat I thought, and her nose was to big, check bones?
well, lets say she needed a lot of work.
You bloody surgeons, always wanting
to slice things up.
Anyway, whatever happened to Helen
If I remember right
you said the same things about her.
Funny you should ask about Helen,
actually I'm visiting Helen tonight.
You wouldn't recognise her,
another pint?

[burrealist]

Permutations of an Acronym

Terrific, remarkable ambiguities
Noteworthy, say, for office-regimes
Misinterpret asinine thoughts,
Important or not

Tell Randy and Nancy
Seriously, fuck-off!
Really, my ass-twat,
I'm over Nancy

Tangerines. Really awesome.
Nuts. Salty, firm.
Oranges. Round.
Mangoes. Africa.
Tacos. Instant, oval nachos.

[Todd]

After Autumn

I could convince myself
it was the connection 
that made her voice crackle
like dry leaves underfoot.
I could pretend that her laugh
didn't drain the color from the world.
Twenty years and she had only just left
dancing shoes and underwear in my car.
Nothing had changed. Nothing
remained. We sat monochrome
across the table over uneaten sandwiches 
unable to fill the hollowness 
of cheeks and years and cancer, only prayers
to die rising like wind through leafless branches.