NaPM April 10, 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 10: Write a poem inspired by unrequited love.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

Echoes


In chats I always liked to have the final word.
I detained Hera once; she imposed the final word.

She thought I hid her husband deliberately.
In silencing me she disclosed the final word.

I couldn’t say I loved Narcissus, unless he spoke.
I could answer, as his speech closed, the final word.

‘Come here’ he called. ‘Here’ I answered, and flew to him.
He rejected me. His scorn opposed the final word.

I pined for him so much I lost my body back to rock.
Now the mountain cliffs have enlosed my final word.

[Wjames]

Fourteen

It was her birthday, August 7th, 
and we were going to different schools in the fall.

There was a trampoline in her backyard,
and the kids were jumping 
to the beat of mid 2000’s pop-punk.

I walked to the cooler to grab a Coke,
and she followed. 

The quake of the trampoline springs
spread to my shoes, and the words

[rayheinrich]

                               
       


                                My suicide was pretty much effortless.
                               
                                No daggers to the heart,
                                no longitudinally slit wrists,
                                not even barbiturates and vodka;
                                no, nothing like that.
                               
                                Just the family car,
                                80 miles an hour into a freeway overpass.
                               
                                Unrequited,
                                over in a second.

[CRNDLSM]

I'm just an ordinary guy;
my time here isn't served with wine;
my shoelace is always untied.
I make my living cleaning pools
to pay my way through school
and prove to my dad that I'm not a fool.
All this time I've been alone,
I wonder if she'll pick up the phone,
if she even still lives at home.
I know there's more important matters in the world
than to spend my time dreaming of girls,
even if her cheeks are peach, and eyes are pearl.

I gather my nerves and dial her number.
I reach for the doorbell and blunder.
I gotta grow up, I'm not getting any younger.

Outside under her front porch light,
I lean in to kiss her cheek goodnight.
It was only meant to be polite,
but my stupid greedy fingers graze her thigh
sending a shiver up her spine.
She closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
Brushing the hair out of her face,
she tried her best to look away.
Her voice shook to say my name.
As I neared the sidewalk's end,
she softly called to me again,
'Goodnight,' she said, and headed in...

[Tracy Mitchell]

   Sigrid Abiding

A night light offers backlighting
enough to recognize Sigrid abiding
on the window shelf peering outside.

She is a gray fluff tabby, lion collared,
part Maine coon cat, perhaps, six toes
with hair in the spaces between.

Sigrid is the only one awake this early
watches me ascend the alley, leans in,
rises to put a paw against the glass.

The red of sunrise
dowses the front window
as if to set the building afire.

[kolemath]

You Did What?

Asked me, "Wanna make out?" when you were drunk.
Yelled at me for being drunk?
Cheated on me with that waiter?
Accelerated the SUV with me, clinging to the roof?
Moved away to Denver?
Fucked a married doctor in Denver the week before I visited?

It's O.K. I love you.
Do you love me?

[burrealist]

Random Thoughts

I love animals as much as I love bacon
I love freedom as much as I love money
I love sex as much as I deserve respect
I give respect as much as I deserve sex
I respect money as much as I deserve love
I have given sex for the sake of money
For the freedom to buy food for my cat
My cat deserves more than what I offer to others
That's sacrifice for the sake of love, over respect
I had bacon for dinner, shared with my cat
My cat really loves me when I feed her
I hope one day a human will love me with sex
Not just buy me like another piece of meat
I sold myself to a pig who needed sex
Because love was not an option either of us took
Everyone deserves to be loved... apparently
Regardless, he was kind to me, and respectful
He even treated me to dinner at a sit-down restaurant
I could tell that his gleaming smile had not shone for years
Even though I did not want to sell my body to him,
I felt happy for him that night, in that moment
We talked about his life, and how he felt
That being trapped in the closet all these years
Led him to meeting me, a very beautiful young man
We talked about his wife, and I suggested that he come out
After all, secrets only fester on a rotting heart
By the end of dinner, I thanked him
Then told him we needed to stop seeing each other
He was humble enough, and respected my wish
And his gleaming smile did not fracture
He and I had some things in common, like
We both eat bacon and we each own a cat
With a good-bye cake snug in the mouth
Of a take-out box, he took me home
It was chocolate. I love chocolate
Almost as much as I love bacon
Or snuggling with my cat

[Keith]

She walked in to the party

I shudder with a whiskey swig
and watch her through my parted fringe
If I'm drunk, I'm drunk already
no more bullshit trying to be friends.

She watches him through a parted fringe
swigs a gin and laughs with friends
oh your so funny,
If she's drunk, she's drunk already,
stands unsteady but lands quite certain.

In his hands she struts and pouts
no one in the room has any doubt.
A single glance back, that pity half smile
that keeps me sat, to drink for a while.

You're drunk she said,  linked to his ego.
Fuck off I said, either he goes or I go,
who the fuck are you? she said.

[nibbed]

Today is Mom's Birthday. Happy Birthday in heaven, Mom.
I love you. No one spoke metaphor better than you.


Shark!

Ordinary persons
who see stealthy fins
are fearful enough
to be smart enough
to ski-daddle.

Then again
there are those
who swim into cages
(with harpoons)
covered in mail.

[dukealien]

Lacking his Equal


Many times he married
once or twice for money
or to claim booty
of his conquests;
once to a mere girl;
the very first his senior,
mentor, confidante
back when he only dreamed
and sweetly poetized;
not near as many
as legendary Suleiman.
Yet though his angel always
permitted and commanded
none fulfilled his need:
how would they, women being
no more than they could be?
So he ascended
to paradise foretold
where, even where
its multitude of ever-fresh
engaging flesh
lacking his equal
could only leave his love
forever unrequited.

[Donald Q.]

Friday / Saturday

Midnight workers in the central reservation.
The tall lights so evenly spaced. Like vertebrae.
The fluorescent men as forensic scientists
with power drills. But no, I was under
hypnosis by brake lamp; it's simple resurfacing.
There are always improvements to be made,
but rarely new discovery below.
 
Wet leaf mulch carpets the pavements.
Slippery. Tipsy at one am, sliding
homewards. The rain has paused to
watch me, perhaps trying to gauge
an emotion? My ears are stuffed
with high bpm remixes and results
are unclear at this point.

[Tiger the Lion]

Hue  
 
I am a poem
of unrequited love,
 
the thought of a missed kiss
when it might have been possible,
 
a dream of what might have been,
 
a collection of atoms
with a sentimental heart—
 
and you were a colour I had never seen.

[Franklin'sMan]

A Sunny Day

In the spray park, Fornication’s follies
jostle in the rainbows blowing in the breeze. Chlorophyll
trickles to the trees.
A humming mower, kiddie cries, tumble. A pretty
couple on the bench canoodles, ants traipse,
a crow feasts on Cheetos.
Through the trees a jealous green.
One’s gone from the bench
to his knee. He’s a star
for his fairy queen. A rumbling glut
of bicycles trundle on a bridge. Winds pick up
in the canopy. Roman applause.
        She’s left him
        dead on his knees.

[just mercedes]

Hue  
 
I am a poem
of unrequited love,
 
the thought of a missed kiss
when it might have been possible,
 
a dream of what might have been,
 
a collection of atoms
with a sentimental heart—
 
and you were a colour I had never seen.

 I like this

[Lizzie]

Lucy loves the cat, but the cat runs
from her three year old hands,
sticky, grabbing, and unskilled.
The only game they play is chase,
which isn't really a game at all,
more like a boy pulling the pigtails
of the girl he desires. She doesn't realize
how clumsy she is at love,
which is just as well – she'd stop playing.
All games would fail.

---

The tall lights so evenly spaced. Like vertebrae.

Tipsy at one am, sliding
homewards. The rain has paused to
watch me,

[RiverNotch]

down the rabbit hole again, dancing with el bimbo,


paraluma'y kamukha --
eh ano naman?
rote declarations becoming
never not naught no nung

bata pa tayo, o kaya
bourgeois -- if ever
we were young at all,
we knew and know wala

[Todd]

Nice Guys Are Unicorns

who find it easy to love
the idea of someone.
 
They think love is grand
gestures—poison and doomed
teenage romance.
 
They find it easy to believe 
she choose the wrong person—
when she's allowed a choice at all.
 
It hurts their lips
to keep smiling,
while they're waiting
waitingwaiting
for this female vending machine
to accept
the creepy coin.
They keep shaking her
to get her to finally
dispense
sex.
Just because
they need her
to be a virgin,
doesn't mean they want her
to stay one.

[Lizzie]

while they're waiting
waitingwaiting
for this female vending machine
to accept
the creepy coin.
They keep shaking her
to get her to finally
dispense
sex.