NaPM April 13, 2017
#1
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 13: Write a confessional poem where nothing is true.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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#2
Anne Sexton, listening for the devil


The devil stays silent,
harsh as a mountain cliff-face.
Rigby, uglier than a husband,
fiddles with machines in the workshop,
mumbling. I exhale peppermint breath
as a benediction. He works in stained overalls,
curses the devil through his dry lips,
cracked by chemical vapours and sun.
He barks ‘Why?’ like an angry parent
who won’t believe the answer, anyway.
He’s formal and hostile.
The devil is right under our feet.

Everyone already thinks they recognise
his appearance, even without a body.
He didn’t have a body when I was a teen.
Then, he was tiny, hiding in dark cracks
ready to leap, a hungry spider.
As a child, I knew that unborn babies
hid there with him, among hairpins.
Then, my pillow was as soft as a breast,
and inside, winter fires purred.
Rigby, when he gets here, ask him ...
Dammit Rigby,
ask him why life breaks me down.





(from 'Eleanor Boylan, talking to God' by Anne Sexton)
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#3



                        [Image: FaeryQueen.jpg]



                        Incandescent faeries dive through trees,
                        their armies seethe from sacred glens, from ancient
                        forests long held tight with awe, and adders
                        lurking, flicking tongues within the grass.
                        It's come to this my faithful wife transformed
                        to traitor, beast, and revolutionist.
                        Your shadow creatures, teeming trolls of night
                        you've changed to modern form, to smiling memes,
                        to endless photographs of fluffy cats;
                        your magic's spun them into vicious forms
                        to noxious Twitter feeds, to Facebook rants,
                        transmuted faithful dogs to fiendish curs.
                        No battle fleets encroaching from the seas
                        No Majic Incantations, but the skill
                        to use the faults concealed within ourselves,
                        to leverage, profit by our tragic flaws
                        to spur the fierce revolt of our own id -
                        this gang of patriarchs, this race of men
                       
                        --------------------------------------------
                       
                        Flowers turn to poison, our food corrupts
                        our eggplants are to be feared, our slightest shrubbery
                        has turned against us,
                        our  refrigerators have locked our sustenance away,
                        hold it tightly against their frozen bosoms.
                       
                        And what came next: Illusions of our victory contained within
                        our VR frames, are single-shooter games of conquest mere illusion;
                        our fashion from our shoes to cunning hats
                        turned tragic our aesthetics woefully incapable of holding joy
                       
                        And God's long dead arising, bolts of artificial lightning,
                        electromagnetic hammers, and atomic suns.
                       
                        My changeling children their false love turned against me,
                        you thankless children, how I feel your serpent teeth.
                        Your costly  degrees in physics, enabling a diabolical mathematics,
                        the laws of force and gravity turned upside down.
                        The mechanisms of engineers constructing fearful gears
                        a fearful DNA unleashed its nasty snakes of molecules,
                        recombinant, they slither through our cells
                       
                        Your faeries held no golden dust, no iridescent wings to bear them high
                        but briefcases of lawyers and accountants to destroy our infrastructure,
                        our balances of trade, the valuation of our monies
                       
                        You, my faery wife, my trusted partner bonded to my life how could you?
                        The excitement of your passion, your seduction, your erotic power
                        used as spell against me, I was lost in it and powerless,
                       
                        ---------------------------------------------
                       
                        What have I done to earn this punishment?
                        Oh how I comprehend and wish I didn't...
                        no, I much prefer to know the truth of it,
                        to feel it, even though it forces pain.
                        To see how I,  my race of men demeaned you
                        and enslaved you, stole from you the pleasure of
                        your life, the right to exercise your gifts;
                        and in these acts deprived ourselves of same.
                        The laying of my hands on you in anger;
                        a monster taking pleasure in  your pain.
                        So now I absolutely know this truth.
                        I know how just, how fitting, your revenge;
                        and learning this, I know it's only I that's lost.
                        How sharp! Oh I've begun to feel it now,
                        your potent poison overcomes my soul.
                        I will not live to hear your victories,
                        but with my dying voice I know it's true.
                        Hear me, Titania dear, my queen of faeries:
                        'Gainst all this, the paradox of love
                        remains, just hold me to you, let me feel
                        your faery warmth, the light caress of wings...
                        The rest is silence.

                                                - - -




P.S. I had intended to fully convert this draft to iambic pentameter (and throw in a few more Bard homages); but though my spirit is willing, my flesh is headin' for the barn.
Maybe I'll come back later after I feed the cats?
                                                                                                                a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
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#4
Wired to the machine

I had it by the wrist
as it hung over the cliff,
my strength distracted
by the rugged white below
and the steady alarms
getting louder, breaking through
with each crushing wave.

A sudden jolt
held only by my finger tips,
a track that trembles
with the approaching train
electricity pumps peristaltic
inside the vain.

I could see the words
as they added their weight,
climbed on its back.
Impossible for me to take
with this failed grip.

I told myself I wasn't sure
who let go first,
but I know who found
the abyss beneath the switch.

If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
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#5
Reagan didn't make it.
Another faux Paul.
If England could do it, we needed it.
Of course you didn't notice,
you landed on the moon. 

I thought Kevin kline 
would destroy everything,
But no one believes the movies,
not even him.  So they did it again,
and now I'm dying.  Control

was never in my hands until now.
Now, you won't believe me, but 10
more years you must.  The curse 
that took one every 20 will take
one more before 2028.  Harrison

messed up, and Bush's son
had to pay.  Now I'm dying,
and can tell you all.  It happened
once and will happen again.
Remember, remember tippecanoe!
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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#6
  Notes From Dafidalia

How cool was the cosmos, fucked-up
mostly, when I started leaking
break fluid, then seminal and
cerebrospinal fluid.  What clicks
to make this work is the voraciousness
of time - like shooting pineapples
in the bathtub, with a machine gun.

Pineapple #1 - I chose to become
an ammonia-based life form, or is it vinegar –
whichever goes with V-8 juice and olive oil
for a cheap dressing for greens and onions,
which you prepared and I never ate.  
The pounding wore me down.

Pineapple #2 – your dafidalia
half a pail of lust approach,
I knew couldn’t last.  My failings
drew me to the edge, to the staccato
drip of urban catastrophe–the chop-shop
of cardiovascular metaphor. Ahhhh!

Nuance was in the air, then lost –
the accreted condensation from
exhausts of a thousand trucks an hour
over this frozen tarvia half-pipe run, and
credenza-speak is black ice / bleak ice.
Bleak House / blockhouse.

Pineapple #3  I become an insect
by summer, a thingie that looks like a
giant mosquito, scares but doesn’t bite.
I fly in from the outer rings to earth, into
the atmosphere, to take the other side - I am
on the other end of the line, I volley from
across the net, I scream because I can,
but only to myself.

I become barium, then carbon-based, retract
my exo-skeleton, grow some flesh, and
here is Pineapple #4: Because of or
despite you, and your incipient cunning,
I roll the rock away and get up for
breakfast.  I think I slept for three days.
Happy Easter, baby-cakes.
I’m dead.
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#7
Peccavimus


Great God of Hosts, hear this our true
confession of the humbled race
still known as “white,” your servants, Lord
who scourged Your world in pride alone
with never thought we should atone
for what we did to those we found
beyond the sea we cowardly
crossed over; only evil, lust
for gold and slaves, aggrandizement,
our faith a sham, our fervor to
improve the lot of tribes and give
them longer life, the rule of law
and simple decency - all false;
we never meant to help or heal
no goodness ours, all pride, all pride.

See how since we have let them go
because they, our superiors
in morals, ethics, legal thought
sweet dignity and poetry
can manage so much better by
themselves without our clutching hands
that held them back.  Now on they fare
free, independent, governed by
benevolence of native sons
without the pride or greed which we
displayed by going out to them
they thrive in honor, governed well
without corruption, war, or strife
now that our villainies are gone
they revel without pride, in peace.

Hear our confession, God of Hosts
for You, Lord, Who gave law and life
must surely see the truth of it.
feedback award Non-practicing atheist
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#8
Gas Street Basin

Weeknight, walking Gas Street Basin towpath
the pink bus passing, gliding like a shoe
buoyant, from a nightclub lost property.
You drudge behind me, picking up all my
bad habits whilst staring at the cobbles.
 
Weeknight, walking Gas Street Basin towpath
the waterbus wearing bright pink paint job
like a badge. You sport a downcast face and
hold an upturned can which dribbles on your
toes. The canal is four feet deep at best.
 
Weeknight, walking Gas Street Basin towpath,
the pink like a bar of soap skipping on
undefeatable murk. I tow you behind
me dredging fog for miles, spooling you out
like a tape, full of private footage; proof.
 
Weeknight, walking Gas Street Basin towpath
like we've done it before but rewound or
obtained new information, dredged up fresh
evidence to bust the roof off this thing.
I pick up pace, preempting a deluge.
 
Weeknight walking Gas Street Basin towpath
a bloated tramp floating like a warning.
When you climb out clothes wet I offer you
my jacket and explain that it was just
a mirage; my reflection, a mallard.
 
Weeknights walking Gas Street Basin towpath
the days are standing water growing rank
looping busted like a starter motor
on a narrow boat in a back-channel,
spluttering full of things it cannot say.
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#9
Alone and Drugs

I can see my eye
in the bathroom mirror.
It is a reflection,
the opposite,
not really what it looks
like, a lie, "Impostor!"
I yell at it.
The pupil narrows
as I move closer to the light
over the sink,
full dilation to a grain of black sand
in Tahiti, the ocean pulling it away,
widening, narrowing, widening pupil,
nodding head, rocking, slamming
into the mirror.
Glass splashes where I dive in.
Here I go.

Down.
Thanks to this Forum
feedback award
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#10
I'm know I'm stupid,
mom said so. I know I am –
she called me retarded.

I'm five feet, four inches and eighty-five pounds.
I walk in circles, like a wind up toy
left to play by itself.

I am a girl possessed by flyaway thoughts
like Styrofoam peanuts, dandelion seeds,
baby tree spiders on tenuous threads.

I have a deficit they say,
but it's more like abundance –
a mind gorging itself

on too many things. I'm beginning to think
I might overheat and turn to ash,
or rise like a balloon, never to land.
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#11
(04-14-2017, 12:17 PM)Lizzie Wrote:  I'm know I'm stupid,
mom said so. I know I am –
she called me retarded.

I'm five feet, four inches and eighty-five pounds.
I walk in circles, like a wind up toy
left to play by itself.

I am a girl possessed by flyaway thoughts
like Styrofoam peanuts, dandelion seeds,
baby tree spiders on tenuous threads.

I have a deficit they say,
but it's more like abundance –
a mind gorging itself

on too many things. I'm beginning to think
I might overheat and turn to ash,
or rise like a balloon, never to land.

We're all so damn good; how can this many excellent poems be written in so little time?

And this one... at least five metaphors that drive me to jealousy.

"Write a confessional poem where nothing is true."
Nothing is true? You're stretching this one a bit, aren't you?
(Oh, wait, I promised not to tell. Sorry.)
                                                                                                                a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
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#12
I thought I could

Glass eyed, he’d been about to cry.
I cozied him up in his quilt.
I’d yell. “Don’t you love me” he’d sigh.
Glass eyed, he’d been about to cry.
I promised my love till we’d die.
Lie. I’m alive, but dead with guilt.
Glass eyed, he’d been about to cry.
I cozied him up in his quilt.
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#13
balada de mestizo

i don't like white people --
don't trust the evangelical,
they wanna take over
the catholic i hate,
the friars took over.

i don't like white people --
don't trust call center managers,
they ruin the economy,
taking over industry
wasps built to burn the earth.

i don't like white people --
don't trust indie music,
all made in bad taste
with more bad faith
than the classical, the imperial.
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#14
religiosity


yeah, so I dabbled.
vicarious,
in eastern stuff,
you know,
acupuncture,

and that art of rubbin'
or pressin' on parts of the foot
in some certain place
just to feel happy again,
painfree.

yeah, so I moved.
rearranged victorious,
all the furniture
Feng shui

& in the darkness
of smoldered herbs,
& snuffed soy candles,

I stubbed
my one good toe,

where I became expert
at star charts

as I found
a whole new
nirvana.
there's always a better reason to love
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#15
When My Son Asks About My Worst Experience
 
I Imagine that God is shaking
a Magic 8-Ball
and my tongue is shifting
somewhere between: Ask again later
and Better not tell you now.
Instead of a lie detector,
I’m hooked to that machine
that tests for earthquakes,
and the needle begins to move
so quickly that the building
I’m sitting in starts to break apart
like a sand castle, then it’s the city block,
then the whole state slides into the ocean.
There are days I don’t want to die.
I can’t remember any of their faces.
Their names have washed away.
Perhaps the needle is drawing a picture
of what might happen,
or what’s already happened.
If I focus beyond the words
maybe the record won’t spin
If I speak to the past. If I even whisper
the sound would shatter stone.
 
I only want to tell him the truth.

I think he’s experienced the truth,
and I’m only lying to myself.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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