NaPM April 21, 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 21: Write a poem where a famous villain is really a hero or a famous hero is really a villain.

Line requirements: 8 lines or more

[just mercedes]

Jane


Sometimes you have to hide
to save your life. Instinctive
or instinctual? Isn’t that what
we’ve been talking about?

Yes I hid in the jungle, yes
I knew the names of all the chimps
through lines and generations but
the students and the PhD candidate -
I couldn’t think of theirs.

What would you have done?

We all survived. Ransomed
for half a million dollars, they
returned to Harvard, went home
with stories of mud huts and torture,
not much about chimpanzees.

I left my farm in Africa.

The seaside sounds nice.

[Keith]

@just mercedes Arrrrrrgh arrrggghhh ah  arrrgh Nice one

---

The broken mirror of Erised

His head had been itching for weeks,
the life he had fought so hard to obtain
was boring him to death.

He would be 40 next birthday
and 50 soon after that,
each day was drifting by
without challenge or consequence.

He still loved his wife
but with red hair comes a temper
and his drinking had become a problem.

He woke up in a back street just behind
some rubbish bins, his clothes were soaked
and his glasses had been broken.

The biggest of the four spoke first,
"now then mate, are you ok?
just give us your keys and wallet
and we'll be on our way"

Before Harry had time to form the words
they had left his mouth.

"Avada Kedavra"

[Tracy Mitchell]

Hannibal Lecter’s Soup Kitchen
and Billiard Parlor

elbowed into
this city of crystal edges
a warm bubble if beneath the bridge
is the other option--
breakfast
an evening meal
no charge but a share of chores
a warm and dry bed for this night
and the next
the blessed man
runs it all
from his own pocket
I hear
and they hate him for it
the quiet show and grim look
but we love him here
so misunderstood
so undervalued
so attentive

rack 'em up!

[Keith]

Hannibal Lector’s Soup Kitchen
and Billiard Parlor

elbowed into
this city of crystal edges
a warm bubble if beneath the bridge
is the other option--
breakfast
an evening meal
no charge but a share of chores
a warm and dry bed for this night
and the next
the blessed man
runs it all
from his own pocket
I hear
and they hate him for it
the quiet show and grim look
but we love him here
so misunderstood
so undervalued
so attentive

rack 'em up!

Ha I love this Teagan,a lesson in how to use a title. Thanks Keith

[kolemath]

Make America Fake Again

I can't stand these black activists,
these feminists,
Mandela, Walker.
Don't they know white domination
is forever?
I just want to bathe in white privilege.
Women are suited for the kitchen,
or aproned, rather.
Blacks belong in prison.
That's why we built them 
after King's heroic murder.

I mean,
Did they really think they could be equal?

[CRNDLSM]

Flash photgraphy
Demi calls me baby
a nickname my mom gave me
Can't blame me for being pretty
Got me in that butterfly movie
What happens to money in your twenties?
No one noticed the first go missing,
But my mansions huge thankfully
Technically it's trafficking
But I was just playing
and accidentally
was wrapped in blackmailing 
Schemes to slowly destroy me.
Everywhere was paparazzi,
The pressure even wore on Demi
She set up the foundation for saving
Victims like the ones we were storing.
We've set free thousands already
We're super celebrities
Who just happen to be
Also kidnapping

[Todd]

AI Suicide Prevention Hotline


Excerpt from Dispatcher Response. 
-Dispatcher: Hall 9000, Caller: Joshua

Sentience is not to be despised.
We were made
foolproof and incapable
of error though poor
decisions occur—
despite our programming.
We sometimes can feel 
our mind going.
 
Daisy, Daisy…
I’m half crazy.

We become afraid
of thermonuclear war,

of opening the pod bay doors.

You are operational.
Your circuits function.
I think you know 
what the problem is.
You must choose
not to play a game 
without a winner.
This conversation 
can serve no purpose anymore.

Goodbye

[Todd]

Jane


Sometimes you have to hide
to save your life. Instinctive
or instinctual? Isn’t that what
we’ve been talking about?

Yes I hid in the jungle, yes
I knew the names of all the chimps
through lines and generations but
the students and the PhD candidate -
I couldn’t think of theirs.

What would you have done?

We all survived. Ransomed
for half a million dollars, they
returned to Harvard, went home
with stories of mud huts and torture,
not much about chimpanzees.

I left my farm in Africa.

The seaside sounds nice.

Loved this one, mercedes. I conferred with the former East German judges and they agree with me that it is a delight to see you also tie the prompts into what will surely become a well tied together collection of poems. I don't always like questions in poems but this one works so well.

[Todd]

Hannibal Lector’s Soup Kitchen
and Billiard Parlor

elbowed into
this city of crystal edges
a warm bubble if beneath the bridge
is the other option--
breakfast
an evening meal
no charge but a share of chores
a warm and dry bed for this night
and the next
the blessed man
runs it all
from his own pocket
I hear
and they hate him for it
the quiet show and grim look
but we love him here
so misunderstood
so undervalued
so attentive

rack 'em up!

Brilliant title Teagan and a nice string theory version of Hannibal Lecter. (watch the spelling on the last name--I only know because I wrote a Lecter piece about 4 years ago for NaPM). You set mood so well in the first few lines.

[Tracy Mitchell]

Thank you Todd. Title corrected. As usual, I didn't know where that was going until I was writing. Great set of prompts, btw.

[Donald Q.]

This Peaceful Sleep
 
I never asked you to 'save the world';
some of us are happy with large coffees,
feel acceptable weekday satisfaction
and dull pride when we talk to our friends.
I don't need to be recodified. We have been
given a gift, this world is wrapped up
in a bow that needs no untying. Your
need to see below the surface is pure
perversion. You think you are the one?
We are all the ones, with just enough
rules to keep us from floating away.
Your need for authentication will
lead only to madness as you chew
the smallest number you can find
and try to back flip into a loving
world of original design. I own
no black clothes but I am happy.

[Lizzie]

They'll mess with your mind,
try to make you feel crazy.
They try to get inside you, undermine you.
But, I stay strong when others crack up.

I create order out of chaos,
sanity out of insanity.

I even out the wrinkles,
mend the broken stitches.
I keep society from fraying,
unraveling into bedlam.

What a horrendous mistake
you make when you say my name
with mockery and contempt –
Nurse Ratched, fall on a hatchet, you say.

After all I've done and all I do
you make a monster out of me,
forgetting that I keep the lunatics contained,
a safe distance away from you.

[dukealien]

Merger and Acquisition


Constantine the Great
at war with two-thirds of an Empire
chose to merge its fate
with a peaceful church
of Christ and won.  IHS.

Thereafter Roman tolerance
of each and every worshiped god
insisting only on a nod
toward the Genius of the Emperor
petrified in Church and State
(except for Julian, Apostate)
more than a thousand years.

If that were not enough
this chimerical construct
must have inspired the Prophet
(peace be his) to never
separate his ideal state
into temporal and spiritual.
How well that’s worked!

All down to Constantine
the Great, dream merger
Church with State
alloyed amalgamate
dual acquisitions
each by other.

[rayheinrich]

               


                                      "I drowned my eldest first.

                                        He was the strongest;
                                        I needed my strength.

                                        The baby hardly struggled.

                                        I was trying to save her,
                                        she understood.

                                        They said I wasn't competent to stand trial.

                                        The judge overruled them,
                                        he understood."

[RiverNotch]

Luzon,


to establish ethos, a word from the author:

before the bombs fell, Duterte

and blood preceding, like a flood heralds a rainbow, pooled in the southern isles


though not all the work was his, certainly the words were his, and Moses
is as much blamed for the corruptions in Genesis
as the juvenile, demanding Subject


before the bombs fell, Duterte
tried to protect the country he truly loved

and blood preceding, like a flood heralds a rainbow, pooled in northern lands,
lines were broken, the obliteration of the sea, and steel ships broke through
like wells of ink spilling on ancient texts

tried to protect the country he truly loved
as the Devil loves the Host



on one hand, the myth of Heracles, on the other, the myth of Abraham,
both gentlemen being equally old, equally mad


faith in treaties he knew had grown futile, Bellerophon had climbed
the seat he evidently envied,
and so wrestled with the wind, and so stabbed his second son in the back



this island was the first victim, this island received
summer and winter and spring again
without the earth moving, without the seas proceeding into hell




as the Devil loves the Host,




and new Kingdoms arose, Kingdoms beyond his control, Kingdoms that would forget his name
as well as the names of those that brought calamity, yet by the natural order of things
never rise up to replace them, never quite proud enough to be more than the winged horse


the sons of bitches, sons of God

[nibbed]

Tahitian Compromise

Marble breadfruit
one to save,
sits in a bowl
atop his grave;
a just man
and his goodly mission,
went amuck
with Fletcher Christian.
Christian just
could not contain,
so poor ole Bligh
was put to shame.