NaPM April 19, 2018

[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 19: Write a poem using the following ten words: diabolic, tense, chicken, surge, lust, premature, jump, bridge, ring, regard.

You can make words singular or plural and change tenses.

Form: any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more


Questions?

[just mercedes]

Oh Chucky, free your soul ...

[RiverNotch]

The End of History: a summary of the project I've been loosely working on for this entire event


Diabolic tense chicken lusts over a premature,
surges past regard, and jumps a bridge
to choke itself with a ring.


I may or may not get back to this.

[Knot]

But not Diabolic.


The bridge rang,
children dancing,
thunder rolled and echoed
in the beams:
Go on chicken, jump!

Sweet as lust, just heating up.
Are you chicken, chicken?
Go on, go on chicken, jump!

Tense as punishment,
stiff and sticky, ecstasy
in waiting:
Go on chicken, jump!

One backward glance
but no regard, defeated and
Go on! Go on chicken, jump!

Surge of blood, of bodies,
wanting something innocent,
pure as need, release,
as screaming:
Go on chicken, jump!

Jump...

Jump...

J...Not ready, no fair,
wasn't watching, I thought
it would be more than this,
you know; messy. 
'Sa premature ejaculation's
what it is.

Hollow stomachs, hungry;
got a taste for chicken,
fries, a coke, c'mon, let's go,
I'm bored, can't see nothing.
Are you anywhere?
Come on, chicken.

Come on, chicken.
Run!


.

[dukealien]

Advice of Old Silas to Sadie Hawkins, Spinster


We write of love and loss a lot,
but know the latter better than
the former’s surge and urgent lust
some never feel... but all have lost.
Regard the storied bridal ring:
its gain, monogamous and sweet,
is premature if lovers tense
as life-long loss of liberty
becomes a diabolic bridge
that neither crosses.  Best to lose
illusions, chicken out nor jump
at chance of romance for, my dear,
its end, as of all things, is dust.

[just mercedes]

White Nights in St Petersburg


White as three chicken feathers
in an annonyous envelope. Potemkin
makes his way down Nevsky Prospekt,
ring road to the Neva Bridge.

Tense, alert, he watches the surge
of flood-swollen waters. Could a coward
even jump? Suicide’s diabolical temptation,
premature death, battles his lust for power,
now jaded as his pleasures with a faded Queen.

He regards his past, his future, with
equal pain. Poland must be taken.
A one-eyed man can’t afford
to blink.

[Tiger the Lion]

Pre-Mature


I hate this bridge;



it rings with teenage games of chicken--


jumped up lusts
and disregard 
for any surge of sense





or how diabolically tense




its crossing might be





for us.

[Todd]

Oh Chucky, free your soul ...

Yes, and I too have to eat at the table I set. I'll be trying to mix it up some with the next few prompts.

[Todd]

The Absolute Truth of the World
 
The road is gray, and the sky is gray,
and though we live, above and beneath
this canopied bridge of gray, we still expect
our world to explode in color. We travel
to the point of the horizon where mountains flatten,
and assume that rainbows reveal treasure,
and that we’re going somewhere—not
a joke waiting for a punchline,
like the chicken tense by the side of a road.
It can smell the exhaust, and see distracted
drivers on their cell phones, looking away
to change radio stations. The chicken should wait
for a gap, but the destination is more important
than the steps. It surges into traffic and traffic surges
toward the chicken in a diabolic dance
of a retro videogame. It jumps left, right,
but never forward as if enclosed by a ring.
Its need to cross is the lust of the lottery ticket,
and the end of steps with no regard
for mortality while the prize waits.

[Richard]

Diabolic

She is tense,
fighting back surges of lust
for that man on the computer,
who never forgets details like her favorite flower,
so unlike her husband.

The chicken is ready,
her secret ingredient rat poison.
Nervousness makes her afraid
to insert her hand into the oven,
prematurely, without regard
to the colour of the juices that fill the roaster.

Suddenly, she remembers their first kiss,
in his parents' Mercedes,
the diamonds on their fifth anniversary,
the second honeymoon once a year.

Her heart jumps like a suicide leaps from a bridge
as he takes his first bite.
Her wedding ring already pawned.

[RiverNotch]

Soulmates


1
It does not, it cannot, begin with two.
The breath emanates. The soul,
diabolic, whores itself to the world.
The senses tense up.

God's contraction,
a game of chicken.
We were broken
like a stick of cherry wood

picked for kindling.

2
Now we're a tent, dry grass
beneath our mesh of fingers.
Sparks fly. Something surges
but I cannot name it.

Our arms crease.
Our necks crack.
Our guts spill.
Our legs snap.

A chestnut log steps into our dust.

3
I never lusted after you:
that was never the issue.
Perhaps we met prematurely,
perhaps I jumped the gun.

No, there was no issue.
Nothing happened between us.
I felt, I remember --
now there's an issue.

Now I'm hanging from a bridge.

4
It begins with two: two spots
of light, two bodies
under an arch. He passes
a ring to her, she pays with fruit.

The lights
will meet again,
eventually. The bodies
are not so lucky

but do not regard a beginning for an end.

[vagabond]

suicidal omelette

no way to spread the wings
or even jump,
due to the height, it´s not a bridge.
if chicken had a time machine,
could research some alternatives...
it would be leaving prematurely.

like those pointless sterile eggs
that vanish through the bars
in order to be packed, delivered, cracked
and mingled with their kin
in shivering, shaky lust-
it would be surging in the heat,
tensed and tempered,
once to fly, if only
just a foot above the pan.

[Leanne]

Dear Applicant, Steve

In order to properly categorise your request,
we ask that you clarify the following:

The Object -- While it is understandable that you,
in a surge of lust, would wish to possess this woman, we
must not be premature. Have you pursued 
the possibility of relations on your own, or do you
truly require our intervention? Understand
we are happy to take payment, but please
be certain.  Our complaints department does not
take kindly to frivolous protestations.

The Setting -- I am certain you believe
that a bridge at sunset is suitably romantic
for your conquest, but consider the possible
consequence when you emerge from your 
concealment.  It is but a short jump to liberty.
In addition, how do you propose
to keep the ring intact?  Salt and fog are not
happy bedfellows, and a chicken does not 
bleed without leaving a mess such that civic 
bodies tend to disapprove. 

The Price -- Our fee is not negotiable.  Two
souls, to be removed at the moment of 
contact. The greater the tension, the easier
the transfer.  Your sense of drama will ease 
passage of your own, but hers must be taken
too in order that the contract be complete.  
Failure will result in a waiver of your rights 
and immediate procession to the final stage
of the agreement.  

This is your last opportunity to withdraw
your application.  

With kind regards,

His Diabolical Majesty's Head Secretary,

Jeff

[Keith]

The Stormbringers path

We were on-route for a family picknik
until the weather reporter used the word diabolical.
"That's a bit premature" said father,
trying to cover up his mechanical lust for storm chasing.

"No" said mother, have a heart "the children are with us"
"Oh come on, why so tense? if we jump in the car now
we can be over the bridge and back into Kansas
before you can click your heals".
"If it makes you feel better I'll ring ahead to check its progress".
My brother said he was afraid that something bad would happen,
but I convinced him that it would be alright.

We caught it all on camera, the bridge,
the surge of the river, even the screams from inside the jeep
as it filled with water and we rolled upside down
into the muddy murk.

We're sitting on the repaired bridge
waiting for our bodies to surface as they drag
yet another area.
I think of playing poo sticks
as our hamper floats quietly by,
ducks are fighting over the chicken paste sandwiches
and corn cobs.

"I think they've found us" said father as he disappeared
followed by my brother, then my mother.

"With regards to me?
I wish I'd never left Kansas,
I wish they would have carried on searching,
at least I still have the dog ".