NaPM April 21, 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 21: Write a poem inspired by opposites.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more


Questions?

[Knot]

Limited Number

The opposite of zero
is infinity, apparently,
or one.

The opposite of zero
is True.

Context is everything,
but everything is not
the same
as infinity.

So...
Are truth and infinity
one and the same?
Discuss.



Today's question
(Supplementary):

What is the opposite of;
a 71 years old,
75 inch,
white/orange male,
weighing 239 pounds?

(Answer in writing
within the next 926 days)


.

[just mercedes]

Your Egon Schiele colours set the right
ambience of decadence, like bruises left
glowing and putrid, highlit by black
exhaust fumes, or clouds of chimney white.
You are every sad face on a subway wet day,
the blind eyes of orphans that stare from the night.

You’re the thorns on the treasures that wind through the night
like corpse-gas from graves when conditions are right,
night flowers that fold with the coming of day
to hide the ravine where nothing is left
but the gaping of wounds, lines powdered white
to define all the edges, to hem in the black.

Your background is scumbled, all South Side and black,
red stage lights and flashes of blue through the night
where your mother’s for sale in her nightie so white
and the scent of gardenias. From the church on the right
comes the chanting of flagellants, offerings left
on the altar of excess that mounts to the day.

No cocks in the city to thrice call the day
but you need no reminders. Betrayal is black
and addictively sticky. No dragons are left
unchased through the foils of gas light at night
but your mother retreats to the nunnery, right
as you start to dissolve in her veil so white.

All the walls and the sheets in the hospice are white,
you can’t hide from light, you’re marooned in the day
and your mother is dead, too late to make right
what you stole and you squandered. The Jesuits, black
in crow suits, still wait at the edge of the night
to lay claims on your soul, or what portion is left.

All that sound, and that fury - just what is left
of a life when the pages are reset to white
and the lines all dissolve back into the night
that gave birth to them, nurtured them? Hidden by day,
the shadows wait patiently, curled up in black
edges on everything. Nothing looks right.

And you’ll always be left, at the end of the day,
in the White Hotel by the ravine, black
roses of nightmares. And that feels right.

[vagabond]

opposite

it´s all just theory
there is no real opposite
in life, this universe
keeps boiling down
to common grounds
there is no real opposite
cos if there were
we´d just annihilate each other
instantly, but no
we´ve been at it
for centuries, millenia
there is no real opposite
except for death
there is no real death except
inside our heads

edited, once again

[dukealien]

White Hat Universe


Matter and anti-matter differ
from other opposites so much
it would almost be better
to name them something else.
Love and hate, as we all know
turn easily into each other
if they can even be distinguished
in their natural state.
Fascism and anti-fascism
for that matter, seem
indistinguishable aside
from the antis slinking off
in masks to hide
instead of flaunting uniforms.
With matter and its anti-
it’s more like computer viruses
and anti-virus:
for a stable universe to result
one side has to win;
in our case it’s
the one we don’t call anti.

---

opposite

it´s all just theory
there is no real opposite
in life, this universe
keeps boiling down
to common grounds
there is no real opposite
cos if there were
we´d just annihilate each other
instantly, but no
we´ve been at it
for centuries, millenia
there is no real opposite
except for death
there is no real opposite except
inside our heads

Aha!  This time I blindly stole *your* metaphor.  Apologies

[Richard]

Socks

On the right,
white crew cut,
looks new, bleached enough
to cleanse any discolouration,
and easily replaced by buying a new pair.

On the left,
red athletic style,
obviously worn, but scrubbed
by a mother's hands,
the matching one lost like the revolution

[vagabond]

Aha!  This time I blindly stole *your* metaphor.  Apologies

 i just used it, too, and didn´t look up if it was patented by someone  .

[RiverNotch]

Elemental


Mercury works like dirt about its orbit,
Saturn much like stone -- and the Moon,
so fluid and so cold,

like silver lava down
a parched heart, a hungry mind.
It reeks, it reeks of black

scratches on the ceiling, rot
climbing up the invalid's digits

which yet continue to type,
Mercurial to work -- Saturnine to the end.

[Todd]

I find that when I'm trying to catch up on prompts the part of my brain that comments on other's work shuts down. I did like this one quite a bit, Knot. It was very clever. Oh, and to your supplemental question, to answer: I would need to know the size of the subject's hands.

Limited Number

The opposite of zero
is infinity, apparently,
or one.

The opposite of zero
is True.

Context is everything,
but everything is not
the same
as infinity.

So...
Are truth and infinity
one and the same?
Discuss.



Today's question
(Supplementary):

What is the opposite of;
a 71 years old,
75 inch,
white/orange male,
weighing 239 pounds?

(Answer in writing
within the next 926 days)


.

[Todd]

The Left Side of Harvey
 
There is a certain hubris
in shining too brightly
for the sun will always burn
its imitators. They
say he changed that day,
but they were wrong
and right. Etching
can only be revealed
when bitten from the metal.

[Knot]

I did like this one quite a bit, Knot. It was very clever. Oh, and to your supplemental question, to answer:
I would need to know the size of the subject's hands.

Supplementary supplement:

Despite the detail you requested being conspiratorially redacted
from RDML Jackson's report, for the purposes of this calculation
you may use a value proportional to 'small', which is to say 'not bigly',
though of course you will need to factor in PGv  - where v is velocity,
G is 'rate of grab' (and not, as is commonly misunderstood,
the Gravity of the Situation) and P is

Age Verification Required

Time remaining 923 days.

Do remember to show your workings.

.

[Tiger the Lion]

The Absolutes

The absolutes of black and white
are gone, debunked, depolarized,
and gray by day and gray by night.

When right goes wrong and wrong feels right
the ego unlearns how to size
the absolutes of black and white,

and justifies its short of sight
with wholesome truths turned half-assed lies
that gray by day and gray by night.

And stars by trillions mock the night     
so who am I to empathize 
with absolutes of black and white?

So bring your bark and bring your bite
and bring your once-blue, puppy-eyes
that gray by day and gray by night,

and come at me with truth and light
as if I didn't realize 
the absolutes of black and white
go gray by day and gray by night.

[Tiger the Lion]

Sympathy for Bizarro  (for Todd)

Jesus, people,
my newsfeed's a sinkhole.

Call me cubed
but I can't get around it.

I'm thinking about throwing
a cape over it
and skipping back to the bright side.

Lois says I should go
with my gut, 

says I'm a good man
and will know what's right.

She thinks she's coming with me.

[Keith]

Joe 90

I cross the threshold into another poem
as Grandads chair rotates clockwise,
head back in the spin,
picture-rail portraits merge
into a single familiar face.

Ornaments and brass carriage clocks
blur streaks of colour
on tobacco brown walls.
Gas fire chrome lights up green
as my brothers hands
slap to increase the speed.

Recovery is only a moment of laughter,
never long enough to breath
before the chair goes anti-clockwise
and time is undone, the transfer complete.