NaPM April 1, 2019

[billy]

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.

NaPM April 1 2019

Topic: Write a fearful poem containing the words lemon-drop/s.

Form: Any.

Line Requirement: 8 lines or more.

[billy]

A Peculiar Pickle

Under a sullen light.
the small bed was abandoned
Blood trailed like red confetti
sprinkled over carpet,
on bear and Barbie dolls alike,
from night table to louvred closet.
Door slightly ajar;
within a darkness foreboding
like a shadow figure in a horror movie
where slit throats and lemon-drop jammy's
go hand in hand.
I heard the whimper as a pool of red
spread into the bedroom like death
then the voice, afraid, whispered

"Oh no Bartholemew, I spilt the beetroot
mummy will be very cross with you"

[busker]

Lemon-drops, or Outbreak

As I flew over the coastal lands
mangrove strewn and green
with narrow strips of golden sand
I began to vent my spleen.

Damn the immigrants, I say,
goddamn the immigrants.
It's one thing if they want to pay
our taxes, a different thing
if - bloody hell - they want to stay
and crowd our buses and trains.

There's no reason an Aussie plumber
with a head for adding numbers
cannot fathom martingales or master markov chains.

It’s the government in the pocket of big business -
oil and pharma, the climate game
round earth lefties play, hippies who think
we come from monkeys, not from man,
to blame.

Like vaccines, such a scam -
vials and syringes, demon props
to fatten their pockets now the pols are bribed sufficiently.
Diphtheria is a modern myth. My child only needs lemon drops.
The grey scale in his throat is just a
vitamin deficiency.

---

Nice one, William

[ellajam]

False Hope

Craggy beneath its winter wrap,
an eyesore on the snowy scape,
a citrus misplaced up north rises
above the budding bleeding hearts
waiting for the endless frost warnings
to cease.

The season will be just long enough
for Indian summer lemonade
and rind kissed tequila under cooling skies.

We leave a few to waste on the tree;
as each rotted lemon drops
and nestles among the acorns and pignuts
its scent perseveres
until woodsmoke overtakes it,
tricking our noses into believing
the long freeze is far off.

[Richard]

I Don't Remember How He Got Me Here

Googled what a crumpled
chocolate chip cookie under my doormat
could mean, then I awoke here:
a man in clown makeup
gaping at me, while eating lemon-drops
(I haven't seen those candies in years).

The leaky faucet in my ears grows louder,
copper smell sticks inside my nostrils,
eyes too tense to even blink.
He won't answer me either,
just stares,
like a child fascinated by their first dead body.

[Knot]

.

Fear tastes of lemon drops
that crack like glass,
bleed bile and bitter on the tongue.


A yellow, sun-bright, sourness
of playgrounds and the shadow
from the last one left,

paper-stuck, unwanted
at the bottom of a bag.


.

[CRNDLSM]

I started with the lemon drops
A sugar rush to drive the night

So happy as the bunny hops 
Collecting candies my delight
Harvesting these Halloween crops

I started with the lemon drops
Ultimately too hard to fight
Too late to think or call the cops

So happy as the bunny hops
The lights will flicker out of sight
I'm still a kid when my heart stops

I started with the lemon drops
So happy as the bunny hops

[busker]

I Don't Remember How He Got Me Here

Googled what a crumpled
chocolate chip cookie under my doormat
could mean, then I awoke here:
a man in clown makeup
gaping at me, while eating lemon-drops
(I haven't seen those candies in years).

The leaky faucet in my ears grows louder,
copper smell sticks inside my nostrils,
eyes too tense to even blink.
He won't answer me either,
just stares,
like a child fascinated by their first dead body.

Nice!!

[billy]

well done so far guys, if anyone misses a day they can always return to it on another day.

[Richard]

Thanks busker, everyone started out strong here today

[Xlateralus]

Little Bit

Dear it’s quite clear you’re like a lemon drop

You’re the kind of candy that sticks
hard shell gone soft - stuck in mouth

You’re the kind of candy that tricks
with a two toned taste - a little bitter

You’re the kind of candy that sits -
bottom of the dish - just sweet enough

Like a lemon drop

[dukealien]

The Late Major’s Candy Bullet


There’s a fearful symmetry, Blake told me,
in tigers, though my dread
was triggered more by stogies smoldering
in mattresses, cremation in my sleep.
What irony, enough to make one weep
that after years of smokeless soldiering
what offed me in my bed
was a late-night lemon-drop that choked me.

[Tiger the Lion]

Lucid

There is no earth-like world
so far from here
that I can't get to it
and find you 
waiting for me.

I could conjure a beach somewhere
with silver sand 
and not a soul in sight

where a sun-like star
splits the cotton candy clouds
to spit lemon drops
on your shoulders
while you skip in the surf--

flushed,

pretending not to see me,

playing at playing hard-to-get. 

(From there it gets a little kiss-and-tell
and I won't stoop to it.)


But there are nightmares too;
nightmares darker than lucid is luminous.

There are nightmares too.

[Todd]

Deeds that Require Darkness
 
She stands over me while I sleep.
I know she does this each night.
It could be the pressure in the air
that alerts me, or her sharp 
intake of breath.

I am in that same tired dream,
a gathering of clouds like a flock
of dark birds blotting the moon.
I can almost make out the tingling whisper
that tonight it will all end.

Vodka though a scentless an untraceable 
serial killer still leaves behind clues:
first the point, then the tip,
the scale, then the bolster, the tang
from the juice and sugar of many lemon drops

lingers over my lips like an interrupted kiss,
a promise that I will not wake as I always wake
to the sour light of morning, to lift the knife once again
flat and bloodless and impotent
from my chest.

[RiverNotch]

Fiddleheads and stained glass plastic
Tiffany lights, bicycle tires hanging
perilous like the sword of Damocles
over the bartender's off-color head,

spritzers and lemon drops and Harvey Wallbangers
and a golden-haired girl swaying to the dreck
on the radio: Rupert Holmes - Escape.
I slide, she says yes, we slide,

we sway -- I thirst, we stop,
and in the bathroom she's swaying alone
again. That's how I remember we first met
and how I imagine we'll meet again.

[Tracy Mitchell]

 Salt Daddy

Lemon Drop, you come at me 
with a club, a tray, an explanation 
of benefits.  Where is the warrior, 
the jailer, last night’s attendant?  
I can’t wiggle my toes, the noise 
is too loud, my arms too strong.
You can’t purge my veins, unpinch 
my brain, can you, sugar, sugar.

[Quixilated]

Haunted

There they are, her happy family,
but where she should be: a dragon.
She hung the picture on the wall 
(after all, it was a gift), but now,
every time she passes by 
the dragon leers, its yellow eyes
like lemon-drop candies glowing inside.
It winks and blinks and whispers at her
and twitches its tail when only she can see.
She does not want look at it,
but cannot look away.
No one else can see the beast
so the picture has to stay.

[Keith]

Missing for three days

The video tape rewinds
to play a beige Macintosh,
it fumbles a grubby paper bag of sweets
and offers its grime
through the playground fence.

You'd have though it
a granddads gift
until they leave in fast forward
almost comedic as his arm surrounds
the boy.

The blue lights and white tents
shock the forest floor,
quiet now as the animals sense
a single lemon-drop
being lifted out
and into evidence.