NaPM April 19th 2019

[Quixilated]

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 19, 2019

Topic: a poem about architecture.

Form: any

Line Requirement: 8 or more.

[billy]

I bought a Lego set today
and built the Notre dame.
With buttresses to hold the walls
and windows big and round

I 'specially liked the spire tall
the bell towers either side.
and when my father stepped on it
i swear i fuckin' died.

[Richard]

Self-Help

I am the architect of my salvation.
Foundation worsening every season,
cracks widening, while my blueprints
outline a new house with taller ceilings,
a second bathroom, an in-law suite;
constructed
from the same brand of materials
as before, but by a different carpenter-
the last one didn't want to build on swamp.

[dukealien]

Fit for Heroes


What would a fitting home for heroes be?
No marble mausoleum, shrine to those
who died in war, nor massive statues of
flag-waving Amazons who never were–  
and not a temple’s perfect carpentry
of pilings, floating on an inland sea.

Yes, housing for survivors and their loves–
but not grim blocks of council tenements,
brick flats too like burnt ruins they had fought
among, each corner threatening surprise
of bullet, hand-grenade, or bayonet.
Yet almost worse, these towers of cement
which might seem homey, bunker-like, secure,
to those who never spent a day in one.

Most fitting, execrated though its like
has come to be for counter-culturals,
is Levittown - its bungalows and lawns
rejecting war’s disorder and decay.
No towers or shell-craters here:  man’s eye
halts at each quarter-acre’s picket fence–
his thousand-yard stare weakens, and at last
releases into smiles of peace he’s earned.

[CRNDLSM]

You can't live on a cornerstone
A stone is home to bugs and spiders
Lizards and snakes in the desert
And moss in the ocean.
A corner has two sides so unless
You have more stones and enough
Backbone to keep putting them together
You may indeed say one day you live
On a cornerstone.

[RiverNotch]

The lion's arm,
the lion's gaze,
the lion's heart,
the lion's waist:

the poor beast spun
between a point and a line
like yarn from wool,
fortune from the sky.