2023 NaPM 14 April

[RiverNotch]

Indeed, the 14 April prompts from 2014-2018 are also kinda edgy, a coincidence -- they're all different prompts -- I find kinda funny. Let's go with the iteration of the prompt suggested by TqB, which is from 2017. By 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 14: Write a poem inspired by something that scares you.
Form: any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

But that's not all! Ignore Todd's rules on Form and Line requirements there, as we also follow CRNDLSM's 2021 prompt today:

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 14, 2021

Topic: write a sonnet

Form: sonnet

Line Requirement: 14

[Mark A Becker]

ForGiving

I felt the joy a springtime morning brings,
the day you sang your heart to me, alone.
You offered me a song that I still sing,
its melody, the dearest gift I own.

When nights were young, affection raw and bare,
hot pleasures blazed between our souls like fire.
We danced on glowing embers without care
and fanned the flames that sprang from pure desire. 

Last night, we peeled through books of photographs,
and had to smile at how we looked back then.
Between the pages, notes that made us laugh,
a message written sometime way back when-

that love is for giving, makes life worth the living- still  true,
and sure enough, it has steadily carried us through.

---

And a poem about something that scares me:

No Magic Bullet

Certain law makers
will do anything
to protect school children
from horrible books,
from improper artwork,
from feeling bad about history,
from singing about rainbows,
from being hurt by anything.

They will do anything
to protect our children.

[TranquillityBase]

Fear is my bread and butter, I’m a pizza of phobias
I’m even afraid of myself except when I sleep
so bed is my heaven, though even there nightmares come,
hunting me down among the undergrowth of memories.

I haunt the daylight unsure of my shadow, is it mine
or a stolen outline of another’s anxiety that has latched on,
another parasite to add to my collection, worn like armor
to evade the touch of an insane world that reaches out

that won’t be told “no” except by suicide or broken minds,
so I struggle on, waiting to be swallowed by quicksand,
my greatest fear, suffocation inside solid matter,
buried alive in fresh concrete like an out of luck mobster

those last gasps, the silenced scream tearing out my throat
my eyes wide open at last, seeing what’s on the other side.

sorry, I don't do sonnets, but it is 14 lines, and it does address the prompt, so I'm shooting for a grade of D, "unsatisfactory but passing"

[dukealien]

Greater Fear


We need not fear the nutter with a gun,
convinced that his “oppression” ratifies
a coward’s violence, his victims’ cries
a message drowning all beneath his one.

Nor need the raddled queen abort his run
of promenading in a drag disguise
because we fear his fundamental lies
including that he’s having seemly fun.

No, what the sane and hardy must beware
and, to be honest, fear above all else
is starting to believe these nutters sane–
men, women; women, men– yes, that must scare
those like us, dear, whom evil still repels:
with madness valorized, delusions reign.

[CRNDLSM]

We grew up across from a football field,
walking as a family to see games.
At the stop, traffic is supposed to yield
to crossing pedestrians, little James
looked right as he ran into the clear road.
But from the left, way over the limit,
a Corvette wouldn't swerve or stop, and mowed
my brother over.  I was there when it
happened.  You might not end up so lucky,
Three weeks in the hospital, he was healed.
A lot of the cars around here don't slow
down, and aren't looking for kids, big trucks
even. My existence would go up in flames
if your life was snuffed out in a minute.

[Tiger the Lion]

Fratricide 

In a lifelong campaign 
to quell the mind
I've not been kind
to the body.

I don't expect it 
to be kind to me

much longer.

[Mark A Becker]

(oh... I was supposed to combine the two...)

Fear

If someone asks me what I’m most afraid of
I’d need to think awhile before I answer
Would it be hate, deceit, or maybe even love?
Or some condition, like insanity, or cancer?

It’s not a look I see on peoples’ faces
It’s not the way that people look at me
It’s not about somewhere, or other places
It’s not about someplace I’d rather be

Not gaining weight, or losing all my hair
Not money, death, or taxes that I fear
Not ice, or snow, bad water, or bad air
There is no need to ask because it’s clear

What’s really scaring me could not be any clearer
It’s staring back at me when looking in the mirror

[RiverNotch]

xD the more the merrier, mark!

[RiverNotch]

I must confess, whenever I refrain
to touch even a fragment of wing from this creature,
although I say it is mere disgust,
my very soul trembles greatly in fear

of this most humble survivor among
all creeping things -- the cockroach! -- not least
when it in scrambled flight should not
discriminate between potential landings.

Worse than death is its tickling touch
for by such virtues, smallness and drive,
there is no reason to trample it out:

indeed, why not take it for the Image of Life
that it is, except by such strange quirks,
such emphemera of history, as fear?

[Wjames]

Ego

I am frightened of the blue eyes gripping
my heart, tearing through my pupils with claws
and filling up my stomach with drippings
of blood, a microscope exposing flaws.

I want to be a flower in a field
of bunnies hopping circles in the light,
without a sword to judge my battered shield
for strength, a bed for bees after a flight.

I want to be a tree in a forest,
to bask with roots entwined in knots below,
to decompose like rain becoming mist
diffusing through the moss that always grows.

I pray that death destroys the self in full,
and I am shepherd, sheep, a wolf, and wool.