2024 NaPM 02 April

[RiverNotch]

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.

Write about the establishment of some set of rules.

BONUS, though if you're busker this is a requirement: the rules are those of cricket.

As for form: much like with number of lines, whenever I don't specify anything, it means you're free to choose whatever.

[busker]

Rules against Leg Theory

O, cricket is a grand old game
with grand old names, from Grace and Sutcliffe to Hobbs,
each known to cricket snobs
as a primum movens of bowlers' sobs,
then the boy from Bowral’s highland
who terrorised the sceptred island
in 1930, at Headingley and Leeds,
and made the English pacemen look like knobs.

But ah! in that triumph, the seeds
were sown of Leg Theory.
Leg Theory, better known as Bodyline,
that infamous design
of the dour Jardine and his fast bowling crew -
Larwood, Voce, and Bowes, fearsome combine,
hurling corkwood projectiles
stitched in leather, fastened with glue
to do unto you
what you’d never do to a neighbour.
‘Twas battling brain injury, not bowlers’ wiles.

And so the cry went out - ban bodyline!
‘Tis un-British, and we’re British too!'
Said the Australians. ‘How convenient of you!’
Jardine snorted. ‘Out of the blue
you’re British in 1933 or 32
when you’re losing the Ashes,
the clash that trumps all clashes,
at least for the MCC. 
Yet three years before this 1933
when Bradman at Headingley,
obdurate, unbendingly bashes
our attack, not giving up his wicket
for the poor punters who’d bought a ticket
to see England win, and stick it
to you -
then your flag bears the emu and kangaroo,
not the Union Jack,
nor the naturalised Barbary lion from the London zoo!
You don't have my back,
you’re no more English
than a boundary is single ish.'

And the debate raged back and forth across the seas,
but eventually the whining Aussies won,
and they’d have no more of Bodyline, please.
then Hitler made cricket season a little less fun
and the Americans made a second sun
for the Yanks to rank with Atilla the Hun.

But eventually, in the 1970s,
the Aussies answered Larwood and later, Frank Tyson,
with Lillee and Thomson,
who’d make batsmen comatose
with yorkers aimed at their toes
and missiles inches from the nose,
till the batsmen were tinned like sardines.
But alas! In the interim, the Brits,
those self flagellating twits,
had binned Douglas Jardine.

This was after Lindwall and Miller,
and contemporaneous with the Thrilla in Manila.
Line and Length were plain old vanilla
in light of the new leg theory.
Dearie! Dearie!
The batsmen were teary
eyed. Their pleas denied.
Then Larwood, with wounded pride,
at last felt justified.

[dukealien]

Seek and Hide


In the beginning
there was one simple rule:
I see you, you don’t see Me.
Hide and seek.
But since I make the rules,
I always win
whether seeking or hiding.

Then the game progressed,
your cleverness abounded, asking
What if I only think I see You,
and If I could see You, what
would You look like?

And most troubling,
If I could hear You,
what would You say?

Your seeking grew intense,
profound, the simple rule
branched from bifurcating tree
to climax forest so that all
you saw from cosmic to infinitesimal
matched but jaggedly,
My only hiding place
its intricated interstices–
determinist or happenstance,
wave or particle,
time passing or
worlds passing through it...

All derived from that one ground-rule
My invisibility
when I first said,
Let there be light.

[Wjames]

There’s an old wooden fence
for teens to hop over
two meters from the edge of the bluffs.

The fire pit on the other side
is filled with butts and empty cans and bottles
scatter about the log turned bench.

This morning a new sign was put up
Stay Back - Unstable Cliff.

[Tiger the Lion]

There’s an old wooden fence
for teens to hop over
two meters from the edge of the bluffs.

The fire pit on the other side
is filled with butts and empty cans and bottles
scatter about the log turned bench.

This morning a new sign was put up
Stay Back - Unstable Cliff.

This has to be Mt. Nemo

[Wjames]

There’s an old wooden fence
for teens to hop over
two meters from the edge of the bluffs.

The fire pit on the other side
is filled with butts and empty cans and bottles
scatter about the log turned bench.

This morning a new sign was put up
Stay Back - Unstable Cliff.

This has to be Mt. Nemo

I've never been to Mt. Nemo but this is not too far from there, I'm glad it made you see something specific.

[RiverNotch]

The Liturgist's Complaint


For the past two months, I have been compiling
a set of rules, all for myself,
on how to pray:

which Psalms to chant, or Hymns to sing,
and at which times, or on which days,
sifting through thousands of years

of inspired devotion, of prose and verse
imitations and iterations
on themes which should be tired by now:

care for one's neighbour, yearning for the Lord,
and the utter hopelessness of a self
corrupted and alone:

yet the fountain is inexhaustible,
the gold leaf glued onto the panels
ever brightly shines,

burning all the health
out of my eyes
while drowning my very soul.

[TranquillityBase]

nights
we made mud sombreros
set plastic army men on fire
and watched the flaming drops
fall into a new sewer ditch.
a thousand nights later
it was whispered questions
about the aching mystery of the female
or the latest Mad Magazine.
there was so much laughter.

then there were no rules.

more thousands of nights later
no longer children
changed utterly by time and death
our hearts can no longer touch.

a history of separation
constricts our voices
we can no longer talk as children talk.

now, only rules remain.

[Mark A Becker]

The Final Score

rushing up
out of clock
lashing a lastsecond
shot
screaming crowd
leaping up
flash of white
curling net
goal keeper clutching
at air

[Tiger the Lion]

Ante-vigil 

They enter the bogs
all torn tights
and wobbly heels
with jet-black-chest-and-back-hair
popping out their sports bra
like some sad clown
dressed as a clown
dressed as a clown.

The rules don't allow
a SWAT team nowadays 
and no one was raising their hands,
so what exactly are the rules
when one fierce father
dressed as a father
dressed as a father

instinctively pooh-poohs them
and takes his daughter safely home?