2024 NaPM 06 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.

In anticipation of the solar eclipse soon to grace certain parts of the world, write about, well, an eclipse.

ALTERNATIVELY, write about an ellipse.

[Mark A Becker]

La Lune

lovely red balloon,
total eclipse of the moon-
birthday gift for you




5/15/22, 11:30pm, super flower blood moon – total lunar eclipse, also my wife's birthday

---

Totally Solar

I am well prepared
for the '24 solar eclipse-
I have my magnifying glass
and telescope ready
for a real good close-up.
Still got a blind spot
from the one in '17, though,
so I'll have to keep my eyes
on it for at least an hour.
Maybe longer.

---

I remember
walking across The Ellipse to see
Jeff Beck play at Constitution Hall
just as some White House dirty tricks
were being suspected.

At the Washington Post, Woodward
and Berstein were digging deep,
and the Watergate dots
were being connected.

It was Halloween of '72,
and the trick was soon to be
on Tricky Dicky. But not before
he'd be re-elected.

[dukealien]

Throwing Shade


We say that one man’s fame
eclipses that of one less brilliant
as did Achilles Hector,
Caesar, Pompey
or Gustavus, Wallenstein.

But what of one whose contradictory
dual natures battle to see which
will be remembered while the other
merely casts a little shade
upon his history?

Grant, for example, bankrupt
and in later life duped by corruption
but between those poles four years
of awful majesty

or Lee whose storied reputation
as a strategist eclipses
his more lasting role promoting
reconciliation, dignity
in defeat (here, the shadow)
he would not fully own.

For lives are stellar light
with umbra and penumbra
never totality.

[Wjames]

When the sky turns black,
tourists descend on Niagara Falls
in funny glasses.

[TranquillityBase]

prelude to an eclipse

a clutch of strangers
invade the house,
the misanthrope 
juggles his features for so long
he forgets which are his own

they’ve come to see
an eclipse in the sky

if they just studied him
they’d see a dozen
spill across of his face
by the hour

company, they call it
but these are no more companions
than the Visigoths at the gates of Rome

they cheerfully sack
his solitude
leaving him no place to hide
except behind the moon

[RiverNotch]

Granfalloon


One day in Indianapolis
(and only in Indianapolis)
the sun went black
but no stars shone
nor clouds covered them.

When minutes gave way to hours
to days to weeks
astonishment gave way to fear
to apathy to delight,
especially when folks realized

more than the sun's corona
still blazed over Montreal,

even as worms flooded the streets,
crops withered, dogs and wolves
howled until they were mute,
cattle stomped until their hooves
were naught but stumps:

all of it had become
just another feature
of the Hoosier life.

[Tiger the Lion]

/