2024 NaPM 15 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.

Argue concerning some existential theme, e.g. write a poem endorsing nihilism, etc.

[dukealien]

Angst is Not an End


One does not call for freedom, not,
at least, in honesty.  Indeed
one cries for liberation from
the terror of unlimited
unruled responsibility
and names the bounding borders which
seem to constrain this formlessness
his range of ordered liberty.

So Existentialism’s fault
is to imply those borders are
unworthy when accepted, shared,
as if all rules were villainous
that one did not create himself.
In truth some rules are hëinous
and some less so. Philosophy
must be a guide to choosing well.

[TranquillityBase]

all I can do is slink
around the topic, 
not being a consistent atheist.
All I can say
is The Stranger is a great novel,
and Jean-Paul gave us
the Roads to Freedom trilogy.
I can only absorb philosophy
in some fictional form,
so, can only only argue
in the same way.
I did find myself wondering
if Winnie the Pooh
was an existentialist?
“The things that make me different
are the things that make me,”
saith Pooh.

[Mark A Becker]

Ideation

The deadly one
was convincing yourself
there was no purpose

for the abundance of spring,
or the sublime beauty of fall-
only brutal winter; searing summer.

Your once fluid thoughts
turned to ice on blazing asphalt-
you became convinced

life was merely evaporation
of your dream-
from solid, to liquid, to steam.

[Wjames]

I will not deceive myself again.

The lies encounter porcupine
and pop, car skidding
to a stop on the shoulder.

I have to consider the flaw
of my chipped tooth,
the gnawing
exposed bone.

[RiverNotch]

St. Mary of Egypt


If you want eternal life,
remember death. By such remembering
you yourself will be remembered.

But how much time did she spend
confessing all her sins
at that church in Jerusalem
or by the River Jordan?
How did the witnessing father feel,
if she held back no details,
while even in this truncated account
the devil in me is moved,
wishing that I were one of the pilgrims
sharing her ride out of Egypt?

Only in being remembered will you attain
eternal life, and even then
not just anyone's remembering.

I realize now that when she said
she had not seen a savage beast
in all those years which she had spent
naked, wandering
the far side of the River Jordan,
it was not that no bears nor lions
ever crossed her path.
Instead, on the instant they were exposed
to her saintliness,
they returned to the primal condition.

And yet, for some, to be remembered
is to remain in shame:
for the unrepentant, life itself is death.

Their bodies remembered how to be sustained
solely by herbs; their minds remembered peace.
And the father who covered her with his stole
as he intoned the prayer of absolution
must have remembered that same peace,
must have felt (at worst) some envy
at the coming triumph.