2024 NaPM 20 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.

Console.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: "Console" the verb in the imperative, not "Console" the thing I want the rich among you to send me (with plenty of already-purchased games, of course).

[Mark A Becker]

Our Bond

We've lost some of the same people-
my brother was your father,
your sister, my niece.

Now your mother is gone,
and your husband went drunk,
and your children cowered

as the horrible noise of his raging,
and raping drilled in for hours.
Now he’s kicked out, but you

feel defeated. The best I can do
is just stay on the phone. And listen-
listen while wishing you peace.

[TranquillityBase]

We are Frankensteins
inhabiting incompatible bits of DNA
put together by a sly Creator.
We act in ways that outrage
the bored, easy to anger villagers
whose protocol is to burn
and then wonder at our origin
standing over the ashes of life
extinguished, sifting through them
but finding only cracked, burnt bones.
We are legends for the very young
and very old, signaling them
of times to come or times gone by.
We are made to console the fearful
who otherwise would become
a devouring mass of emptiness.
We monsters show the way
beyond the riddles of a fallen world. 

[Wjames]

The basement is full of bright light
when your mother shrieks at the rain.

The red is so warm it colours your eyes
grinding levels on weak monsters
before the boss fight.

[dukealien]

Unsealed


Okay, you’re reading this, I’m gone.
You’ll find you didn’t know me quite
as well as you believe. I used
some other names in places where
you didn’t know I ever went.
And, know what else?  Kid, it was great
and still is now it’s all wrapped up
and so are you.  (There’s money, too.)

[RiverNotch]

To be seen as a part
of the carp that swallowed you whole
when some whale comes and takes a bite,

to be lumped in
with your perennial oppressors
just because you're both as brown,
you both speak the same tongue,

then to read some fool blame
your sole comfort and protection,
forgetting the centuries-old wound
they follow their ancestors in now keeping
open, raw, and bleeding:

O Jerusalem,
what can I offer for consolation
except this poor acknowledgement
and the handful of petitions
added, perhaps, too late
to the litanies we share?