2026 NaPM 25 April

[RiverNotch]

Write a poem for National Poetry Month based on the topic described....rather, write a poem set in, pertaining to, or inspired by the given region, whether its entirety or just some part of it, as this year's prompts are going to be unified by the theme "Around the World" like last year's prompts were unified by the theme "Esoterica". Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. There are three levels of participation:

Bronze. Participated at least once.

Silver. Participated every day.

Gold. Participated every day, with all entries either being the same form (e.g., every one a sonnet) or being distinct forms (e.g., no two haiku).


Today's region is the Mashriq, or Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and Sudan.

[dukealien]

Intersection


Middle of the “Middle East” as it once was
known is neither Cairo nor Memphis, Egypt,
and those gates of Babylon in the Fertile
Crescent do not guard the spot, either.  We must
look, instead, nearer

to the Middle Sea, where all armies, marching,
must turn left or right at a corner west and
just a few miles south of the Golan Heights called
Megiddo, that is,

Armageddon where all the nations, past and
future meet to suffer defeat or win a
war which always promises, like their battle,
to be the last, but isn’t.

[RiverNotch]

Walls


These great big stones give way to bricks give way
to sand, aggregate, water, and cement
poured into lattices of carbon steel

topped with more steel---this time squeezed into wires
then twisted into barbs---now meant to part
what all the earlier were built to keep

if not united then at least alive,
now all they cannot build's a roof and spires
completely hollow and at the very top

left open to the judgement of the stars:
the smoke would be a hazard to their health,
the cries more of a nuisance than the odd

bursting of drones and rockets over streets---
the contradictions would be made too clear,
the calves that for their altar they had picked
ordained by their true sovereign to live.