NaPM April 14, 2017

[Todd]

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. 


Topic 14: Write a poem inspired by something that scares you.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more

Questions?

[just mercedes]

Cordelia


I’m frightened by his need.
He wants false words, fake
worship. How can I be
true to what he taught
without a lie?

He thrives on absence.
I’m banished while
my sisters emasculate him.
I come back just to die.

I forgive him.Then
when he’s sane again
and knows what he has done
he carries me dead in his arms
like a virgin mother,
weeping. I hate
the way he makes a fuss
about himself. It’s always
him, him, him.

[CRNDLSM]

There are hundreds of you there
from me alone already;
Heaven's full of innocent,
harmless vegetarians.
Keep clinging to the ceiling,
Last time I missed you had wings.
Won't make that mistake again.
I don't need anything in the garage anyway

[kolemath]

Dead Child in My Arms

I thought,

her lifeless body cradled
against my screaming chest,
her face, a pale blueing to purple,
cold sleep and limp lips,
her frozen face, stopping time.

I thrust her into the shower,
screaming in her ear to "Wake up!"
screaming to God to "Wake up!"
screaming to myself to "Wake up!"

911 on the line,
ambulance in the street,
she woke up.

"Febrile seizure," the doctor said. "Nothing we can do."

But she's awake and wants to play.

[Lizzie]

There are hundreds of you there
from me alone already;
Heaven's full of innocent,
harmless vegetarians.
Keep clinging to the ceiling,
Last time I missed you had wings.
Won't make that mistake again.
I don't need anything in the garage anyway

[Keith]

The slow ride of adrenaline

There's a terrifying moment,
a gap between realisation
and a motorbike crash.

An opening for the devil
to discuss your fate with god.
A coin toss really,
before the real world returns
to crunch metal and splinter bones.

The Honda hit the van hard
snapping my shoulder blade
the clutch lever stuck in my knee.

Come with me he said
and offered me the light that
leaves our eyes, and I could see
everything I wished to be.

Stay still she said,
and offered me myself,
and I could see
who I will always be.

I slowly moved my head
my arms and legs, then checked
the damage to the bike. Are you
alright the Van driver said,
as the voices argued inside my head.

[Tracy Mitchell]

    Chosen One

The first message came in the image of sun rays
through gold rivulets of cloud layers.
God-like seems such a limiting designation for
what started to grow within me. Reborn, alive.
The voice speaks only to me   – I will be fisher of men.
Then came the glass-imaged holy glow of the modified
semi-automatic, gas-operated, detachable-magazine
chambered in a 7.62 x 51 military caliber.
I am the Redeemer.  I am ready.

***

[dukealien]

Scare City


What scares me less than heights or blades
but more than loaded firearms
that hidden, sick unsafety net:
my fear of self-discovery.
To be a poseur’s not so bad
when everyone is buffaloed
by facile tricks and bafflegab
vocabulary well-deployed
and phony plausibility
all masking inexperience
and barely third-rate intellect
a copyist, an insincere
un-armied strutting generalist.
See, trouble rises not when word
gets out that he’s an idiot
knows nought of any subject that
he lectures on or writes about -
that his experience was not
in front-lines, only garrisons:
that’s fine when winks and giggles hide
behind my back, or hands, or sound
in other rooms.  Their disrespect
is earned but never obvious.
No, what scares me is facing up
to being forced to understand
I wasn’t just a fool to pose
as something more than what I am
but dumb enough to truly think
I had them fooled at any time!

[Donald Q.]

Millipede
 
The whole population of the model village
got stuck one winter whilst celebrating, the lot
of them, in a Chinese dragon. Trapped together
under rotting paper, their society broke
down, they stumbled blindly together in silence
their only communal activity became
the rota of stepping. Scientists applauded
and declared the town a model organism.
All of one mind, dancing a sick macarena.

[rayheinrich]

Millipede
 
The whole population of the model village
got stuck one winter whilst celebrating, the lot
of them, in a Chinese dragon. Trapped together
under rotting paper, their society broke
down, they stumbled blindly together in silence
their only communal activity became
the rota of stepping. Scientist applauded
and declared the town a model organism.
All of one mind, dancing a sick macarena.

I applaud thee!

[Lizzie]

The Fear is in the Risk

The fear is in the risk
of laying awake at night for poetry –
staying at home for it,
slowly steeping yourself.

But you've married it:
let it penetrate, imprint itself onto you,
transform you into someone who sees
letters in the trees, dashes in the sand.

Half your social circle is long dead,
and the living don't care for your stories,
as if you're the last member
of your family to die.

Living poets are unknown –
might as well be Templar knights,
no one thinks they exist anymore.
You dare not slip and say, “I'm a poet,”
or even the lesser but more accurate, “I write poetry,”
for that's like saying, “I'm a Dodo bird.”

They'll look at you like you've just donned
a powdered wig and a parasol,
like you're too pretentious to eat BBQ
in their backyard, too morose
to laugh at their jokes.

Best not to tell people about writing poetry.
Treat it like a childhood lie
you can't ever reveal lest people know
you're fundamentally unlike them.

When people ask, “What are your hobbies,
what did you do this weekend?”
disclose a fetish instead!
Say to them, “I'm trying to learn how
to pee into my mouth.”
Because, unlike reading
or writing poetry,
they've actually tried that.

[Franklin'sMan]

Whisper


They don’t build monuments to men who do nothing.
The guy on the street unable to sing,
to him no ribbon is cut, no concert hall opens.

No gallery has no paintings.
No painting has no paint.
Every poem I know is wordy,
       every word in it a point.
Van Gogh painted funny,
and Rebens painted saints.
Picasso painted cubes, but what do I paint?

I only force my rhymes and mis-measure lines.

Oh fuck! I’m not yet five foot four when I wanna be six feet.
I wanna be a man to look up to. And I want resounding foot falls.
I don’t wanna a metaphor that’s weak. I wanna be a knife in the dark to the ribs.

May every word I write be a spark in a gas filled house
-- I wanna kill your dog and your spouse, shatter the peace and lower property values.
I want every line to dig a grave.
I wanna write so no one is saved.

But what if I can’t?

[rayheinrich]

               


                                        we're too busy pushing and pulling
                                        fingers and razor blades
                                        trying to find triggers
                                        all the while keeping an eye out
                                        for the launch codes
                                        feeling their sharp spines
                                        in our bunny-boots
                                        running the stairs
                                        up another story
                                        of black rooms
                                        and metal steps
                                        our wrists wired
                                        our mouths taped
                                        we better get good at listening

[RiverNotch]

she's most afraid
of waking up, of opening her eyes
to watch the clock's hands

as she gets up from bed, goes
to eat breakfast, to work, to eat lunch,
returns to work, returns home to change,

drives downtown to meet with her
and eat again, to fall asleep
with the girl by her side

and her eyes still open
watching the clock's hands

[dukealien]

                                        we're too busy pushing and pulling
                                        fingers and razor blades
                                        trying to find triggers
                                        all the while keeping an eye out
                                        for the launch codes
                                        feeling their sharp spines
                                        in our bunny-boots
                                        running the stairs
                                        up another story
                                        of black rooms
                                        and metal steps
                                        our wrists wired
                                        our mouths taped
                                        we better get good at listening

Some interesting ?references? there.  Spines of launch codes... hmm.  A picture is forming.

[nibbed]

JUST NOW got scared out of my wits.
Who needs such prompting?!



That Guy Louder Than the Ocean

Pounding on the gate
with a torch
and likely no key,

I noticed him earlier,
screwing with cycles
of turtles in Spring;

Sounding drunk,
angrily yelling
for a woman
I don't know.

My heart jumped
when things got quiet,
I stared into the dark
not able to detect
...his sneaking?

At first I thought
he was scaling the wall
up to my balcony,
like some crazed monkey
who'd rip the face off
his best friend for fun;

but it was only
his  distant flashlight
hopping and dancing,
sending shadows
as he pounded to enter
the commons.

Noises were disguised
as a clanging aluminum ladder
climbing to the place
where I think I am safe.

I'm seated now
writing this poem,
four steps short
of my steel and brass life

wondering
if he is glaring on my porch
behind the open doorwall,

or if he's home, warm,
sleeping off drunken
tortoise torturing, fruitless
sea shell promises.

[Todd]

The Fear is in the Risk

Half your social circle is long dead,
and the living don't care for your stories,
as if you're the last member
of your family to die.

This wonderfully sums up the relationship between my family and my writing.

All of it is really good but I especially loved this observation.

[Todd]

Observed

When I was small, I was not afraid
of being alone.

A tiny man with a razor blade
watched from the above ventilation duct.
His smile would walk down my spine.

When I was alone, I was not afraid
of death.

I watch my children sleep.

[nibbed]

Scare City


What scares me less than heights or blades
but more than loaded firearms
that hidden, sick unsafety net:
my fear of self-discovery.
To be a poseur’s not so bad
when everyone is buffaloed
by facile tricks and bafflegab
vocabulary well-deployed
and phony plausibility
all masking inexperience
and barely third-rate intellect
a copyist, an insincere
un-armied strutting generalist.
See, trouble rises not when word
gets out that he’s an idiot
knows nought of any subject that
he lectures on or writes about -
that his experience was not
in front-lines, only garrisons:
that’s fine when winks and giggles hide
behind my back, or hands, or sound
in other rooms.  Their disrespect
is earned but never obvious.
No, what scares me is facing up
to being forced to understand
I wasn’t just a fool to pose
as something more than what I am
but dumb enough to truly think
I had them fooled at any time!

This is a very humbling, touching, wonder of a poem
and I thank you for it.

[vagabond]

poems on fear, wow the theme prompted so much creativity here.  don´t have a poem to add, but want to leave some  praise, well, and interpret (probably often missing the poems´ intentions)
 


__________________________________
Just Mercedes:
 
Cordelia


I’m frightened by his need.
He wants false words, fake
worship. How can I be
true to what he taught
without a lie?

He thrives on absence.
I’m banished while
my sisters emasculate him.
I come back just to die.

I forgive him.Then
when he’s sane again
and knows what he has done
he carries me dead in his arms
like a virgin mother,
weeping. I hate
the way he makes a fuss
about himself. It’s always
him, him, him.
 

 
makes me think of a relationship where 2 people don´t know or really care about each other. trapped. scary. the last line is kind of revealing. I am esp. fond of “like a virgin mother”, the subject seeing herself (well, to be liberal, could be himself as well) as some sort of  jesus, sacrificed. and also kind of makes me think the “birth” of the relationship was never real and has somehow fallen from grace.. great poem
 
___________________________________
CRNDLSM:
 
 
There are hundreds of you there
from me alone already;
Heaven's full of innocent,
harmless vegetarians.
Keep clinging to the ceiling,
Last time I missed you had wings.
Won't make that mistake again.
I don't need anything in the garage anyway
 


first two lines: chilling, how often has the subject died already? hopes clinging to the ceiling with angel´s wings.. scary because they might be delusions.
 

_________________
 
kolemath:
 
 
Dead Child in My Arms

I thought,

her lifeless body cradled
against my screaming chest,
her face, a pale blueing to purple,
cold sleep and limp lips,
her frozen face, stopping time.

I thrust her into the shower,
screaming in her ear to "Wake up!"
screaming to God to "Wake up!"
screaming to myself to "Wake up!"

911 on the line,
ambulance in the street,
she woke up.

"Febrile seizure," the doctor said. "Nothing we can do."

But she's awake and wants to play.
 
 
 
nightmare to every parent.. even the last line don´t erase the fear it might happen again.
one thing: “Febrile seizure .. so getting the temp down seems a good thing to do”


______________________________________
 
Keith
 
The slow ride of adrenaline

There's a terrifying moment,
a gap between realisation
and a motorbike crash.

An opening for the devil
to discuss your fate with god.
A coin toss really,
before the real world returns
to crunch metal and splinter bones.

The Honda hit the van hard
snapping my shoulder blade
the clutch lever stuck in my knee.

Come with me he said
and offered me the light that
leaves our eyes, and I could see
everything I wished to be.

Stay still she said,
and offered me myself,
and I could see
who I will always be.

I slowly moved my head
my arms and legs, then checked
the damage to the bike. Are you
alright the Van driver said,
as the voices argued inside my head.
 
 

never was close to or scared to death, so I wouldn´t know if the slow motion pic of live really is playing then.
4th and 5th stanza seem to show the argument, he offering dreams, she offering truth. hard to say which is more scary.
 
__________________________________
 
 
Teagan
 
Chosen One

The first message came in the image of sun rays
through gold rivulets of cloud layers.
God-like seems such a limiting designation for
what started to grow within me. Reborn, alive.
The voice speaks only to me   – I will be fisher of men.
Then came the glass-imaged holy glow of the modified
semi-automatic, gas-operated, detachable-magazine
chambered in a 7.62 x 51 military caliber.
I am the Redeemer.  I am ready.
 
 

ouch. old testament fueled rampage coming.
 
 
_____________________________________

Rayheinrich:
 
                                        we're too busy pushing and pulling
                                        fingers and razor blades
                                        trying to find triggers
                                        all the while keeping an eye out
                                        for the launch codes
                                        feeling their sharp spines
                                        in our bunny-boots
                                        running the stairs
                                        up another story
                                        of black rooms
                                        and metal steps
                                        our wrists wired
                                        our mouths taped
                                        we better get good at listening
 
 

makes me think of big brother  (not the tv show one), threats of war of all sorts  .. trying to listen ourselves is scary but seems the only thing we can do here.
since I can´t fit elvis into this I probably got it wrong. the photo seems a montage, she´s too pale, background even paler in comparison to the singer.
 


_______________________
 
Todd:
 
Observed

When I was small, I was not afraid
of being alone.

A tiny man with a razor blade
watched from the above ventilation duct.
His smile would walk down my spine.

When I was alone, I was not afraid
of death.

I watch my children sleep.



gosh, this is creepy, especially the last line. makes me think of the subject mixing up his own childhood fears with those he projects into his children.