NaPM April 20, 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 20: Write a poem inspired by a horror film or legendary monster.

Line requirements: 8 lines or more

[just mercedes]

Leni


They were already in the camps.
I didn’t put them there. We started
shooting in Spain but had to move
back to Germany. I needed gypsies
for my movie. The Third Reich paid
all my bills. Typical of Goebbels, to
offer me prisoners, rather than employ
extras. I chose them myself, in the
temporary camp at Maxglan, filmed
them in the Alps, examples of joy and
beauty connected to the mystic, majestic
mountains, not the sordid life on the plains.

Filming was difficult, trying different ways,
experimenting with innovative techniques.

Years later I needed more gypsies, for the
interior scenes shot at Babelsberg. This time
I chose from inmates of the Marzahn prison.
Both times, when I’d finished with them, they
were returned to their camps. I know now that
most went on to Auschwitz death camp.

I didn’t at the time. I couldn’t change anything
even if I had known.

I was one of millions who thought he had all
the answers. We saw only the good things, we
didn’t know bad things were to come.

[kolemath]

The Boogie Man

If only children knew my last name,
maybe then they wouldn't scream for mom
to check under the bed.
If only women knew my last name,
maybe then they would cling to their purses
in the street lightless avenues.
If only men knew my last name,
maybe then they wouldn't join the NRA
and buy up all the guns and ammo.

I only came by to dance.
I only came to sing.
I only came to play.

My last name is Woogie.

Now who would like to Boogie Woogie?

[ellajam]

The Boogie Man

If only children knew my last name,
maybe then they wouldn't scream for mom
to check under the bed.
If only women knew my last name,
maybe then they would cling to their purses
in the street lightless avenues.
If only men knew my last name,
maybe then they wouldn't join the NRA
and buy up all the guns and ammo.

I only came by to dance.
I only came to sing.
I only came to play.

My last name is Woogie.

Now who would like to Boogie Woogie?

Wouldn't in L5? I don't think you need the last line. Love it.

[CRNDLSM]

I can handle the darkness,
the blood and eery music,
serial killers and ghosts,
but when spiders or vomit
explode from each other's mouths,
or into each other's mouths,
that's not scary it's just gross,
and I can't watch.

[Tracy Mitchell]

   Hemp, Haiku & Social Lies

He toured Kansas, then Greenwich
where he lived as a postulant, later
described as the happiest time of
his life.  With a face reminiscent
of Kurt Vonnegut, or a pumpkin
going flat, he aged quickly along
with American innocence, if there
ever was such a thing.  The hippies
thought him a god-like blend of
hemp, haiku and hitchhiking, a
view he never admitted to being true.
Authorities long considered him  
a poet in times of war, a lector
at the City Lights Bookstore,
a soldado of North Beach, and
of that they could not abide.
He went to the camps, went to
shore, and finally went to ground.
His daughter, Mary, changed her
name to Mariana. His third wife
hanged herself. No record remains
of the man having lived or died, but
for what were his words, and now
this, and only after tea and peyote.
A pipe plays slow and long.  Low
thunder sloshes from the Rockies to
Brooklyn, Chicago to Frisco, streets
 on the hill, tilted toward the sea.

[Note:  I woke last night and read the prompt, fell back to sleep thinking of horror films and legendary monsters.  This morning I hunched over my keyboard and started writing.  This is what resulted. What's this have to do with horror films and monsters?  Well, it was prompted by the prompt - so that's it.  I wish myself better luck tomorrow.]

[Todd]

The Five Stages of the Babadook

It is only a story.

The knocking is louder
but there is no one
on the threshold.

Darkness will remove his hat,
and take off his face

before he comes inside.

It is only a story.

So, we celebrate 
with broken bones and blood 
and by cutting slices
of cake.

If only, Sam wasn’t 
in the basement.
If only, the dog wasn’t dead.

It is only a story.

The worst has already happened.

[Tracy Mitchell]

Chilling, Todd!

[Donald Q.]

Outpost

I dream my blood might show
some life; jump out of me.
At present the idea of spending
the whole winter tied to a couch
sounds quite pleasant. A cryogenic
hibernation, an acceptance that I
have nothing to offer under a certain
temperature. There is no other organism
here. No green tree, no roaring fire.
Just me and the cheating computer.
Same as every year. I will wait a little
while and see. I'll tie myself
to the couch. It's only when
you start making comparisons
that things seem off.

[dukealien]

First Monster


Everyone has seen the Nemean Lion
once.  He was a workaday,
unassuming terror
sponsored by Hera
born to Typhon out of Echidna
(or however elder monsters reproduce
Echidna having given birth
or life or its equivalent
to many) with a plain, serviceable pair
of attributes, to wit
twice a normal lion’s size
hide impenetrable to men’s weapons.

That’s the lot.

Set to terrorize Nemea
which was favored by Zeus
Hera’s husband, with whom
she was quarreling due
to his extracurricular affairs
(does this sound familiar?)
So Herakles, a hero
just starting out
was sent to collect this monster’s skin
(another turn of Olympian politics,
Herakles being outcome
of a Zeus affair).

Lion duly dispatched:
chased into cave, strangled;
all rules observed.
Then stranger things began
to happen.  First, Herakles displayed
those smarts which complemented
plain heroic strength: how peel off
an impenetrable hide?

Use beast’s own claws to cut it.
Then even stranger, Herakles
delivering pelt as ordered
also kept it as his trophy, cape,
and armor (impenetrable, remember).
That hero was no fool.

But last and strangest, Hera placed
lion Leo up 'midst constellations
incidentally bestowing what he’d never
had in earthly monster life: a name.

Why such an honor - highest
to which godlings could aspire?
Well, what are monsters’ wages, after all -
offspring?  (Ask tired Echidna.)
No, it’s immortality (for all monsters are
despite their other attributes
mortal enough to be slain)
and Leo - Nemean Leo - has received
his due.  He looks down yet
star-jeweled in the Zodiac
long after Hera, Typhon, even Herakles
having nothing more (and many less)
to be remembered by:
an unassuming monster
twinkling down upon us
as if winking at
his fellow wage-slaves prowling on below.

[Keith]

Heavy rain on a summers day

I was a grey child, always out of breath,
a window to watch the street go by
from inside the quiet of an empty home.
On wet afternoons I would make up stories
about the people that passed me by.

The moment I saw the preacher
I knew I shouldn't have been at the window
I shouldn't have listened to his song.

He looked straight up at me
from under the brim of his hat
a sickly smile of yellow teeth hollowed his face
stretching me out across the room.

His didn't speak but I heard his southern drawl,
"are you lost sweetheart, are you afraid,
would you like me to come keep you company,
all you need do, is invite me in"

The song came for me that night.
"God is in his holy temple,
early thoughts be silent now"
That was the last time I spoke.

[Franklin'sMan]

The Elder’s Warning

Hunger is tradition
some can’t bear in winter.
Protuberant eyes
of children follow ravished
flames.
Hunger is tradition,
and tradition says
more fretful spirits blow on winter’s wind.
Woe should one catch you
when far from your long house.
Like a tick in the firewood
you’ll bring it in
to feed.
You’ll grow impossibly thin.
Impossibly limbed,
you’ll shiver like boughs without leaves.
Your skin will become
like a fire burnt out.
And dreams will insist…
Though hunger is tradition,
this is something else.
The protuberant eyes of
your children will pop in your teeth.
Ravished
you’ll lay your wife’s thighs in the flames.
You’ll see that your longhouse
is but storehouse.
You’ll relish their cries,
you’ll lap as they bleed,
you’ll burrow
through their skulls with your teeth.
The love of family
will be of roasting meat.
For this is something more than need,
no mere hunger of tradition.
You’ll be windigo greed.

[rayheinrich]

                           


                                                I go to sleep male and wake up female,
                                                very pregnant, and needing to pee.
                                               
                                                As I try to make it to the bathroom in time;
                                                a large snake pokes out of my vagina,
                                                rips my belly open, sticks its head in the tear,
                                                and comes back out with a baby's arm in it's mouth.
                                                 
                                                This really pisses me off,  so I give the snake
                                                a sharp rap on its head, it drops the arm,
                                                zips back inside, and I start looking for
                                                a needle and thread so I can sew it back on.
                                               
                                                The thread's easy to find, but I finally give up
                                                and call mom to ask where some needles are.
                                                "The spice cabinet in one of the bay leaf jars", she says.
                                                While I have her the phone I ask about sewing arms on.
                                                "If you use a lot of stitches and do it right away
                                                so it stays moist, you'll be just fine...
                                                it's that damn snake, isn't it?"

                                                                         - - -

[ellajam]

@Ray, big fan of this one, it has all the elements of any of the "Change is coming" dreams. Vivid.

[Lizzie]

Fuck the Ten Commandments, Long Live Hammurabi.

My son is dead, and there's no reason --
there's no sense in his death,
and I cannot accept. Eye for an eye.
Who will right this wrong but me?
Who else is angry enough
to swing a machete by my side?

chi chi chi
ha ha ha

chi chi chi
ha ha ha

I once was dead, but now I live.
Lady justice brought me back.
Vengeance is the Lord's,
but he's either dead or indifferent.
So we step into that vacuum,
mother and me, creating
our own judgment day.

chi chi chi
ha ha ha

chi chi chi
ha ha ha

[RiverNotch]

Man


Boy.
There is a beast that lies
in every woman, or so my teacher says.
In the shape of a fly, in the shape of a boar --

Girl.
Your teacher lied.
There is land south of here,
the gods forgot to fly.

My father was a god,
my mother was a mortal.
She went to the land of the blessed
to rest, he went to the shore
to find her lying naked on the sand --

Boy.
And did she rush back into the sea
when he came singing to skin the boar?

Girl.
Was I born, or made? I merely drifted,
while she swam; and she
was a far better wrestler than any man --

Boy.
-- she knew, like you, how to transform
into a man. The beast that lies within
is a prince, while all grown men are kings,
or so my teacher says.

[nibbed]

Wolf, man

So many
waxing & waning
every social scene;
seemingly kind & gentle sorts,
hiding behind the prominence
of gifted do-goody-goodliness:
Cleverly avoiding chains &
timing out every full moon;
Secretly finding sustenance,
in-between feedings,
from friend's vampire goat sympathies
& the warm sweetened milk
of innocent gypsies.