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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 05: Write a poem inspired by a historical figure or event.
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more
Questions?
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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Ada
A woman's heart is not kept in her breast --
a child takes many forms within the mind
and is not by its parentage defined.
My father was a poet; to protest
Mama ensured I was not so inclined.
A woman's heart is not kept in her breast;
a child takes many forms within the mind.
To science, not to sonnets, I was pressed.
In formulas and numbers I would find
creation of a fascinating kind.
A woman's heart is not kept in her breast --
a child takes many forms within the mind
and is not by its parentage defined.
To calculate, to innovate, to build,
to catch the stars and amplify their light
to fence with God, to give the grounded flight.
Mama is quite a woman, highly skilled
of intellect, but not so impolite
to calculate, to innovate, to build,
to catch the stars and amplify their light.
In earthly love, we both stay unfulfilled,
mere ornaments to history, contrite
apologists in ribbons. We've no right
to calculate, to innovate, to build,
to catch the stars and amplify their light
to fence with God, to give the grounded flight.
It could be worse
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![[Image: AntonyGormley-BlindLight.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im15/AntonyGormley-BlindLight.jpg)
"BlindLight" - Antony Gormley
< a requiem for you and me >
found out today
that you've been freed to love me
in the fine caress of dreams
the silence of your words
that follow me from room to room
i'm stopped
caught up
i'm still and frozen
in a messy soup of you
like any worshiper
i wished to hold your sway
like any lover though
i had no right
my fantasies
so busy eating at your table
sex
that movie in my head
i kept it quiet
i kept my own despair
you were the news
i wasn't
and they never got enough
your suffering
your tragic fantasies
i see you stepping from the stage
described in brilliant light
still lost in song
still questioning
and there you were
so early in this stiff, tight morning
there you were
your drugs
laid out across the table
and i watched
watched as you took them up
your sacrament
your poison
your relief
i wait
i wait and kiss this moment
kiss this moment as i cry and think of you
i helped to chose those drugs for you
just as you choose your words for me
you
stepping from the stage
in brilliant light
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
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Potty Training in Mississippi circa 1900
Hookworms slips into the skin,
spreading through the intestines.
Potbellies and Angel Wings:
side-effects infection brings.
New outhouses and privies
put these country kids at ease.
Doesn't mean the threat is gone,
'If you're going outside, put your damn shoes on!"
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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Ideal King
Some will say Edward Plantagenet
King, of that name the third
ruined in his dotage decade
all that he’d accomplished
in a reign of theretofor
unequaled glory, valor, and success.
So corrupt his mistress and
venally incompetent her circle
that all Aquitaine was lost
the victories of Crecy
Sluys and Poitiers squandered
‘til the Parliament that he’d
assiduously consulted and obeyed
while sane and healthy
had to prosecute them in
his kingly absence.
Oh. But that means after
leading them to fame and unity
in his right person
senile Edward in his final
absence of mind
led the English people
in perforce learning
how to rule themselves.
God rest him, as he’d say
his battle-cry:
by Saint Edmund and Saint George!
 Non-practicing atheist
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By Runnymede decree
Tis not all here that would be seen
this blood flows just on such hard hands
all truth, a body laid upon my feet.
Imagine me a villein then, so sweet
twas daughter of my lord beseeched,
what fates would fall of me I ask?
Tis rope, a birch beneath the lash,
until my back is quarter drawn
and all that passed, a silent call.
Before foul traits are wrought to me
a panel of my peers I seek
mine honour answered fare of fate.
All praise King John his seal at last
a charter singed that saved my ass.
If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
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Flood Water Rising
Water turned black and toxic
took everything in its path.
Propane tanks became floating bombs
but maybe it was the gas leaks
that sent up his building.
They called ‘79 the Big One
until this one took the whole city.
Lenny was there for both.
He liked having the building emptied,
just him and the rats. He knew how
to cook ‘em crispy with a tin of sterno.
Straight from high school to Da Nang,
Lenny wore his khaki field jacket home,
toked up on a night train from Chicago.
Nobody helped him find shoes
when his boots finally gave out, but
no matter, he fought his own wars.
The call to evacuate came four days
before the crest, but Lenny wasn’t going.
They went building to building but
didn’t find him until later.
The whine of boat motors down Front Street
echoed hard between empty buildings.
Lenny heard the sound of swamp boats coming.
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Over the Circumstances
I express a sentiment for an event I was not present at.
And can I make it clear that I really have no way to know what this event really was like,
only a potential imagination of how it might have been, for me specifically, not that it ever was;
I wasn't there, and in actual fact I cannot imagine what it would be like.
This could be attributed to lack of imagination, or a failure of empathy,
but for me it feels respectful to be frank about this.
If I was a person then, with whatever happenstance happening to me specifically, things would have been different; I would not be looking at it now, for starters. Perhaps if I was a person there, then, some detail might have been different. Not that I am saying it could have been averted, or that I would have done something different; I'm not trying to be arrogant.
Really, as an individual, any event you were not at is always a sad thing, be it a tragedy or otherwise. To be reading about any incident that could be described as an 'event' makes me feel concerned, no matter if it was a brutal piece of history or just Karen's birthday party.
I find myself not looking at the details of the event, but instead looking around myself in the current moment, to see that I am currently not in an event; that my reading about an event is actually hampering my potential participation in one. Perhaps I am too detached to be allowed in history, or even minor social functions. Too lofty to be connected to anything.
I just want to reach up and wave at the next reader.
I'd like to touch the by-line above, where the power is, trapped like insulated cables.
But I have nothing.
I express a sentiment.
just mercedes
Unregistered
Mary Tudor sings her madrigal
When I was Queen of England, Naples, Spain,
the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well,
I sent eight hundred Protestants to Hell
and raised the church that lust destroyed. In vain
heretics tried to hide; their numbers swelled
when I was Queen of England, Naples, Spain,
the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well.
I changed the laws my father made. Sustained
by Christ I closed their chapels, citadels,
cathedrals, took their castles. Bells tolled knell
when I was Queen of England, Naples, Spain,
the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well.
I sent eight hundred Protestants to Hell.
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(04-06-2017, 05:35 AM)Donald Q. Wrote: I just want to reach up and wave at the next reader.
I'd like to touch the by-line above, where the power is, trapped like insulated cables.
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Joined: May 2016
Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin’s Reply
White gods?
That’s what the story tells
in codex after diary of interpreted accounts.
No. They arrived sick, scared, hungry, lost,
and we took them into Tenochtitlan
We fed them, sheltered them, healed them,
told them of our gods and Quetzalcoatl,
listened to the friar tell of his.
They played god.
We were laughing and dancing to Huitzilopochtli
when they massacred our mothers and children,
warriors scattering stabbed, tripping on entrails, trying to escape,
nowhere to go but face down into a widening pool of blood,
our essence intermingling, disappearing into the Earth.
Thanks to this Forum
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The Most Important Event
In the History of the Universe
No one witnessed, but it was big.
No one heard, but it went bang.
A moral for this unrecorded epic:
if you can't annotate, alliterate.
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Joined: May 2014
1990
The power to capture analyze exchange
educate.
The power to network collaborate solve
share.
The power to empower empathize liberate
love.
The apathy
to shame abuse berate discolor and dirty
vicariously
(04-06-2017, 10:55 AM)Lizzie Wrote: The Most Important Event
In the History of the Universe
No one witnessed, but it was big.
No one heard, but it went bang.
A moral for this unrecorded epic:
if you can't annotate, alliterate.
Posts: 2,360
Threads: 230
Joined: Oct 2010
04-06-2017, 11:55 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2017, 11:11 PM by Todd.)
It Isn’t Found in History Books
That flying disc didn’t suddenly blow up
like a balloon. It wasn’t no Macy’s Day Parade
in Roswell. I suppose those aliens gave Oswald
the magic bullet. Just imagine
could’ve won Vietnam with one shot. Then I guess
they were technical advisors for Stanley Kubrick
to film that moon landing. It makes sense.
Except, why they can’t wear shoes.
And how’d that one fella
get on the cover of Abbey Road?
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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Molasses
Boston, January 15, 1919
Temperance thoughts try to ignore
why a distillery would name itself Purity;
Horses, dogs, men, women, and children
faced the fate of flies stuck to yellow tape.
Brutal January didn't help as victims were forced
into candy coated straight jackets of death.
A tank gave way.
Even Carrie Nation would have cried.
there's always a better reason to love
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Hail, sweet Socrates, hail!
Tall and rooted deep
ugly, sleeping long upon your feet
Reason long has traced her path
with your shadow’s tip.
Veiled though you be,
steady, brightly shining be your star
echoing, your voice still rings
And will not fail.
Hail, sweet Socrates, hail!
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Bitter Sandwich
The scavengers
followed not a word.
In the cave, time merely sped,
blood quenching thirst,
flesh dissolving
into idea -- then the Lord's day.
Certainly the most vital part
of the gift, gratitude
to Himself
being His fulfillment.
Whereas ours
is the consumption of
the loaf,
our freedom to live
mere will to hunger.
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Luke 7:36-7:50
I wonder if he was really like that–
a kind man, a learned man,
a free man.
I wonder if he really told
that pretentious douche-bag Simon
to check himself.
I can't say the Apostle's Creed
for fear that the air would split
open like the Red Sea,
and otherworldly hands
would snap my spine over it's knee
for being a fucking liar.
So, I can't follow Jesus the Christ.
But that man, Luke's man,
he smells of authenticity
and tears. I could follow him.
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The Bengal Famine of 1943
killed as many in a year
as the Soviet bear in the gulag -
so much for your useless tears.
The bones of coolies ain't worth it -
and those of abos likewise.
Build o'er the blood too, earth it,
house a mining giant and Perth it.
Churchill > Stalin
so they say, so they say,
Coventry >> Talinn
Obama <<<< Palin
unless you're gay,
so they say.
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe
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