NaPM, April 22, 2020

[Quixilated]

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: Vice.
Write a poem inspired by one of the seven deadly sins (pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth).
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 or more


Questions?

[Todd]

Envy

You have it backward.
I don’t want
what you have.
I am not the weed
coveting the flower.
I will never bloom.
I am salt to your soil,
so nothing grows.
I am the baby cut in two,
so there is no mother.
Why smile
when I can remove
your grin with sandpaper.

[dukealien]

Ultimate Sin


Which sin condemns most certainly to Hell
of all these deadly seven? As her bell
tolls for a sinner’s death, she might have stayed
perdition for her gluttony and prayed
away pride, envy, lust, crass greed and wrath
by choosing true confession and a path
that left God peeved but not intensely wroth
except she didn’t– lost and damned by sloth.

[Keith]

Becoming Sloth

Impossible with the turbine blades
of younger veins, a head twitch
of excitation the flicks the coil
even faster with each pure pulse.

Then comes the caffeine of learning,
the singed eye lids of burnt books,
knuckle drags turn into crunching visible abs
when body weight is lifted over our heads.

It comes as an elder to our shores in fat bent ripples,
smoking the sensation of being bloated.
While cheek bones lose their edges
we pledge to sweat oceans on gymnasium floors.

Then it happens, the much younger than you boss,
who's a tosser, crosses some line
that wasn't there in the morning,
your shallowest breath is released in to sleep

and something deep inside
connects you to a quiet calm,
a raised palm that finds you a favorite spot
and says, "just fucking stop."