NaPoWriMo Challenge - April 1 - April 30

[Levitating_Bed]

28/30

Thigh King Dumb Cum

Her face is not measuring
the distance between now
and her next orgasm.

Give us this day our daily bread.

It's counting something else:
cars passing by, blood tests,
the algebra of dollars per stroke.

Perhaps weighing investment
opportunities or calculating her
current partner's receding hairline.

Forgive us our trepasses,

She's not into this at all, and registering
this does not make me an empath.
It's as obvious as his very bad tattoos.

There's a light in her eyes that
projects a clear and sharp intelligence,
alongside a frustrated eagerness,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

and a resignation at all of this
that costs her no more than
would an inconvenient traffic detour.

 

[Lyricalli]

30/30

You keep me up at night
and many of those
I would relive again
talking, loving, laughing
until I thought I'd come apart

Then I did
when you were gone
and picking up the pieces
took so long it became a hobby

You can probably still find traces
of me stuck in the rug
like glitter

Can never get rid of that shit

Now, I lie awake and wonder
glued back together as I am
as you are, as we are
about the balance of strength
and fragility
how you see me in the light
that sneaks through the cracks
if it reveals the art I've created
of being me
so you can be you

 

[Tzara]

phrase américaine en français pour Tzara 30/30

tu chantes une aubade et tu maudis ton salut à l'aube du matin.

Déclaration canadienne

Et je regrette de devoir quitter ton lit au lever du soleil.





Or something like that. Thank you, Google Translate.

 

[Angeline]

30-30

Poetry

It can draw you in and entertain you, make you childlike, enraptured by narrative, a receiver of worlds.

It can tick like a metronome and bore you with predictability or it can enchant you, sing and lift your spirit to a joyous inner dance even though you haven't moved.

It can make you delight or despair. Maybe you walk away gritting your teeth at wasted moments, more likely you forget you were ever there. You take your restless need elsewhere, find a more thought-provoking adventure.

It's bottomless. There are always more words.

It's sinuous and sensual. It can curl around your ankles like a plaintive cat or smoke in a dim jazz club where a tenor solo caresses your shivery limbs and bids you sway your hips.

It's urgent and driving, surprising you with the violence of your reaction to mere words. It wants nothing but it knows exactly how to take you.

It's romantic and flowery. It teases and cajoles, reminds you of your first kiss, the fragile bubble of attraction. It is the shatter of an ending or rejection, unrequited love.

It's everywhere: mountains on an Appalachian morning in April, August in a downeast fishing village, 34th Street amid a hubub of honk and babble in November. It's nowhere but the room you're in now.

 

[Remec]

23/30

Loss For Words

Need a voice activated recording device for when I'm working.

 

[Levitating_Bed]

29/30

That's The Way I Feel About Cha

Thinking always of you as I listen,
never quite sure how you're inside the song.
How is it you cross my heart's partition,
why is it there you so seem to belong?
Always thinking of the way our words meld,
tumble and wrestle and tickle and touch -
constant back and forth of hands never held,
of quick fingertips, replies sent, and such.
Your words stop and so mine start, then invert,
repeat, around an axis we create.
into living ether never inert
therefore always and ever to inflate;
breathe into each other until our skin
becomes then taught enough to move within.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

thirsty one

Poetry 2

You can
hear it in the radio, standing in your shower,
see it in the flower, lonely in your garden,
read it on the warden, tattooed on his head.

You could
write your own instead, sitting in a tower,
feel your mother's power, reciting Enoch Arden,
repay Shakespeare's guerdon, well deserved long ago.

You might
lean on a shoulder to catch a glimpse on couplets,
be even bolder and spray graffiti quatrains,
have told her that your true love are sonnets.

You should try poetry at least once.

 

[Moochienanu]

30April2021

White Lies

She complained all the time
It was because she was so uncomfortable
In so much pain.
Every position was only kept for a few moments
Before the ritual of pillow moving, turning, sitting up, lying flatter
Nothing really helping, but she would lie and say it was
Until it was unbearable and the dance began again.

There’s was a tv mounted in the upper left corner of the room
The distraction of its noise was something she had grown to need
As she got older she found the quiet made her mind
Turn in on itself until she would live whole days
Without saying a word to her partner
Until he would ask her about what she was thinking
And she would say the only thing she could: “nothing.”

She she lay in that bed dying,
Her granddaughter, married just two years before she found out
What a mess her body had become,
Came and sat with her, helped her move, talked to the doctors
All while holding her hand.
She was one of five of her eldest son’s kids
Whom she knew well and spent every summer of their childhood with
Since her bastard of an ex-husband became her past,
Not that she would ever let on about the way that man really was.

Her granddaughter sat holding her hand
Craning her head up to the movie which was droning on
Behind all of her inner thoughts
In a moment of clarity,
She looked over at this beautiful young woman, her blood,
And asked her to make peace with the brother she was feuding with
Before it was too late,
Before there was no chance to.

The girl looked at her grandmother
And lied.

 

[Piscator]

XXX/XXX

Nate Sestina’s Sestina

Sometimes things don’t work out as planned
not that Nate planned it, such is basketball love
and strong are the threads of the basketball net.
He hooped all summer, sweating on outdoor court
before moving to school gym through fall and winter
knowing he was good but must work to be better.

Moving up to High School, things getting better
Varsity as a freshman, thing’s going as planned
four years of hard practice through each fall and winter
at High School graduation, all he got was love.
Conference player of the year, full press court
college at Becknell’s - next year nothing but net.

Summer’s prep but his three pointer nowhere near net
a shoulder injury redshirts him; takes months to get better.
But a career year as a senior, he was king of the court
two years in March Madness, all going as planned
with college graduation, a brief cheerleader love
hope springs eternal with passing of winter.

Transfer to Kentucky and Wildcats, but with winter
a broken wrist and covid darken his net.
March Madness was cancelled, pandemic's tough love
yet nothing that going pro couldn’t make better.
But draft passed without call, nothing going as planned
it’s tough to stay centred on basketball’s court.

An anxious summer, tryouts on NBA courts
but covid loomed large, sport locked down in winter.
Would this end those hoop dreams he'd planned?
Then Christmas came early; a ten-day contract with the Nets
led to a place in the G League where he could get better
such is the trial of basketball love.

Then Nate moved to Europe following basketball love
but Ukraine and Russia offers covid canceled with nyet.
A contract with Israeli Basketball’s Premier League was better
and he starred with Hapoel Holon, League champion that winter
on this stage, he was again king of the court
even though things didn’t always go as planned.

So ends this tale of basketball love, but with end of winter
will Nate be more than a jester caught in basketball’s net?
Sometimes things work out, but not always as planned.

 

[Levitating_Bed]

30/30

Molly Has the Last Word

Love is, like life, largely,
a game of chances
it's famine and feast,
with very few answers.

With confusion and wonder
at its questions and guesses,
this wish, wished for you
through its joys and duresses:

may yours be just like the end of Ulysses
at least as long and with as many yesses.

 

[Tzara]

35

poem to a heian lady, attached to a sprig of flowers

craters flaw the moon's
bright disk, as my fumbled words
mar my confession

....perhaps this hibiscus bloom
....may speak more clearly for me

 

[29wordsforsnow]

thirsty two

Standing unclad, completely bare
throughout the cold I kept you there
for hungry eyes to stop and stare
spring's shift
kicking in
your bud
larcenous looks from crow and stare
hesitantly at first, but now laid bare
on the soft white of your underwear
summer's hope
blossoms into
your tips
splendid, emerald green outerwear
envelopes your limbs just everywhere
so lurking crowds might stay and stare
autumn's guests
rave about
your cherry
red with flush, ripe in body, so they dare
picking your lush rhapsody without care
making me blush that I agreed to share
winter came,
all the same,
you're bare​

Update: a bit of artwork that accompanied the publication on the main site