I'm Doing NaPo this Year Despite Being So Busy or So Help Me

Being busy suckssss but I'm still going to try to complete NaPo.

2017

2016

2015

2014

#1 (April 3rd)
Almost-Summer Sonnet

As I walk down the street on my way to school
I like the snap of my flat-soled shoes
that will wreck my feet with time.
I listen to cars' engines whine.
I'm wearing a leather jacket; hear it squeak
as it rubs against itself with every snap of my feet.
I feel killer, bomber, all edges, like lightning.
I walk with a gait that sends the world cowering.
My outfit today is so well-matched
that to love me or fear me is quite a catch-
22, but what's it to you? As I breeze
like some famous star down the street.
With my tough-girl looks, it's plain to see:
yesterday I finally did my laundry.

#2 (April 4th)

Emo Non-tina (sestina, but nine)

I ripple-dwell in my core
and there are fathoms
between the stars
in the cavity in my chest.
Someone left a light on in there
a ghost light
so I don't tumble
and split my shins open
on black-painted sets.

You talk about tea sets
and avoid the core
of conversations. Open
your heart up to me and fathom
what it would be like to tumble
between the stars
in a land with no light.
We'd be able to talk there,
and you look x-rays through my chest.

I catch bullets in my chest
and I've ordered them in sets
of twelve, organized by pain.There's
an ammunitions factory nestled by my core.
Before it grew, I was light
as a breeze, and the sky was open
wide enough that I could see all the stars,
more than I could fathom.
But I grew heavy, began to tumble.

You ran me through the wash and tumble
dry, cycles spinning until my chest
is made of more spirals than you can fathom.
I find the sun never sets
because that old star
never rises, so there's
nothing that'll dry your laundry out in the open,
and wet clothes will chill you to the core,
so pray for light.

They call you a light-
weight, but you run and tumble
and raise yourself from the dead to work your core.
You strain until you feel like your chest
will burst open,
spilling blood to measure fathoms
deep. There,
you will ready and mark and set
the directive charts, freckled with stars.

You said you'd never seen a shooting star,
I said I'd never seen the light.
All it takes is your hand, set
on my shoulder to make me tumble
into myself. There's
a bird in my chest
whose name I cannot fathom.
When it sings, does its mouth ever open?

My wrist has fallen open,
spilling the iron from stars
that burned out longer ago than I can fathom.
They bled out all their light
(like a spilling golden chest)
till they were left with nothing but their core:
dwarf stars set
my teeth on edge. They're
so used up, yet still they tumble.

Tumble
open
while you pray for things you never had. There
are no stars
that can guide you. Set
your course, travel sixty fathoms.
Work your core
with rowing, or learn to travel light.
Earn a barrel-chest.

A sudden echo in my chest,
and I know that the ghost-light
has tumbled
over. Fear of dark shoots through my core,
and I feel blind, wandering out in the open.
The darkness fathomless,
and there,
your star
starts to set.

There is a light in my chest
where your fathomless stars tumble.
When they set, I'm cut open at the core.

#3 (April 5th)

This one isn't great but whatever. Less of a poem and more of just me writing down words, but that's how napo goes, right?

I can tell it's spring again
because the white flowering trees
(that someone told me once were pears)
are taunting me again
with the smell of fish.
Must be nice to be so confident
that you shamelessly vie for flies' attentions,
proclaiming it proudly enough to see
(and smell) from miles around.
I close my eyes and try to pretend
the desert around me is a bucking ocean.
There's limestone in those mountains,
and my geology 102 prof told me
that the calcium in it
is made up of the skeletons of tiny, ancient organisms.
But my geology major friend says the majority of the mass
is just poop.
Towering mounds of fossilized crap
that strikes a line across the sky,
a raised horizon.

I’m loving these poems so far. Your rhyming was really good in the sonnet. The second one was pretty cool too, but I don’t know what structure you were going for, sorry. The star metaphor was carried really well through that one, and the third one made me laugh XD. I liked the mix of the more personal thoughts with figurative language.

fortis - I'm a big fan of your second poem here! The repetitious structure was great for a poem about tumbling-stars because the words literally tumbled around [in a good way]! So the mix of the chaotic topic, yet with more formal structure was a great contrast. And the structure didn't seem forced or stale, but really enhanced the story you told through the poem.

There were a bunch of places in there, where I just paused and said, "man that's a great line/turn of phrase".

Here's some of the really good stuff:

"You said you'd never seen a shooting star,
I said I'd never seen the light."

and the end!

"There is a light in my chest
where your fathomless stars tumble.
When they set, I'm cut open at the core."

#4 (April 26th oh boy)

(removed for contest)

#5

(the slashes mark caesuras)

Giants

Misty cities / 'neath your feet
stretch and spread / like faded blankets.
Shrouded mountains / reach to meet
your high and giant / bouldered shoulders.
Distant hills / of scrub brush shrubs,
resemble velvet / to the touch.
Lakes, the barely / silver slicks
of blinding light. / The chill wind licks
through you: / you quake.

#5 has a great rhythm to it, and I love the bits of rhyme you've scattered through it. I particularly love:

Lakes, the barely / silver slicks
of blinding light. / The chill wind licks
through you:

#6

Self Care

You told me to forget my Lazarus
and focus on someone less... cadaverous.
That I'd get to him eventually:

"Focus on the living and the breathing,
the dead can wait, as can the bereaving."

But I'm the one that needs to rise;
my lips are spilling buzzing flies.

Shall I stretch my hand to heal?
My nerves have died. I cannot feel.

Do I give myself no thought?
Shall I shamble? Shall I rot?
Should I fall to pieces in the road,
my Lazarus forgot?