Storm Front: Day 4 of National Poetry Month

Day 4: National Poetry Month

Today’s prompts from Na/GloPoWriMo and Writers Digest PAD were “weather” and “friends.” And while friends may not be obviously incorporated here, the idea led to me to thoughts of how “traditional friends and allies” can turn, unexpectedly – and how “traditional enemies” may be unintentionally emulated through seemingly casual, ordinary actions and interactions. And even while the world burns, the most ordinary things in life go on. I used that dissonance as a springboard, and the storm as both a real thing and a metaphor. Interpret through your own lens.

Storm Front

Stagnant storm clouds glower
to the west. You note the creeping dark
but gather up your errand notes,
your shopping lists, and run them.

Friends mutter, “Interesting
weather.” Give them a safe nod.
“Rains coming.” The whole exchange
feels like B-movie spy code.

It’s old and everything’s a war
run by crime boss caricatures. War
on drugs, war on books, war on women, war
on war – we have a thousand tsars.

Ghost-carts sail on asphalt
wage an ordinary war, bent-out-of-shape
they menace with wall-eyed wheels; you
do battle for a parking space.

You race the grumbling thunder-rain
and its inevitable oncoming,
each transformer-explosion flash
electric – adrenal gland on drums –

Thrums, energized, through veins
a streak not blue enough, zings
a shockwave nerve assault. You
barely make the light that takes you home.

I drafted a first poem, this morning, on Facebook – just idle musings, really (no one said a poem a day had to be 365 good poems) but since I’m lately in the habit of deleting old Facebook posts because they’re no longer timely and relevant, I’m going to share it here.

Divide and Conquer

What would divide us –
keep us weak – if not
religion, borders,
skin, or gender?
Not selfishness
so much as greed,
a need, a craving
to compete. For some
the race to space
was aspirational –
fulfillment of recurring
dreams of curiosity –
while others merely play
at “King of the Hill”
and race to plant a flag,
to stake a claim,
to subjugate the cosmos,
bend it to their will,
and leave it poorer.

Other National Poetry Month Posts

• National Poetry Month, Texas Style!
• Apricots: a Tanka Encompassing Three Prompts
• Bee Sting: Day 2 of National Poetry Month
• Cacophony and CBD: Day 3 in Nonsense Verse and Found Poetry
• Technically, a Writer: Day 3 of National Poetry Month
• Dive: Day 4 of National Poetry Month
• Storm Front: Day 4 of National Poetry Month
• Energized: Day 5 of National Poetry Month
• Grump: Day 5 ½ of National Poetry Month
• Future Frittered Away: Day 6 of National Poetry Month
• Hell, Hell, Hell: Day 7 (More or Less) of National Poetry Month
• Insomnia: Day 8 of National Poetry Month
• Juxtaposition: Day 9 of National Poetry Month
• Knife Edge: Day 10 of National Poetry Month
• Lost a Day: Day 11 of National Poetry Month
• Many Definitions: Day 12 of National Poetry Month
• New Form – Quadrille Quaiku: Day 13 of National Poetry Month
• Ode to Imagination: Day 14 of National Poetry Month
• Pixellated People: Day 15 of National Poetry Month

Your Turn!

Do you think most humans naturally enjoy being divided and having someone to compete with? If so, why not engage in competitions that could benefit humanity as a whole? Surely even a large financial prize for the “first” or “best” solution would be less costly than a destructive war and far less cynical.

Would you rather eat at a chain restaurant, where you could safely predict whether you’d like the food – even if you didn’t love it or weren’t excited by it – or at a new restaurant serving foreign (to you, wherever you are in the word) cuisine? How about when you’re traveling to another state or country? Don’t mind me – I’m still depressed by the Burger King in Istanbul and the Popeye’s Chicken at the Ataturk Airport. This morning, I read that there are only 11 authentic, locally-owned Hawaiian restaurants that are not chains. (I didn’t read the whole article and it may or may not be accurate. I hope it was limited to Oahu, which is not “all of the state of Hawaii.” But I will say Maui has become a generic, if pricey, haole haven. <yawn> Not the Hawaii I remember from the 1970s, for sure.)

Any other thoughts? The mic’s all yours (just be kind, be real – the castle goats eat trolls when they gather under the bridge to drink from the moat, and the resident bard freely steals from the spammers to mock them with ribald songs and poetry – so you’ve been warned! Or welcomed. Your choice.)