April PAD Challenge - Day 5

Happy Easter!

I didn't get a chance to post 'cause of the holiday, so now I'll play catch up. Feel free to submit your poems from previous days on any blog post in April.

The source of the daily prompts can be found here at Poetic Asides.

Day 2 - Write a 'water' poem, or poem with water in it.

(Note: This poem is meant to be read out loud. I originally had all sorts of marks indicating tone and breath but decided it was too hard to make them appear here. Maybe someday I'll get around to recording it, but for now, just realize its not your traditional poem.)

Coming Home After

Ferdinand Magellan was a maritime sailor in 1521.

He started the first successful attempt to

Circumnavigate the earth.

Circumnavigate, as you might know, means to go all the way around

And come back.

He was looking for a way to get to spices, to get ahead, find his niche in the economy.

But...

He didn't come back.

There was a battle in the Philippines and he died.

But his crew took up the slack,

took leadership and came back.

They finished the voyage and when they came home,

only 18 of the 227 men, strong good men

Met their children at the dock,

Lay with their wives that night,

Rejoiced at seeing familiar sights

After an unsure journey.

And I, a Minnesota College student in 2008,

started her first attempt to circumnavigate the drain.

I thought I knew what truth meant and was

Sure I could stand up to any professor,

Any digressor,

And shine like no one had seen before.

Like Magellan, I wanted a faster route to a happier life.

And as I sat in my lectures, feet on the floor,

edge of my seat,

mind an open door, beat-

ing as if it had its own heart...

Right from the start

Truth: became fiction.

Love: became diction and not passion.

There was no conviction.

My life began circling the drain.

Caught like a ship in a maelstrom,

Like a bug in a toilet bowl,

Like what mindlessness does

to the soul,

How the Earth soaks up rain.

And you know what I learned?

I died. In too many battles against foreign thoughts,

Even when I ought

To have given up I didn't and fell defending.

The 227 men inside me pulled on the ropes, and rigged the rigging.

I found the strongest parts of me were left behind.

Those who chose to fight and stave off the enemy

Stayed behind and --

Continue to sentry

The wary passages in my mind.

But I did come back.

The Magellan in me left and died,

But there was a remnant that carried on:

and it wasn't the parts I thought.

Only 18 came home, came back.

But I'm sure as they unloaded the ship that night,

Under a starry dome,

Safe from the deranged,

Walked around the town, met families and friends,

They didn't say they were home.

They said they were changed.

Day 3 - Write a poem with the title "Partly _______ "

I got this prompt mixed up in my head and instead wrote a poem titled "Probably ____". I suppose Partly could work just as well here.

Partly Special

I was handed an emerald box
By a talking badger in the woods.
I'm the secret heir to a throne and
I have ridiculously gorgeous hair.
I was sent on a quest to save some people
And I'm also wondering how to find my identity.

The emerald box contains the answer
To all of my problems.
But only if I know how to use it.
You might pass me by on the street,
But you should know I'm the kind of stranger
Who is partly special.

Day 4 - Write a history poem.

The Murderer's Song

A finch sings from his cage in my room.

It's a beautiful song.

And yet I feel like ignoring him.

I dress, eat breakfast, then go back upstairs

For something I forgot.

As I pass by his cage, I finally sit down and listen

And forget that he was the bully who

Killed my three other birds.

I forget to fault him for his birdie instincts

And just listen.

Is he sorry? Is his song an attempt at atonement?

Or is it just another instinct, to sing when the sun is up?

His little birdie body ruffles with the last notes

And no matter his history,

I feel an impulse to forgive him.

Day 5 - Write a TMI poem (Too Much Information)

RT@TMI Plz stop

My friend just ate a ham sandwich.

I know 'cause she posted a tweed.

Poetic perspective? Or Petty collective?

Whatever. It took seconds to read.