Napowrimo 4/10/26: interrogation

 Today's Napowrimo prompt implores a "container" poem. If you click the link, you'll see a great example of this from Geoffrey Brock. I decided to eschew some of the rhetorical element and expand the poem, but here it is.

in terms of what we know
and what we don't know
we are somewhere around
20/80. we've got less than
we want, and we're looking
to rectify that presently.

rectify what? (you know)
[what does he know?] he 
knows tide charts and recipes
for a decent lamb dish. [that's
a start, certainly] (I told you)
[stop making this about you]

in this moment. we, this
enterprise of sorts, apply the
stated reason: our charter, our
spirit of the endeavor. we set 
aside the old ways. with some 
small sense of disdain, we begin.

where do we begin? (before the end)
[what is the end?] (now we're getting
somewhere) where are we now? [until
now, I believed I was sure I knew] what
did you know? (assuredly, little to nothing)
[who invited this guy?]

and we, reverent explorers for an
honest sense of the word truth, sussing
out it's uncertainties and ushering them out
the door with a swift kick in the posterior,
make for a better tomorrow.
or the day after tomorrow, more likely.

can we get something on the calendar, like 
an end date? (time is an illusion) [will you 
stop being mysterious?] is he correct about you?
are you mysterious? (that answer is mine alone)
[someone needs to punch you in the facial region]
who among us is the right man for the job?

we, brothers, persons really, acolytes of a violent
truth. we, the bringers of blows and kicks and maybe
one aggressive human bite [I got carried away]. we know
now, our hubris (who will pay my medical bills?) in pursuit
of the words of a better tomorrow, have marred today.
when will we learn?

[(there is no answer)]

hopeful hopeless

 

dress it up any way you like and i’ll give you the notes you’ve requested of me. to tell you the truth, that’s what you’ve asked of me. honest like headlights on a hill in dead nighttime. dead to rights, just out there floating. letting you know that something is waiting. maybe even getting a little closer. with each passing second. each of them. growing in stop motion. slow road to oblivion/salvation.

which of them/who of us really knows anything? i will make a truth out of whatever calls my name the sweetest. whatever knows the way to my heart. through me. into my soul and out another end with clean exit wounds.

oh, to be obliterated. knowing my own destruction. knowing the end, recording it as the opening track. cue the sounds of accompaniment to my wailing. I won’t be alone when it all comes out in the wash. there will be strings and horns and other lines of melody and harmony. we’ve been working a long time together. so much to tell you. so little time to be told.

listen.

Confessionals

 

Give me the truth as you see fit, my love.

Break it apart into 12 or 13 manageable pieces

rolling off of the tongue in meaningful slobberings

I know this so well.

Even better than you might, the medicated stumble of a mouth

rife with SAT prep lingo from a bygone era. Paleolithic 

shots of affection across the starboard front of the vessel,

whatever that might imply to our friends in the maritime industry.

Whatever that implies to anyone.

Holy, all that is Holy. Attached to sounds of my spindly flesh’s protests under the currents that guide us into what comes and what may.

I am slurring again, letting the closely inspected colors, neat within the lines, leak out and make a perfectly damn fine picture ripe with blurry hues. 

Everything ends up as shit if I’m not careful these days. With no bags to store it and set it on fire outside the local municipality’s domicile.

Go on, say it like I mean it, self.

Let them know how I really feel, this time.

Cut rate Sonnets

Today’s prompt was a curtal sonnet-11 lines with the the last line being shorter.

I won’t pretend to ascertain the truth.

I believe in the words of my father.

To work everyday, to not be a bother.

To own my misdeeds and the times I’m uncouth.

Revisions of facts for a greater purpose.

All insistence aside, remain observant

For defections, despite words that are fervent.

We all set aside what is right, all in service.

To a higher power, but we don’t know it’s name.

The power unbidden, too bold to be tame.

Say it in jest, the meaning’s the same.