EpigraMarch is a (yearly?) poetry challenge à la Inktober, started by me to replace what poet Savannah Brown used to call Escapril. It consisted of a list of prompts, one for each day in March, for which a poem will have to be written. Prompts are revealed one at a time on the day on which they are due. Post your submissions anywhere under the epigramarch tag to encourage participation and message me at telomagnetics@protonmail.com if you want a link to your submissions on this site.
Some last dew on the grass by the mailbox A last chill in the bricks as they chip, in the face of a man on the bench near my house who won't greet as he's chewing his lip. Hear the sound of a tram reaching Ostplatz pitching down as it's passing away and a lady in blue on the platform across puffs a smoke signal — reach whom it may. There are kids in a fight over nothing and a student who furrows his brow at a meaningless headline of utmost importance not sensing the here in this now. I don't know if just one of them saw it: There's a bird lying dead at my feet. Had it chosen this city just like me? Had it known every shop on the street? Has it glanced even once through my window? Is it last but not first that we meet? I pronounce this coordinate holy on a curb in a town in a state in a country a world and a cosmos in a here holding space as I wait
Come hell or high water As children not knowing the burn of the salt in our lungs nowadays And so easy to say on the hill in the shallows: Come hell or high water we'll weather the blaze What a fool! Oh the hubris to threaten from weakness Come hell or high water Some words in a soul in a gem in a seed that has foolishly grown us as naught but the maxim Limbs nailed to the goal So come hell or high water No peace, no surrender We drew all our lines and you glibly walked past So beware of our hubris We'll trudge through the embers Committed to goodness We'll cling to the mast
Not made for thought, much less for cunning Flashing signal, frantic noise So not much fanfare unbecoming Enter: Creature, stripped of poise Outside: A darkness, slowly waning Breaking bottlenecks at dawn Inside: A dim familiar quiet Eyelids bracing. Stifled yawn. Then finding switch and almost footing "Fucking Lucifer you prick" groan they, who named their glass-cased lighting robbing Zeus his only trick And flick'ring glow in untold windows Mankind rise at time's behest Though this one fading just as quickly finding gentle, ill-timed rest
Take a risk! Take a leap! Turn a chip into ten! Here's a precipice, jump when you're told! Dare it once, dare it twice, for whoever needs legs? and for fortune still favours the bold! "Survivor selection", "anthropics has victims", but I've never seen them, have you? So go on! You are winning the race and the raffle! With all of those boons, you'll pull through! One more throw! One more jump! One more unsteady landing! You sure you can't buffer the cost? And if not: someone else can take all and leave nothing. Just jump or you're already lost! Never mind. One more corpse. Kick it under the awning of losers not heard and not seen. Oh but you! Over there! Want to win what you can? Screw the median, look at the mean!
Off-axis, rolling, spinning top up-downish, coming left for air explosion looking like a flare but never heeded. Eardurms pop Do mind that sickness on the floor and read what used to be the walls: some sage advice where madness calls that Hopper did forget the door Now Sgr A*'s in retrograde Below: The earth in vertigo I hope you did enjoy the show since this is how the string gets made ...or just the noise, that constant drone Accreted matter losing grip for who —at this point— steers the ship in circles down the time-like cone What would it even mean to stop? For orbit's upside after all is missing pavement as you fall a rolling, flailing, spinning top
To whom it still might not concern: Dear sir, we're sinking fast In coffin, landfill, sea or urn you won't be going last Dear sir, the market's bullish now and charging for the red A whirling fabric hiding how the fish is laced with lead Your brain is full of plastic dust, the web is full of slop and though you weathered boom and bust you're not quite near the top AI will take that job you hate A plague will lock you in The strongmen take another state Your toaster needs a PIN Dear sir, you are not winning here you just aren't losing yet You sensed your neighbour's mounting fear the last time that you met Your kids will never see the snow they have no space but home and everyone you used to know got swallowed by their phone Your father now fears jewish plots Dear sir, you're not insane You simply missed the warning shots of Goebbels' ad-campaign One day Sam Altman kills us all I'll count you down from five While daytime news shows glossy gore and barbarism live Dear sir, you've got a choice to make I hope you choose the light The ground's been fake for quite a while and rome is burning bright
Since yesterday's un-fateful rainy morning there comes a smell of rose from down below Here perch upon a fallen, rusted lamppost a murder of eight pigeons and a crow They watch over the long-forgotten buried I smell it from each hill and every cave I could not pay attention in my vigil to any of those sermons that you gave You think that this here quest of ours is holy but dust these days is holier than thou and anything that rises from these ashes would still have to contend with what is now I thought I'd seen a temple in the distance Some weeks ago, and no, it wasn't real I've drawn it in the sand and on my retinas to lick upon a wound that will not heal Come stop to smell these ever-present roses For every spot is sacred in this way Some trillion lives were lost upon the planet So smell the myroblysia where they lay It's better in some ways and worse in others I've smelled the acrid dust and burning hair On molten sand ring few remaining footsteps and all of what is left rests in our care
I will win both despite and to spite you I will win at significant cost I've been used and degraded and lied to I won't rest 'till my ts are all crossed I have gladly forgiven offences and have rarely regretted the day I have lowered 'round those my defenses who were safe to return to the fray Though I will not extend you that kindness It's exploited where you are around I do strive to be good but not mindless There'll be kindness on salted fresh ground This will hurt me in every direction though I pray it will hurt you far more Or more truly I hope on reflection you'd have thought of the fallout before and that no one like you should be tempted at the cost of a winner-less war
"Make it rain..." said the man to a rock in his palm "...from the waters above as below Make a tiny, immaculate crack in the sky as I throw you I won't take a no as an answer or plea let alone explanation I promised for weeks it was near I have long lost my pride or what little I had For an off-ramp: take all I hold dear Do not make me, through failure, a liar or fraud Just this once —God oh please— make it rain Bring reprieve to this sand as you open the gates now that all of our off'rings are slain As you fly, little stone, break the heavens apart Drain through fissures the water up high So that all of the words that I spoke in these days end up more than an optimist's lie"