National Poetry Month is a month-long celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. Many poets celebrate this month by writing a poem a day; it is sometimes called NaPoWriMo. This year, I am taking part in the Poetic Asides April PAD (Poem a Day) Challenge. Robert Lee Brewer is the head poobah in this challenge, and every day this month he will post a prompt. Today’s prompt was to write an origin poem. I will be posting my poems here, as well as at the Poetic Asides site.
Writing a poem a day, especially for someone like me, means that what I post will not be the great polished gems that I would prefer for people to read. I might edit my work a bit, but there’s no way these poems are going to be much more than drafts in progress. Hopefully, I will take some of them and keep working on them. But I will do my best to do some writing every day this month, even if all I end up with is a fragment.
Edited to add: I can’t make WordPress give me paragraph breaks between stanzas. Therefore, you will note that between each stanza, there is a line with a period on it. That is my version of a stanza break, because I don’t have the time or will to fight with WordPress today to figure out how to do it properly.
So, here is today’s offering:
The Attack
It begins:
A near-silent whisper
Through the subconscious.
Or perhaps
A nebulous shadow,
Flitting between thoughts.
.
The mind,
Not consciously aware,
Nonetheless sounds the alarm.
Like good soldiers,
The body’s systems
Ramp up for battle.
.
Lungs, they quicken,
A bellows squeezing
To keep pace with the siren’s roar.
The heart
Sends blood thundering to
Cells: on guard.
.
Sweat rushes
The pores of the skin –
Drowning, drowning.
.
Now the mind is listening.
.
Fear, intense and cutting,
Flies through the circuit.
Limbs tremble,
Reason crumbles,
The flood of danger rumbles.
.
A dagger through the chest;
The bellows can’t keep up.
Brain is spinning, dizzy and dipping,
Sweat is dripping,
Mind is ripping, stomach tripping,
Hands are gripping.
Panic has taken control.
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April 1, 2009 at 2:34 pm
April is National Poetry Month, and the Poem A Day Challenge « Anxiety @ Information-Source-Online.Com
[…] Original post by themuseasylum […]
April 2, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Karen
Good job! Not bad for something that isn’t a ‘great polished gem’ 🙂
Hang in there!
April 2, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Laxaria
Haha you’re also attempting this! Me too! Let’s see how far we get, shall we? 😀