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.