Day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) 

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is a bit complicated to explain.

… inspired by musical notation, and particularly those little italicized –and often Italian – instructions you’ll find over the staves in sheet music, like con allegro or andante.

We are presented with three columns of words, and instructed to

First, pick a notation from the first column below. Then, pick a musical genre from the second column. Finally, pick at least one word from the third column. Now write a poem that takes inspiration from your musical genre and notation, and uses the word or words you picked from the third column.

I won’t reproduce the full columns, but the notations include gems like, “play like you are about to start crying,” “tempo di murder” and “with a hint of frenzy.” Musical genres include, “yacht rock,” “jazz fantasia” and “breakup anthem,” among others.

My selections were: genre “power ballad;” notation “improvisatory screaming;” and the word vampire.

Thus, my poem:

Screaming Meemies

A ballad not for faint of heart
this story I’m about to [scream]
a tale so foul [a shuddered moan]
derived from Satan’s basest dreams.

The clock tolled noon one fateful day.
A lightning strike; earth split a seam
and from the depths of hell arose 
a fiend astride a golden gleam.

This incubus [a prolonged shriek]
this vampire spewing blood and greed
loosed upon our hallowed grounds
to feast upon our direst needs.

A knight in armor tarnished gray,
and yet a hundred score and five,
fell at his feet [cue gnashing teeth]
to save careers (and ruin lives).

Such devastation [Banshee’s screech],
depriving souls their tended dreams,
all done to fatten Satan’s purse
and trample those of lesser means.

This [haunting howl] yet to resolve,
to hell consigned or fait accompli?
No hero comes to save the day.
It rests on you, it rests on me.