A Poem a Day

That's Robert Lee Brewer's challenge, on his Poetic Asides blog. For National Poetry Month, write a poem a day for thirty days, each one on a theme or word of his choosing. Here's the first challenge:

Since today is the first day of the month, write a poem about a first or a series of firsts. This first could be a first love, first job, first funeral, first marriage, first divorce, first child, first Wal-Mart shopping experience, etc. You could also flip this around to be a poem about beginnings (after all, the beginning of anything is also a first step in a process).

So here's my first one. I knew I didn't want to write about first love or first kiss. and I ended up not exactly writing about first anything, although "first" is the first word of the poem. After that, it went its own way.

It's a 5/4, and I'll try, although I may give this idea up at some point, to write them all as 5/4s and keep developing this story.

First stop the bank
I’ll need cash
for travel expenses
and at the border
for bribery

in case they
stop and check my luggage
but with any luck
no one will care
about the

dark music that only
appears to come from
my portmanteau
hypnotic
yet strangely arousing

it got me this far
though in Madrid
I was forced to
use it I was afraid
once more than was safe

the Communist
courier
with eyes that never slept
even after sex
obscure cravings

This is a poem a day, so there's no revision to speak of. If I come up with anything I like, I'll revise later.