April Poem a Day and NaPoWriMo prompts

Robert Brewer’s Poem a Day Challenge and NaPoWriMo poem a day challenge writing prompts (Blogger helpfully removes the links and renders them useless, so you will need to visit their websites.)

4/30 write a moving on poem. Many people finish something (like a poetry challenge) and stop.


4/29 take the phrase "The Last (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "The Last Word," "The Last Dance," "The Last Poem," and/or "The Last Time Was Better."


4/28 write a sight poem. We've already done smell, taste, sound, and touch.


4/27 write a remix poem. Take one of your poems (preferably from this month) and remix it. Make free verse a traditional form or vice versa.


4/26 write a love and/or anti-love poem.

4/25. write a response poem. Your poem could be in response to a popular poem by another poet

4/24. write a superhero or supervillain poem. It's OK to write a poem about an established hero or villain, like Thor, Green Lantern, or The Tick. But it would be more fun to have poems about lesser known (as in, you just invented them) heroes and villains.

4/23. write a conspiracy poem. Line your ball caps with aluminum foil, cover your walls with cryptic sticky notes, and write a poem that exposes (or refutes) a conspiracy. Is the Earth flat? Are all professional sports (and entertainment awards ceremonies) fixed? Did people really talk about Bruno? Write your poem, because I want to believe.


4/22. write an organism poem. The really cool thing about our planet is that it is loaded with a variety of living organisms, from one-celled prokaryotes and eukaryotes to complex creatures (like blue whales and rhinos). Write about several organisms, or pick one and make it the title of your poem.

4/21. write a sound poem. We've already done smell, taste, and touch; I hope you can see where this is headed. For today, write about sounds in general or hone in on one particular sound. Keep your ears open today and maybe a poem will sing out to you.

SURE SIGNS OF SPRING
I stood beneath the madrone tree, 

alive with the buzzing of bees, 

and I wondered what species? 

European honeybee? Is there a nest nearby?

Whatever the species, they begin early, 

gathering nectar at the crack of dawn. 

The tree buzzes and drones on, 

sounding like it’s about to take off 

and join the twin propeller planes 

crossing a flawless West Marin sky.

Two drunken bumblebees fell out of the tree 

and wobbled right onto me, piggyback.

The little furry fkrs were fking on my finger!

I had no worry about being stung. 

That was the last thing on their minds.

4/23 PAD

4/20. prompt, write a poem using at least three of the following six words. Or go for extra credit and use all six. Here are the six words:  Content Double Guide Meet Pump.  Suit

4/19. Here are the Two-for-Tuesday prompts:
Write a What's There poem, and/or...
Write a What's Not There poem.

I was so devastated when my engine blew 

over a cheap three cent screw, 

someone trying to save a penny or two.

4/24 PAD

4/18. take the phrase "We (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "We the People," "We Want It Now," "We in the Royal Sense," and/or "We vs. Wii."


4/17 write a mad poem. There are things that make us mad as well as things that drive us mad. Whatever your interpretation of the word,

4/16 write a touch poem. touch connects many paths, including touching up a picture, touching down an airplane, bringing a soft or human touch to a situation, and even playing touch and go (or tag).


4/15 write a patience poem. Your poem could be about someone or something with great patience, or it could come from the other direction (ie, impatience). it begs us to consider the various ways of measuring time: From the patience required to sit at a red light to the patience of a tree growing rings for centuries.


4/14 write a scary poem. Your poem could invoke monsters, release spiders, or tremble at the mystery of the night. It could contemplate taxes or the prospect of public speaking. And don't forget the dread of the blank page.

4/13. take the phrase "How to (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "How to Win at Life," "How to Cook Lasagna," "How to Fall in Love," and/or "How to Write a Poem."

4/12 Here are the Two-for-Tuesday prompts:
Write a Counting poem, and/or...
Write a Not Counting poem.

PORTRAIT OF JACK MICHELINE IN NORTH BEACH

We were gathered in a North Beach café after a reading.

I remember the black-and-white tile floors, 

the calligraphy of sand and grit under the terrazzo tables, 

and how the cane chairs that groaned as we shifted weight.

I remember it was late afternoon, the slanted sunlight 

streaming in long shards through high warped windows. 

No idea who all was there, was I with John Oliver Simon, 

or maybe it was Herman Berlandt, as I was his ride north.

I was the only woman there, both visible and invisible

circling the table with my old Pentax camera, 

the ocular distance of lens and silver nitrate

was a passport that gained my entry to the club.

I was chronicler and eavesdropper, voyeur and student.

I was new to poetry, but I was all in. I had found my tribe.

I still can’t find the negatives but I have an indelible memory 

of that day, Jack Micheline holding court, leaning back in a chair, 

black leather jacket creaking, his head thrown back, laughing.

I can almost count how many poets sat around that table, 

drinking, conversing with myriad knees nearly touching.

But not what was said. Sometimes being there was enough.

4/18 PAD

4/11 write a power poem. Your poem could somehow involve electricity, solar power, fossil fuels, wind, or water. It could illustrate a power play or someone exerting their power over someone else. Of course, you could also write about a power outage. 

4/10 write about the sense of taste today. Of course, I'm thinking about tasting wine or cheese or chocolate. But feel free to indulge in a person's taste in fashion, cars, or whatever else requires real taste.

CLEAR CUT

When I was a child, our neighbor Lucien, 

in an attempt to establish a preordained 

sense of order in a fecund wilderness, 

vigorously cleared the manzanita and coyotebush,

to let the land breathe. He sawed and whacked 

the brambles around his field with a vengeance, 

leveling with impunity the berries and wild roses,

eradicating the snowberry and the pipevine—

what we called the greeny Dutchman’s pipe,

never learning the names of those wild plants 

that survived for eons in that unkept garden.

Still not content, he torched the honeybee nest 

in the bay tree down by the creek, he

felled the venerable crabapple in the gulley

all for the idea of order, and a good riddance,

he said, having abolished the slovenly wilderness 

for the sterile landscape of non-native grasses.

First to go were the shooting stars, then the poppies.

Of course we were unaware of symbiosis, 

a dance between host plant and insect.

And for all his efforts, for decades 

there was no longer a wildflower carpet,

nor crown of rare pipevine swallowtails

with luminous indigo eye patches 

on their shiny black cloaks

swooping around our heads in spring.

No accounting for taste, my grandmother said.

Not even the small birds 

could survive that onslaught.

4/10 PAD

4/9 write a breaking poem. The poem could be about breaking down walls, break dancing, breaking up, or breaking stuff. However you'd like to break it down and then write your poem.

It feels weird doesn’t it, to make a break for it,

go out into the world for nonessential things. 

By that, I mean things you don’t need to do 

or need to have in order to survive.

By that, I mean all the things that we let go of 

during the pandemic, By that I mean how 

we sequestered ourselves from everything, 

until toilet paper became essential, 

then paper towels, then alcohol. 

Now poetry.

4/9 PAD

4/8 write a what they never tell you poem. I'm not sure who "they" are, but "they" talk a lot, and there are things people tell you, and there are things you just have to learn on your own, because "they" (them again) never tell you ahead of time. Like, for instance, "they" never told me that I'd still feel like a teenager in my 40s, but here we are. Think about what "they" never tell (or told) you, and write that poem.

DAY JOBS OF ARTISTS

No one ever told me that I’d be come a jack of all trades and master of none, if I became an artist. That my life would be filled with myriad day jobs. They said get a real job. I didn’t listen. I began young following my passion, supporting hopeless causes. To support my horse I was a babysitter, gardener, errand runner, stall shoveler, horse exerciser, salad girl, a waitress in Switzerland, house cleaner, au pair, small tarot press publication manager, maid, and that was all before I hung my artist hat up and took on the mantle of poetry. I’ve been a caterer, server, bartender, newspaper photographer and writer, graphic artist and calligrapher, Elderhostel lecturer, local history and geography, arts facilitator and presenter, seller of Dish satellite TV antennae, a sometimes extra in movies and TV series, storyteller for school literacy programs, Living History silk artist teacher storyteller for Highland Games, educator-trainer, artist in the schools, both poetry and art, and am still hard at it, though I approach my 70th year with trepidation that I made it this far without ever having held down a real job. Well, unless you count that two-year stint at Trader Joe’s  where I learned the rules of commerce, the customer is always right, and haughtier than hell, and willing too take you to the cleaners for the most minor of infractions. What can I say, my face was an open book.

4/7 write an abundance poem. There can be an abundance of things, both good and bad. An abundance of sunshine, money, and chocolate.

HOSPICE

Lately, there has been an overabundance of death. 

My inner sangam is all dying off. Unlikely friends, 

decades spent celebrating holidays in each other’s homes,

and the meditation writing workshops that held us together.

Diana, Shiva, LeeAnne, and now I am told even Vito,

a stalwart soul, whose name is life itself, circles the drain. 

The word, hospice hisses across the wires,

once a religious order that offers solace to the dying.

Connie and Loreen say it’s only a matter of days now.

I think of how the ashram that brought us together, 

was not one of my choosing, but an inheritance of proximity, 

through my ex-partner, an ex altar-boy who believed, 

and railed a lifetime against the guru, a moth to flame.

But his inner sangam became mine too, 

whether or not I believed. And I did not.

I had enough magical thinking from the church 

to last a lifetime. However, belief wasn’t required.

A sangam is a confluence, once an ancient order of poets.

Yet, the rituals of the ashram suited them, 

the gift of abundance fed their heart-connection, 

it offered them solace, and brought them together, 

as family to flame, so they could see each other home.

Who will be the last one left standing?

Then what?

4/7 PAD

4/6 take the phrase "(blank) in the (blank)," replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Poem in the Pocket," "Skin in the Game," "Money in the Pot," and/or "A Devastatingly Good-Looking Person in the Mirror.

ALL THAT BLUE IN THE FIELDS

When I was a child, our lower field was blanketed 

with myriad cornflowers in late summer. 

I marveled at their variety and depth of color. 

Indigo and woad. I coveted the ones with the purple hearts, 

of course, as purple was color of forgiveness, 

something I was always in short supply of.

When I went to the Ukraine in late summer, 

I was surprised by cornflowers, blue eyes in the wheat. 

And there you have the the colors of the Ukrainian flag. 

The wheat and the sunflowers, and the cornflowers and sky.

And sometimes there were wind poppies 

remembrance for all the blood that was shed.

4/7 PAD

first draft: When I was a child, our lower field was blanketed with bachelor buttons in late summer. I marveled at their variety of color. Coveting the purple ones, of course. When I went to the Ukraine, I was surprised to see corn flowers, or bachelor buttons in the wheat. And there you have the Ukrainian flag. The wheat or sunflowers, or cornflowers and sky.

4/5 For today's prompt (the first Two-for-Tuesday prompt of the month), write a make sense poem and/or don't make sense poem.

AEOLIAN DREAMS

In Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah, an alien throne 

awaits the song of the rogue wind 

in the heart of the iron-stained hoodoos —

nestled deep in the Valley of Dreams

where rests the fossilized remains 

of the five-horned pentaceretops.

Let misfortune and sleeping fossils lie.

4/5 PAD

Counting syllables

stuck in traffic while waiting

for the light to change.

§

There’s a certain unredeemable 

sadness that descends

when I reach a notebook’s end.

I cram in those last stray thoughts,

then open up another journal, 

only to begin again.

4/5 PAD

4/4 For today's prompt, write a catch up poem.

WHITE HERALD 

Catch up, catch up, always out of breath,  it seems that I am always running  from one appointment to another, like Alice’s white rabbit who was, and who always will be late, late, for a very important date, he said, anxiously checking his pocketwatch for the umteenth time, having misplaced both gloves and fan. Clearly, he has never heard of the aphorism coined by Ram Dass, Be here now. Do we ever really catch up with ourselves, once we’re out of synch? Doesn’t he know that no one knows when to arrive for the Queen of Hearts? It is always noon at the gates to the Queen’s garden. But we all know how Alice fell down the rabbit hole. The real question is, why is the Cheshire Cat always smiling? 

4/4 PAD

4/3 For today's prompt, write a smell poem.

The hen contemplates the day, standing on the lintel hovering between inside and outside, the green grass, an oasis, she can’t contemplate the distant lake or the the dark mountains, her world contained in the twin cerulean doors opening inward spilling the memory of sky onto the mud walls of a room with a flagstone floor, a curved mosaic worn by time, and the secret whisperings of the past.

4/2 For today's prompt, write a second chance poem.

LAST WALTZ
You know it’s really
over when you don’t even
want a second chance.

4/7 PAD

4/1 For today's prompt, write an F-title poem.

FULMINATING OVER FOOD

As a child, I was a finicky eater, figuring that if 

I forsook all responsibility for my foolish dislikes,

I could get a leg up. A leg up. Over what, I’ve no idea. 

Forsooth, I said, fulminating over the likes of frumenty to fungi.

Who knows that the letter F was once a rake to furrow the land,

to grow the grain, to finish the job. We rake ideas over coals, 

avoiding food groups, in search of the secret elixir to longevity.

4/1/22 PAD brought to you by the letter F.

NaPoWriMo poem a day challenge. Since Blogger keeps erasing the link: https://www.napowrimo.net

4/30 write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,”


4/29 write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with


4/28 write a concrete poem


4/27 write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

4/26. write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile – an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have mainly been used in epic poems, typically as decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject


4/25. write an aisling poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live.

4/24. use of vivid similes, often with an ironic or sarcastic tone. Novelist Raymond Chandler is particularly adept at these. Here are a few from his novels:

• A few locks of dry, white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
• Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
• From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
• She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.
• He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile.

4/23. write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms.




4/22. write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.


4/21. write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

WHEN I WAS 20
I took a spectacular spill down a scree slope. 

I guess the bleeding hearts wanted me to notice them. 

or were they warning me off this newfound love?

The boyfriend left, something to do with a seven year itch. 

When I got up, I had a rhizome in my hand,

and so I planted it and tended to it for 40 years. It thrived.

I carried it from lover to lover, delighting in its showy hearts.

But it was a casualty of a relationship that ended abruptly,

after 21 years, leaving me bereft and homeless.

I learned you can’t save everything, 

even when your heart is broken.

4/23 NaPoWriMo

4/20. write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want to like the combination of cherries and chocolate . . . but I don’t. But how does the cake feel about it?


4/19. write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” Whatever command you choose, I hope you have fun ordering your readers around.

4/18. today’s prompt based on Faisal Mohyuddin’s poem “Five Answers to the Same Question.” write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.

4/17 think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.


4/16 write a curtal sonnet, a variation on the classic 14-line sonnet, developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins, he used it for his most famous poem, “Pied Beauty.” A curtal sonnet has eleven lines, instead of fourteen, and the last line is shorter than the ten that precede it. Here are two other examples of Hopkins’ curtal sonnets: “Ash Boughs,” and “Peace.”

4/15 write a poem about something you have absolutely no interest in. Not the same as something you’re indifferent to. this prompt has value because it invites you to investigate some of the “why” behind resolutely not giving two hoots about something.


4/14 one: write a poem that takes the form of the opening scene of the movie of your life. Does it open with a car chase? A musical number? A long scene panning across a verdant plain? You’re the director (and also the producer, the actors, the set designer, the cinematographer, and the lowly assistant.



4/13. write a poem where, “Everything is Going to Be Amazing.” even if you can’t drum up the enthusiasm to write yourself a riotous pep-talk, muse on the possibility of good things coming down the track. “the sun will come up tomorrow,” and if nothing else, this world offers us the persistent possibility of surprise.

4/12. write a poem about a very small thing. Whether it’s an atom, a button, a hummingbird’s egg, dollhouse furniture, or the mythical world’s smallest violin,

I swerved to avoid the carcasses 
of small snakes in the middle of the road. 
Tiny garter snakes looking for love 
in all the wrong places 
discover that the open road 
is also the end of the road.

4/11 NaPoWriMo

4/11. write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honor of being the Biggest Ball of Twine.

LAGUNA DE SANTA ROSA

The drained lakebed, 

long since converted to crops,

as if remembering its ancient shoreline, 

fills the basin with tule fog,

water seeking its own spirit level.

4/21 NaPoWriMo

4/10. Write a love poem!

One can always tell when it’s spring, by the sheer number of dead skunks by the side of the road. Skunks, who fear nothing, and no man, carry on their courtship in the middle of the road. They love those wide open spaces where they can handstand and do all kinds of crazy disco moves. However, the cars do not follow the rules. As the vehicle approaches, they stamp their little hands letting the cars know that this is not OK, back off. Stop! I have a Gandalfian moment at the abyss. You shall not pass. And what happens of course, is the cars just flatten them. Roadkill and all the wrong places.

4/9. write in a specific form – the nonet! A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on until you get to the last line, which has just one syllable.

TODAY

I wrote two nonets, one about milk

and the price of gas but Blogger 

erased it, the other too,

now I can’t remember—

something about fugues

of dailiness,

the weekend

still in-

tact.

4/9 NaPoWriMo

WAR PROFITEERS

With the price of gas, nothing could move

me off this hill except sour

milk, big oil barons raking 

it in, hand over fist,

with windfall profits

enough to sour

anyone’s 

milk gone 

rogue.

Which begs the question: is sour two

syllables or one, ditto that

with oil? I guess it depends

upon where you live and

how you speak to dogs

and horses, no

mistresses

to speak

of.

4/9 NaPoWriMo

4/8 name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. Whoever or whatever your alternate self may be.

4/7 write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. They say that “all cats are black at midnight,” but really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has some mild dyspepsia.

ON THE KLEE WYCK TRAIL

I once witnessed a Tlingit raven dance, 

in the wayback days of youth, in some longhouse,

when I made summer sojourns to the Pacific Northwest. 

Tricksters and creators of light, those long summer nights

when I was half-formed but didn’t know the confines of my shadow.

Perhaps this is why I talk to ravens when I see them against the sky.

They always seem to circle and listen, tilting their heads sideways 

to gaze upon me with dark eyes as if to understand each syllable. 

Unfortunately I always talk to them as if they were cats 

or killer whales. As if expecting answers. Maybe a warble or two.

Don’t they know that all cats, and ravens, by extension, 

are black at night, which is probably a good thing 

they can’t decipher anything I say.

4/9 NaPoWriMo

4/6 write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line. Perhaps you could write a poem in which the first words of each line, read together, reproduce a treasured line of poetry? You could even try using a newspaper headline or something from a magazine article.

THE GOOD DOCTOR POET

So, we were at a boring party once in a dull suburb,

much to our surprise, we met a droll airline pilot—so much

depends upon casual connections, conversations drift and float

upon a sea of ambient noise, the generic hubbub fueled by

a mix of alcohol and angst, the party fizzled, it was a case of nature

red in tooth and claw, soon drunks would be carted off in red

wheelbarrows, our New Jersey pilot was out of his depth, face

glazed with boredom, he told us a story of scars when he was five, and

without preamble, he rolled up his pants, to show us his knee, his eyes

watered, a yawn, he fell out of an apple tree, the doctor who was a poet, stood

beside him, and sewed him up. We leaned forward, asked in unison, was

the name Williams? He said, yes how did you know? We were

white-knuckled with anticipation. We cackled like triumphant

chickens, high-fiving each other, and said, it’s because we’re poets.

4/11

prose: We were at a dull party once in Cotati, and met an airline pilot hiding our

t in an atrium, who fell out of an apple tree at a young age and hurt himself badly. He rolled up his pants and showed us a long scar on his knee. it was a rather boring party so we were thrilled to find somebody who was still upright and talking in full sentences. He said he was from Paterson, New Jersey. Mimi Albert and I leaned closer and said in one breath, was your doctor William Carlos Williams? And he said yes, how did you know? we quoted from red wheelbarrow and then said we were Poets, he laughed and said but of course. So, 1° of separation

4/5 write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – what does Hercules do when he loses a sock in the dryer? If a mermaid wants to pick up rock-climbing as a hobby, how does she do that? What happens when a mountain troll makes pancakes?


4/4 write a poem in the form of a poetry prompt. The poet Mathias Svalina has been writing surrealist prompt-poems for quite a while, posting them to Instagram.

FREEWRITE PROMPT

First, clear the corners of the mind,

banish those cobwebs of lethargy,

and that sheer crippling laziness 

of I don’t know what to write,

better than a cup of narcolepsy,

then, shake out your hands, 

to restore the circulation, 

take a deep breath, and another,

feel the tingle? Starfish hands.

Now, grasp your pencil or pen

between forefinger and thumb.

Remember to breathe. Begin.

4/4 NaPoWriMo

4/3. A Spanish form called a “glosa” – literally a poem that glosses, or explains another poem. …take a quatrain from a poem that you like, and then write a four-stanza poem that explains or responds to each line of the quatrain, with each of the quatrain’s four lines in turn forming the last line of each stanza. Traditionally, each stanza has ten lines, but don’t feel obligated to hold yourself to that! 

DEMI-GLOSA AFTER RILKE’S AUTUMN   

Yes, of course, the leaves all fell, and of course, 

as they fell, they wept to the winds as if the orchards 

were stealing their stuffing from the dark clouds. 

Each leaf, a poem waiting for the right words to find it. 

It was a time of burning tears and the earth hesitated on its axis, 

it took Ithuriel a moment to take stock in the orbit of the stars, 

they were drowning in their serene loneliness in the vacuum of space. 

And there is always some wayward angel waiting in the wings, 

who thinks he is a demagogue, waiting to ambush you, pick you up 

and throw you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes after the fall.

4/3 NaPoWriMo

4/2 write a poem based on a word featured in a tweet from Haggard Hawks, devoted to obscure and interesting English words. Will you choose a word like “aprosexia,” which means “an inability to concentrate”? Or maybe something like “greenout,” which is “the relief a person who has worked or lived in a snowy area for a long time feels on seeing something fresh and green for the first time”?

Not exactly a poem, : but

On Twitter’s @Haggard Hawks, I learned the Manx word for bullfinch is roo ruy. I can see the original Irish rí ruadh hidden within. The Manx, or Vannin was destroyed when English orthography was used to capture the dying language. The red king sits on the branch heralding spring with his red breast, so like cock cobin. I have never seen a bulfinch sitting in a tree, or anywhere else for that matter.

Take the word drummos, Greek for running, and we are off to the races. The hippodrome is for horses, not hippos, and dromedary camels running with dates trying to find palindromes in the desert. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.

I am torn asunder by the pain in my right shoulder, luckily it no longer hurts to write. My shoulder sundered, separated, and old injury, a ski accident on the last run of the last day of the ski year. I haven’t skied since. Torn rotator cuff, and a separated shoulder have a firm grip on my imagination. 

Quiver, to tremble the fletched arrows in the quiver salt flight. From cwifer, to quaver. Stop your havering, he said in lowland Scots. Why the silent b in thumb, from Old English, þūma, added later to eye rhyme with dumb. Some think I am multiscious. True, that.

I need a sneeter, or a snooze by any other name, my eyes at half-mast, my chin on my chest, I write somnambulant words and dreams of going nowhere.

TO A BULLFINCH

Today I learned the Manx word for bullfinch is roo ruy. 

Embedded in its branches, the Irish rí ruadh hidden within. 

The roots of the teanga, destroyed when the English bearla 

was used to capture a dying language. Hurray for John Bull.

The red lord of the trees sits high upon his branch,

heralding spring with his red breast so like that

of Cock Robin, a name anglicized from the Welsh, 

coch rhi ben, Lugh’s little red patch of sunset.

Who killed Cock Robin? I did, said the sparrow.

You’d think that the fletcher did it.

Who tolled the bell? I did, said the bullfinch

as he hung the sparrow for his well-placed arrow.

I have never seen a bullfinch sitting in a tree, 

or anywhere else, for that matter.

4/2/22 NaPoWriMo

I am torn asunder by a pain in my shoulder, 

My shoulder sundered, separated, an old wound, 

a bad spill on the last run of the last day of the ski year. 

A torn rotator cuff, and separated shoulder

keep a firm grip on my imagination.  

§

Take the Greek word for running, 

and we are off to the races. 

The hippodrome is for horses, not hippos, 

and dromedary camels running with dates 

trying to find palindromes in the desert. 

A man, a plan, a canal, Suez.

4/5/22 NaPoWriMo

4/1 The prompt is based on Robert Hass’s remarkable prose poem, “A Story About the Body.” The idea is to write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body. The poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image.

(I’ve been haunted by this image ever since Bob tried it out on us during a workshop at a Napa Poetry Conference in the early 1980s)

After Robert Hass’ Story About a Body 

Harmonic convergences 

How we define Eros, the breast becomes the talisman, she said. I gave them back when I was done with them, she said. Mother Earth was there to greet her when that too failed. She was cleansed by fire, she became ash and bone, and carried on with the harmonics of the universe. I have outlived my mother by five years, I am ready to give back my breasts, but it may be too late, as I watch my left breast turn its eye ever inward. Things are what they seem, angry wasps inside my breast seek an escape from the confines of the body.

4/1/22 NaPoWriMo

3/31 Here are a few lines of Dickinson’s that might appeal to you (the slashes indicate line breaks):
“Forever might be short”
“The absence of the Witch does not / Invalidate the spell”
“If to be ‘Elder’ – mean most pain – / I’m old enough, today”
“The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first”
“To be a Flower, is profound / Responsibility –

DEMI-GLOSA AFTER A FEW FRAGMENTS OF EMILY’S

Glosa after Emily‘s elliptical lines

So Emily once said forever might be short 
and since I’ve been short forever, barely reaching 

my own lofty height, proscribed or otherwise. 

And if to be an elder means pain, I am old enough today. 
I’ve got the pain part down cold after a shovel incident, 
I eat CBDs and sleep on a heating pad of misplaced desire. 

And, I think I’ve got the old part down as well, as I’m pushing 70.
Emily said, the second half of joy is always shorter than the first—
by far, because you already know what to expect, don’t you?

3/31/22 NaPoWriMo

TO BEE A FLOWER

To bee a flower is a profound responsibility. 

So much depends upon whether or not one has already gone to seed, 

or set seed, even if the bees forgot to visit. It’s one big sex race. 

Finally, I’m old enough to let today be today and not be tomorrow,

or let memory attempt to set back the clock of regret. 

4/1/22 NaPoWriMo