PAD Day 18: Vanishing Vowels

One of the problems of National Poetry Month for me, at least in recent years, is that there always seems to be so much going on that it's hard to find time for poetry - either events (I'm missing two this weekend that I really would have loved to attend) or just finding a few minutes out of the day to write. Not only do taxes loom over me till the 15th (we're always last-minute because we always end up owing Uncle Sam), but there always seem to be a lot of family obligations.  This month, we have a christening and a first communion to attend, a relative staying with us recovering from surgery, on top of our usual duties watching our granddaughter four days a week.  Several times this month I've found myself stealing five minutes here and ten minutes there to work on my poem throughout the day, and on at least one occasion I was up till after midnight finishing it. But I have turned out one or two a day, every day for 18 days, so it's getting done.

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: 
(1) Write a poem using only two vowels, and 
(2) Write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message.

I was fairly proud of this one till I realized I didn't really follow Maureen's prompt - there's an urgent and important message but no real journey, unless you consider the conceit of my poem as a kind of journey,  The conceit is this: Each successive stanza uses fewer of the five nouns (plus "y") than the one before it. The fourth stanza is actually the one that fits Robert's prompt of two vowels (o and e). It was a fun but challenging write, and when I had the first draft almost complete I realized I forgot about "sometimes y" which sneaked all the way into the fourth stanza. So I eliminated both "u' and "y" after the first stanza. I kept "o" and "e" through the fourth stanza so I could continue to use the word "vowel". I'm pretty proud about including "incomprehensiblilities".

Disavoweled

This message has great urgency,

about a dire emergency:

our vowels may soon become extinct,

and then our language indistinct.

For instance, soon we may not see

big words such as “facetiously”.

It’s happened now, two vowels are gone;

we’ve got the rest to soldier on.

This crisis might bring you and me

incomprehensibilities.

And if a headache does kick in,

we’ll take acetaminophen.

We’ve lost another, that’s a fact.

How can our threatened world react?

We need to take care, stop the loss

of more vowels , or regret the cost.

So please take heart, and don't feel odd -

We can spell "chocolate", thank God!

We’re down to two, we’ve got one mess,

More problems loom, we do confess.

Those vowels we’ve lost were good for sense,

so now we've got no recompense.

Don't toss the towel, there's hope  - well, jeepers!

we've got long words - for one, "bookkeepers".

Oh no, not good, got only “o”.

So not OK - no word control.

Don't go to pot, no, not tomorrow -

shot of scotch to drown old sorrow.

Shock of loss? No comfort, fool -

woodwork, cookbook - go to school.

M gd w wr afrd f ths:

wv lst thm ll, ths vwls wll mss.

Nw y ll knw wht hppns nxt -

Th lngg tht s lft s txt.

W cnt wrt mch, wll WTF -

xprss yrslf? M frnd, gd lck!