Monday, November 30, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Dy 30: Don't Let the Door Hit Your...

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write an "exit" poem. I didn't want to get as political as I did this month, but it's almost impossible not to, with all the heat generated from a historically unique presidential election. particularly a clear loser who refuses to concede. I won't say more, or I'll rant for another hour. I'll just let my poem do the talking.


Exit Strategies
 
hot-air
balloon like
the Magnificent Oz
 
escape
tunnel to
your underground lair
 
donning
handcuffs, jumpsuit
for broken laws
 
granting
a self-pardon
(so very unfair)
 
whatever works, nemesis,
vacate the premises

Sunday, November 29, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 29: Happy Holidays?

So many medical experts are saying that our behavior this Thanksgiving weekend - not staying home, traveling to visit loved ones in the middle of a worsening pandemic, and the occasional careless party - will drive up COVID cases just before Christmas, and put many hospitals in jeopardy of being overwhelmed, perhaps even worse than last spring. It's frankly depressing, and it's no wonder all this news has impacted my poetry this year. I thought I'd gotten it out of my system in April when I wrote at least twenty poems related to the pandemic (and I even published a chapbook of them - Aprilcalypse, from Four Feathers Press), but I'm still writing them now in the end of November. 

Anyway, today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a poem with the title "Wanting _______".

Wanting a Merry Christmas
 
please
understand that
I love you
 
but
stay away
for the holiday
 
don't
be careless
because it would
 
break
my heart
on Facetime if
 
I see you
in the ICU


Saturday, November 28, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 28: Remix!

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "remix" poem. That is, take a poem (or poems) you have writtent this month and change it/them in some way. For instance, turn a sonnet into a haiku, jumble up the words of a poem and re-order them, or as i did, takes pieces of several poems and re-assemble them to form a new poem. I've done this exercise before by creating a new poem from the last lines of several poems I wrote earlier in the month. I tired it today too - it's a somewhat different challenge because due to the nature of the form I've been writing in, all the last lines of my poems have had exactly three words. Also, have to break up those three-word lines to get them to fit into the form of the new poem. I used the last lines from poems I wrote on Days 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, and 27 (including the title). I'm not sure how much sense it makes, but here it is: 

Our Flawed Creation
 
your
echoed voice
is worthless, fella
 
we're
all dying
to get along
 
save
the planet
from final jeopardy
 
it's
gonna rain -
I'm sunlight refracted
 
I need cheer
until I drop

Friday, November 27, 2020

November Chapbook challenge Day 27: Another Two-fer Day

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "what's next" poem. I wrote two today - the first one was not directly related to the prompt, while the second one was. 


Backup Singers
 
Greek
chorus for
the present day
 
they
echo my
notes and words
 
whether
naive hope
or cynical dismay
 
they'll
repeat it
like warbling birds
 
shoo shoo bop
until I drop




The Future
 
We
either pull
out of this
 
or
we don't -
odds are even
 
fiction
is truth
magic is science
 
change
our ways
right now or
 
we roll toward
a slow apocalypse
 
 

Thursday, November 26, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 26: Happy (and Safe!) Thanksgiving

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer, is of course, to write a poem of thanks. I hope anyone reading this has a safe and healthy holiday. Don't forget to protect your loved ones as much as possible from this horrible disease, even if it meand skipping that visit for Thanksgiving dinner. As I've heard several people say, better to have Thanksgiving on Zoom than Christmas in the ICU. Here's my poem:


Grace 2020
 
thanks
for abundance
but without greed
 
giving
to others
sorely in need
 
thanks
for health
in dangerous days
 
giving
of yourself
so many ways
 
thanks for living
smart this Thanksgiving
 

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 25: Blowing Up the Sky

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write an "exaggeration" poem. I interpreted the prompt by exaggerating the images and metaphor a bit in this poem - not sure how well that works, but here it is. (It's also a nod to November sunsets, which in my opinion seem to be the most intense of the whole year.)


End of Day
 
sunset -
nuclear explosion
in the west
 
sky
ablaze in
red, purple, blue
 
blood-orange
ball slips
behind the mountain
 
firestorm
subsides, wavelengths
disappear in shadow
 
the world ends
till tomorrow morning
 


Tuesday, November 24, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 24: Snuggling Up

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Wrate a love and/or anti-love poem.  In this one, "storm" can be read as a metaphor....


Haven 

times
like these
make us huddle
 
keeping
the storm
outside our door
 
but
we two
prefer to cuddle
 
safe
inside from
cold wind's roar
 
tending the fire -
warm quilt, desire

Monday, November 23, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 23: COVID on My Mind

 So what else is new? I'm not going to rail on about it, just write a short poem. Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write an "explanation" poem.


Unmasked
 
please
explain why
you won't wear
 
something
so simple
on your face
 
you
look like
you don't care
 
what
happens to
the human race
 
no, don't explain -
it's gonna rain


Sunday, November 22, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 22: Bonus!

 A bonus political poem for today, again based on Robert Lee Brewer's "bird" prompt:


White House Turkey
 
don't
pardon me
from Thanksgiving dinner
 
I
don't want
to live anymore
 
in
a world
where you're president
 
put
my head
on the block -
 
what? he lost?
never mind then


November Chapbook Challenge Day 22: Feathered Neighbors

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "bird" poem. My first thought was of a certain type of bird that frequents my back yard, and earlier this year took up housekeeping in the hanging planter of New Guinea impatiens on my back porch. They're cute little birds, but they can make quite a racket when they're upset, like when you get too close to the nest. 


House Wren
 
little
chestnut neighbor
tail at attention
 
nests
comfortably in
the hanging impatiens
 
on
my porch
until I approach
 
she
chatters rebuke
for my trespassing
 
we'll learn somehow
to get along
 
 
 


Saturday, November 21, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 21: Another Two-fer

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a poem with the title "Tell ________".  I used the line as though it was a line of dialog, and the poem is the response. It expresses something I have missed since this pandemic began: the experience shared with a large audience at a concert, play, sporting event, even a movie. The last concerts I attended where an outfoor musical festival in Massachusetts in June 2019 and a couple of classical concerts in early 2020, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the student orchestra of which our former international student was a member. The last plays were "Frozen" on Broadway in December, and a high school's production of "Mary Poppins" about a week before everything started to shut down in March. I'm afraid we're headed into darker times again, but I hope that things get brighter next year.


Tell Me What You Want
 
a
concert hall
standing room only
 
our
favorite band
cranked to eleven
 
no
more distance
no more masks
 
they've
returned onstage
for an encore
 
we're on our
feet and screaming



And here's a bonus poem!

Tell
 
(after a Tweet by Edward Norton)
 
you
clutch cards
in tiny hands
 
probably
hiding aces
up your sleeve
 
but
it's reflected
in your eyes
 
your
hand holds
nothing but junk
 
we're all in
calling your bluff

Friday, November 20, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 20: Into the Fringe

 Todays' prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "target" poem.


Target Audience
 
click -
go down
the rabbit hole
 
to
rooms you've
never seen before
 
where
people there
confirm your soul
 
skewed,
upside-down,
a zealous corps
 
a lonely choice
your echoed voice


Thursday, November 19, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 19: On Cats

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "confession" poem. Here's a light little number I dashed off for today. It's in second person but could have been just as easily in the first.


Mixed Felines
 
you
confess you
don't like cats
 
you
find them
furry little brats
 
aloof,
demanding ,
full of themselves
 
knocking
things right
off the shelves -
 
until they nap
upon your lap

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 18 Bonus: Thank You, SyFy Channel!

 Here's a bonus poem, again using Robert Lee Brewer's prompt to write a poem about a sea creature. Anyone who has seen those deliberately goofy "Sharknado" movies on SyFy Channel will appreciate this one. 


Sharknado
 
waterspouts
suck up
killer ocean fish
 
weather
that thinks
humans are delish
 
twisters
shouldn't have
teeth, dorsal fins
 
storms
make landfall
and nobody wins
 
your big umbrella
is worthless, fella

November Chapbook Challenge Day 18: The Year of 30 Sea Monsters

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "sea creature" poem. I used the prompt as more of a metaphor today, since this has been probably the most active hurricane season in recorded history, with thirty named storms, so many that the National Weather Service ran out of alphabetical names and are now about halfway through the Greek alphabet. The latest, Iota, has been the strongest yet, briefly getting to Category 5 before making landfall. I don't remember a hurricane this late in the season in my lifetime, at least one this strong. On top of that, it hit the Yucatan penisula about two weeks after the last storm made landfall in almost exactly the same place. Those poor people in Central America - the devastation must be staggering. Don't tell me that climate change isn't a thing. It's already here in a big way. 

Anyway, here is my "sea creature" poem:

Iota
 
Thirty
tropical storms
this malignant year.
 
Last
and strongest:
Iota, ironically named,
 
slams
the Yucatan,
already storm-raked.
 
O
Sea Monster
of climate change,
 
one-eyed November behemoth,
maelstrom, deluge, teeth.


Tuesday, November 17, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 17: A Plea II

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "mean" and/or "nice" poem. With the current political situation and the pandemic starting to rage out of control, it's hard not to write topical poems. When I think of "mean", my first thought is of a certain person, so today's poem is addressed to him.


A Plea
 
extract
yourself from
your office bunker
 
stop
sulking like
a three-year-old child
 
virus
is rampant
inside we hunker
 
you're
having tantrums
delusions run wild
 
please stop lying -
we're all dying


Monday, November 16, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 16: Mrs. Williams Answers the Note

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "response" poem. I chose to "respond" to William Carlos Williams' "This is Just to Say", his famous short poem written as a note to his wife about eating the plums in the refrigeator: 

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in 
the icebox

and which 
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet 
and so cold


I've riffed on and parodied this poem several times over the years, just because I love its simplicity so much. But I don't think I ever wrote a "response" to it, and I thought one in the voice of Mrs. Williams might be fun, using the short form I've been employing all month.

This is Just to Answer Your Note

I
was saving
those sweet plums
 
to
make you
a fruit tart
 
but
you ate
every last one
 
yet
somehow I
love you anyway
 
incidentally, no one
says "icebox" anymore

Sunday, November 15, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 15: The Quantum Theory of Car Keys

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a poem with the title "Meaning of _______". This is a slightly silly interpretation of a famous scientific paradox used to expalin quantum theory - how a particle can exist in two realities simultaneously. I thought it might help explain the phenomenon of lost things, or maybe not. Also, I think I like the title of my blog entry better as a title for my poem than the one I came up with. 


Meaning of Schrödinger's Cat
 
when
I lose
my car keys
 
I
look under
the sofa cushions
 
and
they're there
or not there
 
but
when
I'm not seeking them
 
they are everywhere
I don't look

Saturday, November 14, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 14: A Metaphor on Memories

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "memory" poem. Rather than write about a specific memory, I offer a metaphorical observation:


Memories
 
are
sliced bread
in the toaster
 
they
brown awhile
then pop up
 
we
savor them
with some seasoning
 
while
tiny pieces
are left in
 
the crumb tray
then thrown away

Friday, November 13, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 13: Just Numbers

Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "luck" poem. I used the expected rhymes for "twenty" and "seven" here, but there so few that are even close to rhyming those words, so no apologies. 


Numerology
 
Friday
13th November
the year 2020 -
 
more
bad luck?
we've had plenty!
 
too
much misfortune
has become routine
 
but
crunching numbers,
twenty minus thirteen,
 
yields lucky seven -
feels like heaven!

Thursday, November 12, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 12: A Nod from the Creator

 First of all, thanks to hay(na)ku creator Eileen Tabios for citing me on her Facebook page! Our mutual friend Vince Gotera alerted her to my poem-a-day project of all hay(na)ku poems, and she posted my opening day poem, "Election Season", on her page. I also told her about the hay(na)ku contest back in 2011 on Robert Lee Brewer's blog, of which I was one of the winners - she wasn't aware of it till now.

Today's prompt from Mr. Brewer: Write a poem with a number in its title. There's only one number that dominates this year, and that's the year itself:

2020
 
entering
we had
no perfect vision
 
looking
in hindsight
that brutal judge -
 
we
should have
been more careful
 
we
should have
seen the injustice
 
we should have
saved the planet


Wednesday, November 11, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 11: A Two-fer in Dark and Light

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "color" poem. So here are two poems - one a bit somber and the other more light-hearted.  


Gray
 
gray
showery day
when I pick
 
up
her ashes
all that's left
 
gray
like her
face and fur
 
sometimes
I'd complain
when she'd need
 
a walk in
heavy gray rain



Roy G. Biv
 
I'm
spectrum mnemonic
a household name
 
red
orange yellow
always the same
 
green
blue indigo
hue-ordered arch
 
violet
wraps up
a colorful march
 
awestruck, you've reacted -
I'm sunlight refracted
 
 

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 10: On Tolerance

 Today's double prompt from Robbert Lee Brewer: Write an "easy" and/or "difficult" poem. Hope this one isn't too preachy:


Free
 
easy
to hate
those who differ
 
manufacture
unfair fictions
and attach labels
 
difficult
to love
everyone the same
 
break
your preconceptions
and embrace strangers
 
the word "free"
is in "forgiveness"

Monday, November 9, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 9: A Plea

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer is to write a poem with the title "Our _______". I took, as an additional prompt, this week's word bank from the Sunday Whirl blog. The words were family, team, passing, owe, progress, rural, soul, back, power, act, joy, those. I usually try to use all twelve words in the bank when I use it as a source, but since I'm writing short-form poems this month, I didn't try to get all twelve into this poem - I did use nine of them. The message here is deliberately a bit vague, because 2020 has been such a bitch of a year, and I wanted the poem to be able to fit many of the crises we've been dealing with this year: the pandemic, racial injustice, natural disasters of increasing frequency from hurricanes to wildfires, and a stressful election season which appears not to be over just yet. You'll also note that for the first time this month I didn't use my usual rhyme scheme - I wanted this poem to capture a more serious tone. (There is, however, some unintended internal rhyme: back, racked, act - poetic serendipity.) 


Our Soul
 
has
been challenged
by malignant powers
 
progress
driven back
by reckless disregard
 
families
racked by
their beloved's passing
 
please
let's act
as Team Humanity
 
to regain normal
reclaim our joy
 

Sunday, November 8, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 8: R.I.P. Alex

 I was sad to hear that long-time "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek passed away today from pancreatic cancer, a terrible disease that almost never comes to a good end. (I had a close friend who died from it, and it was heartbreaking to see him waste away.) But he was one of the best TV hosts of all time, and gave us over 35 years of great game show moments.

Anyway, today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer is to write a "persona" poem. I hope this isn't too soon, and it's a bit lighthearted, but I'd like to think that Alex would have enjoyed it.


Alex Trebek in Heaven
 
Saint
Peter issues
me a quiz
 
I
know what
the answer is
 
but
to get
myself in heaven
 
should
I wager
six or seven
 
to unfetter me
from final jeopardy?
 

November Chapbook Challenge Day 7: Turn, Turn, Turn

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "this time" poem. I initially misread it as just a "time" poem, but what I wrote still seems to fit. It's based, of course, on the Book of Ecclesiastes, and also on a very recent and very significant event in the news.


To Everything
 
time
to heal,
time to sew
 
time
to plant
let things grow
 
time
to build
with new stones
 
time
to knit
our broken bones
 
this new season
rebirth of reason.

Saturday, November 7, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 6: In Media Res

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write an "in media res" poem - in other words, a poem that begins in the mddle of something like an action, conversation, etc. I tweaked the prompt a little and wrote about someone pausing in the middle of their action to appreciate something.


Smell the Roses
 
making
my connection
near New Haven
 
hear
electric piano
play Ain't Misbehavin'
 
busker
in concourse
playing his heart
 
slowing
my bustling -
pause for art
 
love Fats Waller -
leave a dollar

Friday, November 6, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 5: A Rural Snapshot

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a "ruin" poem. This is about a barn I discovered on a late friend's property.

Ruins
 
derelict
old barn
behind the trees
 
door
hangs open
hinging on breeze
 
two
wild turkeys
have nested upstairs
 
jumble
down below
skeletons of chairs
 
an old toolbox
rusted shut locks

November Chapbook Challenge Day 4: In Need of Cheer

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a poem with the title "______ Myself".


Cheer Myself
 
I
play Christmas
tunes in November
 
put
up my
tree before December
 
bake
cookies warming
home with scents
 
hang
lights outside
with more ornaments
 
this dark year
I need cheer
 

November Chapbook Challenge Day 3: Election Day!

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a dream and/or nightmare poem.

United
 
in
my dream
we stayed alive
 
fought
plague and tyranny
this land survived
 
sky
was blue
the sunset red
 
and
we moved
all together, ahead
 
still one nation
our flawed creation


November Chapbook Challenge Day 2: It's Not Easy Being Quarantined

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: "Write an 'unexpected' poem." I played a bit loose with this one - it's about the pandemic, whose impact on us was somewhat unexpected, you might say. And the characters affected by it in this poem may be a bit unexpected as well.

Hard Times in the Arts 

when
COVID closed
the Muppet Show
 
their
theater shuttered -
where'd they go?
 
Piggy
returned to
her chic château
 
but
what about
her handsome beau?
 
alas, poor Kermit
became a hermit

(For this poem I actually used the rhyme scheme xxA xxA xxA xxA CC.)


November Chapbook Challenge Day 1: Hay(na)ku, Y'all!

 Hello! I'm embarking on another poem-a-day challenge courtesy of Robert Lee Brewer, editor for Writer's Digest magazine, on his blog Write Better Poetry (formerly Poetic Asides). The objective is to write at least one poem a day every day for the month of November, and to have enough poems by the end of the month to create a chapbook manuscript. Robert provides daily prompts, just as he does during his other annual challenge in April. It's a good idea to work with a theme of some kind, as chapbooks (which are shorter than full-length collections) often have themes. Three of my seven published chapbooks have had themes: one was all sonnets and similar fourteen-line poems; one was a collection of baseball-themed poems, and the latest book collected poems I wrote last spring on the developing pandemic situation. This month I decided to write all my poems in a form called the "hay(na)ku sonnet". What's that, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked.

The "hay(na)ku" is an invented form created by poet Eileen Tabios around 2000. It is a three-line (tercet) word-count form that is basically very simple: one word in the first line, two words in the second, and three in the third, a structure reminiscent of the haiku. My friend Vince Gotera, a Filipino-American professor and poet in Iowa, coined the name "hay(na)ku" (pronounced ay-nahkoo), which is derived from a Tagalog word for "Oh!" Vince also created a variation which he calls the "hay(na)ku sonnet" - a chain of four hay(na)ku tercets followed by a couplet - two lines of three words each. It's a type of "sonnet" in that it consists of fourteen lines, including a two-line closing "envoi".

I thought it might be fun to take the concept a step further, by introducing rhyme and meter into the form. So I've written several hay(ka)nu sonnets in which the last words of the first and second tercets rhyme, as well as the last words of the third and fourth tercets, and the last two closing lines rhyme as well. So the rhyme scheme, line by line, would be:

xxA xxA xxB xxB CC

As far a meter goes, I'm a little loose with it, but generally prefer iambic, though I won't guarantee perfect "scansion". I may write all my poems this way during the month, or maybe not. I may play with rhyme scheme, or may not rhyme the poem at all - we'll see how it goes. Anyway, a tip of the hat to Vince for introducing me to this fun form, and to Eileen Tabios for inventing it.

Okay, enough with the long-winded exposition. Here's my first poem of the month, based on Robert's Day 1 prompt: "Write an 'enter' poem."


Election Season 

we 
enter November
full of stress
 
these
campaign ads:
full-court press
 
telling
us why
their opponent sucks
 
when
TV's on,
we're sitting ducks
 
so much proclivity
for crass negativity