PAD Day 30: Limping Across the Finish Line

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "cento" (a poem composed completely of the lines or words of other poet's poems), and (2) write a "moving on" poem.  

As much fun as the Poem-a-day challenge can be, sometimes the last few days can feel like a slog. I did have a lot going on these last couple of days, and consequently much less time to write. A cento can be a daunting project, but Maureen gave us permission, so to speak, to write a shorter one, so I took her at her word. This poem is an offshoot of my "Elbow Project": The lines alternate between actual lyrics of songs by the rock band Elbow, and lines of poems I wrote in response to some of those songs. (So I did take some liberty with the definition of "cento" in that I used some of my own previous lines.) Some of these original poems were written this month, and some before that. (I began my project in earnest in February.) After the poem are annotations to the source of each line.

Weathered  Heart
 
Your real face is the easiest to find,
And now I know what every step is for.
Cue the flowers, cue the birds.
The violets explode inside me when I meet your eyes―
let your mystery kill me, your scar and tattoo.
I saw you try and stop the sunset on your own.
You sing a song the moon would know by heart,
and my heart, there defrosting in a gaze.
You pulled me from the snow, home with my heart in tow,
when the blizzard blossom blew,
home by breakfast, home by morning.
One day a year like this would see me right.
 
Original poems:
Line 1: "To Scale" (March 2022)
Line 3: "Hay(na)ku (Six Words)" (March 2022)
Line 5: "How to Die Happy" (April 13)
Line 7: "Homecoming" (April 27)
Line 9: "Road Service" (April 28)
Line 11: "Looking in the Rearview" (April 6)
 
Elbow Lyrics:
Line 2: "Mirrorball"
Line 4: "Starlings"
Line 6: "Kindling"
Line 8: "Magnificent, She Says"
Line 10: "This Blue World"
Line 12: "One Day Like This"

As far as the "moving on" prompt - well, it's almost 2 a.m. on May 1, and this about all I've got left:

Next Stop...

My old train leaves the station

with a full head of steam,

a firebox hot with inspiration,

a smokestack puffing dreams.

PAD Day 29: A Very Short Fairy Tale

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1)Write a poem with the title "The Last _________", and (2) as inspired by "Sleeping Beauty," write a poem musing on gifts you received at birth and a "curse" you have had to live with throughout your life. I didn't follow the second prompt exactly--instead I used Sleeeping Beauty as a more direct inspiration to write my own "flash fairy tale." I used one of my favorite forms, the hay(na)ku, to write a fairy tale of exactly 48 words.

The Last Baby Gifts

Faeries

gave presents

to the princess

on

the occasion

of her birth

the 

last two

opened in celebration

each

quite different

from the other

opening

the first

box left her

blessed

to always

tell the truth

opening

the second

box left her

cursed

to always

tell the truth

PAD Day 28: Stuck in Concrete

 Today's dual prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry: (1) Write a "concrete" poem,and (2) write a "sight" poem. Well, concrete poems are, by definition, "sight" poems. Unfortunately, I am notoriously poor at concrete poems. HTML is not my friend. Here's my rather sad attempt at it anyway - it's supposed to be a flat tire. (And in a stroke of serendipity, the hole in the middle of the tire suggests a heart.)

    Road Service
 
                                                                  the
                                                        highway's rough
                                            enough without more hazards,
                                           but lately I can't seem to swerve―
                                      look out for                             what waits
                                     around the                                 curve/my life                                                      has sprung                                a leak today
                                         but I sent an                          APB your way 
                                           'cos you have                   got so  much
                                           in reserve, you're        my straightaway,
                                             you're my Triple-A/when I'm flat and
                                          floundering, you're the light of day, so I wait
                                        at the shoulder, trying not to feel colder, and you
                                     pull me from the snow, home with my heart in tow 

Day 27: Welcome Home

 Todays' dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "remix" poem, and (2) write a poem in the form of a "duplex sonnet," created by poet Jericho Brown. Maureen Thorson of NaPoWriMo describes it this way: 

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. 

(There appears to be no specific rule for rhyme or meter, but I used unrhymed iambic pentameter, a.k.a. blank verse, for this one.)

In the past, when I've done Robert's "remix" prompt. I took the last lines from several of the poems I had written in April and strung them together to make a coherent new poem. This time, instead, I took a slight variation on one of my better first lines of this month, ("When you woke up this morning/you were not on fire...." from my day 13 poem, "How to Know Today Will Be AMAZING") and used it as the first and last line of this new poem. I also decided to make this another part of my "Elbow Project,"where I write songs based on the music and lyrics of the British rock band Elbow. Their song "Open Arms" is an uplifting tune about a homecoming, and it has a lilting, carnival-type sound to it, like a party. (Today just happens to be my birthday, by the way, and there is no party planned for today, but the one I imagine here would be nice.) Anyway, I hope this works as a "duplex sonnet" and as a poem that sets a tone.

Homecoming
 
The moon is out looking for trouble
and everyone's here....
―Elbow, "Open Arms"
 
You woke this morning―you were not on fire.
You need no ladder to climb out the window.
 
            You leave a window open, bring a backpack.
            The conductor asks to see your ticket home.
 
Back home they've unfurled the colored banners,
They've strung and tested all the colored lights.
 
            When you arrive a little late, the lights are on,
            The moon is rising in three-quarter time,
 
They sing a song the moon would know by heart,
And hoist a brew to you―they spill some foam.
 
            The night careens along on foam and moonshine,
            You sing through open windows till they close.
 
You need no ladder to climb in the window―
You wake this morning and you're not on fire.
 

PAD Day 26: The War Goes On

 Today's prompt from NaPoWriMo is to write an "epic simile" in the style of the classic poets, like Virgil or Homer. That is, write a simile that continues through several lines for dramatic buildup and effect. It seems the old guys often used a large-scale event, like war or encounters with gods, as a basis for similes of this kind of scope. So that's what I did, using a perhaps unlikely simile comparing war to a kind of destructive construction or reclamation project, the kind that takes bulldozers and heavy equipment against everything in its path. I used a form that my friend Vince Gotera used yesterday, a kind of haibun, but with prose and a tanka instead of a haiku. I also used the weekly word bank from The Sunday Whirl as an additional challenge. The word bank, obviously taken from text about the Ukraine War, was: next, mass, earth, war, color, cloud, reject, kill, suffering, trenches, search, and forgive. 

The Clearance 

He looks at it like a contractor, like it's his reclamation project, that he has the right of way to bulldoze or seize what he thinks is rightfully his, to rebuild the "good old days" of the Union. But they have other ideas, having gained their freedom from his caprices and his iron hand. He fires up the machines, the steamrollers and earth movers, but first he sends in the demolitions team, huge missile sledgehammers bashing into and through apartments, into schools, into hospitals, churches, train stations, anywhere that ordinary citizens gather or huddle for safety. To kill is the objective, long-term suffering the goal. Clouds of black and red smoke, the color of death and evil, roil over the skyline. Steamroller tanks crush everything they can roll over and shoot everything they can't. Trenches and mass graves appear in almost every city. When nothing is left erect in one city, the Contractor swings the wrecking ball around to the next, while survivors search the rubble, picking through rocks to find their valuables or maybe their missing family. The Contractor rejects any talk of a stop-work order in the name of peace. He can't forgive the temerity of these people to refuse his rule, and the only option in his mind is a total clearance of them and their land, whatever that may mean, the ordinances of  the world be damned. But he didn't count on their resolve to stand up to him, the ruthless robber baron. 

                                                War is a steel shell
                                                around our hearts, our souls,
                                                our humanity.
                                                We vilify the other
                                                or it would have no purpose.

The second prompt, from Write Better Poetry, was to write a "love/anti-love" poem. I didn't combine the prompts because this prompt was posted later in the day, after I had written the war poem. This poem is in the form called the kimo, and it's also timely, in its own way:

Positively in Love
 
to say I love you, I keep my distance―
no touch, no kiss, a masked smile,
but you can see my eyes

PAD Day 25: A Spirit Visitation

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "response" poem (to someone else's poem or to your own), and (2) write an "aisling" poem. An "aisling" (pronounced ASH-ling) is  a type of poem from Ireland in which a spirit or dream vision who represents the land or country where the post lives, and speaks to him or her about the homeland, usually of hard times and troubles that can be overcome. I took some liberty with the concept by having a spirit speak to me from another country through my TV, a kind of supernatural PSA. The "response" part is where she praises me for writing poems about her homeland (two of which I wrote this month and one last month).

Aisling
 
You fell asleep to news of the war tonight,
and now you wake to me on your screen.
You think I am an actress you have seen,
but I am not. I am Young Mother Ukraine.
 
I want to thank you for the poems you wrote:
the boy at the white piano in Kharkiv,
Tchaikovsky's home destroyed in Trostyanets,
the bloody teddy bear at the station in Kramatorsk.
But you can do more.
 
Like my Irish cousin, the Aisling, I am a spirit
who brings word of our troubles and travails
but with a message of hope that we will prevail.
It is hard, though, when I've passed over so much
devastation - apartment blocks with gaping holes,
mass graves, civilians shot dead in the street,
soldiers making a last stand in the Mariupol steel plant.
We cannot do it without your kindness ―
food, clothing, supplies, and yes, even weapons
to defend ourselves against a madman.
 
I became a spirit when I tried to escape
and a missile hit the train station.
My two children were with me―
see them hiding shyly behind my skirt.
My son still wants his teddy bear back.

And on the subject of Ukraine, I want to remind everyone again about the fund-raising project from The Poet Magazine, an anthology called Poetry for Ukraine, a book with over 250 poems from poets around the world, including me. All profits from the book go to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. Please learn more here: https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/poetry-for-ukraine
 

PAD Day 24: Pardon My Prose

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "superhero" or "supervillain" poem, and (2) write a poem using the descriptive language of a hard-boiled detective novel. These two  prompts, especially put together, practically begged to be written in prose. I tried my best to make it more of a prose poem than just normal prose, but I'm not sure if I succeeded. Anyway, I had fun with it - something I've been trying to do a lot this week to lighten my mood, as I've had to deal with a bout of COVID. Fortunately, my symptoms were relatively mild and this weekend I felt well enough to mow my lawn and do yard work. Anyway, here's my imagining of a private detective with super powers.

Dick Shamus, Supersleuth
 
It was a dark and rainy night, the kind of rain
that can soak a guy to the bone, and saturate his best blue gabardine suit
because he forgot his raincoat and it takes so long to dry out
that it smells musty the next day and it costs 20 smackers to get dry-cleaned.
Not like that ever happened to me.
 
I was spending the evening with my old friend Klondike Solitaire
when she walked in. She had gams that would make a gazelle jealous,
and a waterfall of long blonde hair cascading down her back like...
well, like a waterfall. (I said it was wet outside.)
She batted her deep-green peepers at me. I batted them right back.
"That's no way to treat tiny free frogs," I scolded her.
 
"You've got to help me, Mr. Shamus!" she cried. "I think my husband
is cheating on me with another woman!"
 
"You've come to the right place, baby," I replied. "I'm the only private eye
in this penny-ante town with super powers."
 
"So you're the best gumshoe in the city?"
 
"Sweetheart, no one has better gumshoes.
Mine are so gummy that they can walk up the side of buildings.
And that's not all. I can see around corners,
hear a whisper from a block away,
and shoot a cigarette out of a guy's mug from 300 yards."
 
"Wow."
 
"And what's more, I have amazing intuitive and deductive powers.
For instance I'll bet your husband is five-foot-five,
balding with a pale complexion―"
 
"Actually, he's six-foot-two with a full head of wavy black hair,
with a swarthy complex―"
 
"Yeah, I'll bet he's smarmy. Stick with me baby,
we'll get to the bottom of this funny business."
 
She rolled her eyes. Now I knew she had the hots for me.
"It's gonna be a long night," she said.
 
"Only as long as you want it to be, doll," I winked.
 
"You really are clueless," she smirked.
 
"Not for long," I replied.
 
[To Be Continued]

PAD Day 23: Conspiracy Theory

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "conspiracy" poem, and (2) write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poetry Maureen Thorson of NaPoWriMo describes as "short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms." That's pretty much on the money. I do enjoy Ryan's works, and she is a favorite poet of my son (who is also a poet, when he has the time).  It's interesting because one of the Kay Ryan poems the Maureen linked as an example, "Blue China Doorknob," has a bit of a conspiracy theme to it. Anyway, I took my inspiration from my experience doing yard work today, and realizing that the older one gets, the harder it seems to get to do.

The Gravity Plot

 
The Earth conspires
to make things weigh
a little more each year.
This spring I hefted
a 40-pound bag
of Weed and Feed
and it was heavier
than ever before.
My mower, too,
pushes slower
these days,
uphill both ways.
Someone  turned up
the gravity dial, I'm sure.
Soon I won't be able
to lift out of my couch,
but only slouch and sag
like a 200-pound bag.

Day 22: Ode to a Garden Pest

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about an "organism," and (2) write a poem that uses repetition. My first thought was to use a poetic form that uses repeated lines, like a pantoum or villanelle, but somehow ended up instead writing a light verse that would make a good kid's poem or song. (I think I've heard an old bluegrass song that might be a good fit for these lyrics - imagine a banjo accompaniment.) The rhymes were fun, too. It seems I've now written two poems this week about unpopular subjects, a less-than-favorite vegetable for many, and a not-very-desirable creature (which apparently can be both beneficial and harmful in the garden, hence the qualifying sixth verse).

Ode to a Slug
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you are no ladybug,
you're almost ugly as a pug,
slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you've got no shell to lug,
so you move on without a shrug,
slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you crawl so slow - chug, chug,
and leave a slimy trail - oh, ugh!
Slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you're in the lot I dug,
and chew my plant leaves with a tug,
slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
shall I deal with you, thug?
A dish of beer's a deadly drug,
slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you're not such a bad mug,
but don't expect to get a hug,
slug, slug, slug.
 
Slug, slug, slug,
you came in on my rug.
Get out of here, don't get too snug!
Slug, slug, slug.

PAD Day 21 Extra: What Can a Mere Artist Do?

 As promised, here is my response to Write Better Poetry's "sound" prompt. It's a song Guy Garvey of the rock band Elbow wrote in response to two tragedies in his home country that happened a month apart: an apartment fire in London that killed over 70 people, caused in part by lax fire prevention regulations, and a politically-motivated suicide bombing at Manchester Stadium after a pop concert that killed 27 and injured over 1000. This is part of my "Elbow Project," a series of poems inspired by Elbow's words and music. 

White Noise
 
But who am I, some Blarney Mantovani
with a lullaby when the sky is falling in....
―Elbow, "White Noise, White Heat"
 
White noise is supposed to soothe us,
but not if it comes from mashing up
voices in protest, and the screams
of innocent victims in an apartment fire
that could have been easily prevented
by landlords who gave a shit for safety.
 
It's not just noise if it's an echo of the bomb
that tore through Manchester Stadium,
killing twenty-three and injuring a thousand.
It's deafening, and I want to numb it
with a substance of choice.
 
What can I do? I'm just a poet, a songwriter,
a journalist, and essayist, an influencer.
But when the noise returns, hotter than before,
I try to separate the sounds, make sense of chaos,
and the outrage starts to pour from my pen.

PAD Day 21: The Junk Drawer

 First, I want to thank Maureen Thorson for featuring my blog and my poem from yesterday, "Brussels Sprouts Make Their Case," on her NaPoWriMo blog for today. It's always a treat to be featured, and thnaks to all who have enjoyed my silly but fun-to-write verse. It was the result of a great prompt from Maureen.

Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NapoWriMo: (1) Write a "sound" poem, and (2) "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."

I must admit I got so caught up in Maureen's prompt that I forgot to incorporate Robert's "sound" prompt, so maybe I will write a separate poem later on that subject. Meanwhile, here is the result of the other prompt.

The Junk Drawer
 
My best friend in high school
told me one day he was leaving home.
He asked me to keep his record collection,
while he hitchhiked to parts unknown.
A few days later his father confronted me
about his whereabouts and I admitted
that I thought he was going to see
his older brother in Kansas.
When he came home again, I confessed
that I told his dad, and for some selfish,
immature reason, I had cut up some
of his album covers after he'd gone
to make a wall collage.
We remained good friends anyway
but over the years drifted apart.
 
One summer between college semesters
I worked for a telemarketing firm
that sold products made by blind workers
and used the profits to send disabled kids
to summer camp, or so I thought.
When I asked the manager which camps
we sent those kids to, she got defensive
and told me to just make something up.
I quit the next day.
 
When I saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre,
it was after passing through a gallery
of Titians and Caravaggios, huge, windswept,
larger-than-life canvases of human form.
I found the famous lady tucked in an alcove,
small and brown and understated,
almost lost among the melodrama around her.
 
Why do we still keep our disappointments and regrets,
as valuable as expired coupons,
in our mental junk drawer?
 

PAD Day 20: Veggies Speak!

 Today's dual prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry: (1) Write a poem from the point of view of a food, and (2) write a poem using at least three, or as many as six, of the following words: content, double, guide, meet, pump, suit. I used all six in my silly light verse in couplets, and I pulled an "Ogden Nash" on a couple of the rhymes ("cabbage/gabbage" and "finish/spinish"), but I had fun with it. I imagined a less-then-favorite vegetable trying to convince me to eat them.

Brussels Sprouts Make Their Case
 
Look, we know, we understand, we're not your favorite veg;
tomatoes, corn and broccoli all seem to have the edge.
It's hard to pump excitement up for silly little cabbage,
but give us half a chance, don't just throw us in the gabbage!
All you need's a recipe to be your kitchen guide,
then meet us in the middle, we may get you on our side!
Saute us in some olive oil or butter―now you're shakin'―
and just for extra measure, you can add some chopped-up bacon!
(All right, then, you can  double up the bacon if you wish.)
Toss in some fresh minced garlic for an aromatic dish!
Or stick us in the oven for that extra crispy finish―
perhaps then we'll move up your list, you'll like us more than spinish!
May we suggest a favorite wine―a Chardonnay will suit,
and we know you'll be content, 'cos grape's your favorite fruit!
So raise a toast to us wee sprouts, enjoying a revival,
and cook a bunch of us (with bacon) for your friends' arrival!

PAD: The Long COVID Road Trip

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "what's there" and/or "what's not there" poem, and (2) write a poem that begins with a command. Without getting too personal, I'll just say that the subject of COVID hit home this week, and it spoiled our family's plans for the entire week of Easter vacation. It was a sober reminder that we are still not out of the woods (and this recent court decision lifting mask mandates is, in my opinion, ill-advised.) So I felt compelled to write something about it.

Are We There Yet?
 
No! Stop complaining.
Stop touching your sister.
Stop touching your brother.
Give each other space.
Keep those masks on
and wash your hands.
 
I know it's frustrating―
every time we think
we're almost there,
something or someone adds
more mileage to the trip.
 
I think I finally see
the end of the journey,
but we'll never get there
if you don't listen and keep
whining about your "rights."
 
So behave yourselves,
and don't make me turn this
pandemic right around.

PAD Day 18: The Escaped Bicycle

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "We ______," and (2) "write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered." 

For some reason I though about Neruda's wonderful The Book of Questions, a collection of short (mostly two-line) poetic questions that often veer toward the metaphysical, and are, for the most part, difficult or impossible to answer. (There's a new edition coming out that is beautifully illustrated, like a children's book.) The prompt from NaPoWriMo says we shouldn't reveal the question that we are answering, but I will break that rule and share it here: "How did the abandoned bicycle/win its freedom?" This is written as a string of hay(na)ku, a short form I love and have used many times - I actually have a chapbook of them coming out soon. (Although the fourth and fifth stanzas may not read like direct answers to the question, they seemed to be a logical progression of the images I was trying to create here.)

We Find the Escaped Bicycle
 
It
chewed right
through the lock.
 
It
rolled away
from human hands.
 
It
wears rust
like a medal.
 
But
its tires
need air, reassurance.
 
And
its chain
droops with sorrow.

PAD Day 17: Mad Dogs and Gregory Peck

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "mad" poem, and (2) "think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you." I went with a fictional dog rather than one I've actually known or seen, and the combination of the two prompts practically begs for a "mad dog" theme. The other films I can think of that feature "mad dogs" are Old Yeller and Cujo, but I've never seen either of them. This film, though, is one of my all-time favorites - the book too.

Mad Dog
 
I have known a lot of dogs in my life,
some friendly, some less so,
but no dog ever scared me as much
as the one I saw in a movie as a kid.
 
It was in To Kill a Mockingbird,
a hot summer day in Alabama,
when a growling old dog staggered
down the street, foaming at the mouth.
Atticus told his kids to go inside,
and got his rifle, took aim and shot
the poor animal in the head.
It was rabid, he explained,
he had to put it out of its misery
and protect his children.
 
My father was no Atticus Finch,
but despite all of his faults,
he would have done exactly the same thing.
 

PAD Day 16: Some Days Are a Struggle

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "touch" poem, and (2) write a "curtal sonnet", a form popularized by Gerard Manley Hopkins which is in a sonnet-like structure except it is only 11 lines, with the last line shortened to about half the length of the others. I struggled all day with this one, and I usually enjoy and have little trouble writing sonnets and many other forms.Today I just couldn't seem to get on the poetic horse, at least partly due to distractions of getting ready for the Easter holiday tomorrow. So I decided to take an old piece of advice: If you are completely stuck for what to write about, than write about not being able to write. Even if you don't create a great poem as a result, at least you found something inspiring enough to write about. So here is my result:

Muse
 
I'm struggling tonight to find my voice;
I stumble over meter, sound and verse.
I've written sonnets many dozen times; 
this evening, though, I fumble over choice
of words, my inspiration gone, and worse,
I feel bone-dry, there's not one thing that primes
my pump, no beauty in this darkened space.
But you, with the compassion of a nurse,
come in to hug me, and my heartbeat climbs.
Then all the syllables fall into place;
                                    the evening rhymes. 

PAD Day 15: A Hockey Game Broke Out

 Today's dual prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry: (1) Write about something you have absolutely no interest in, and (2) write a "patience" poem (which can be about patience or the lack thereof). These two prompts seem to fit well together, because generally speaking, we have little patience with things that don't interest us. Here's my take:

Not a Fan
 
I went to a fight the other night,
and a hockey game broke out.
―Rodney Dangerfield
 
I'm not the most rabid sports fan,
but I do love my baseball,
and I root every year for the Phillies,
like Harper, Realmuto, Nola.
There's nothing like your ace
striking out the side, or your power hitter
clouting a walk-off homer.
 
I'll sit and watch football with you,
especially if the Eagles are on,
but don't get annoyed if I ask
a few questions―I'm still hazy
about some of the rules.
 
I can't watch a whole basketball game.
I find all that back-and-forth tedious,
but I will watch the 76ers highlights,
Embiid with his seismic dunks,
Harden with his step-back threes.
 
I have no patience for hockey, though―
no interest in street fighters on ice,
scrapping with gloves thrown down,
jerseys pulled up, knocking out
what few teeth they have left
after encounters with pucks and sticks.
Back in the day they called the Flyers
"The Broad Street Bullies"―
I remember Bobby Clarke's toothless grin.
They were the perfect fit for Philly,
a classic blue-collar town, home of fans
who threw snowballs at Santa
during an Eagles game.
 
But I get it―different strokes and all.
Give me a day at Citizens Bank Park any time,
even though to the average hockey fan,
baseball is as exciting as, literally,
watching grass grow.
 

PAD Day 14: A Scary Story!

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "scary" poem, and (2) "write a poem that takes the form of the opening scene of the movie of your life." I went in a decidedly fictional direction on this one - I couldn't get a truly autobiographical opening to fit with the "scary" theme. And I don't know if this is really a "poem," but it was fun to write. If there is anything autobiographical in the piece, it might be the father's reaction, which would be not unlike my own father if someone had told him when I was born I would become...well, read on.

American Horror Story: The Marked Child
 
[Scene: A dark and stormy April night, early 1950s.
Thunder crashes loudly as lightning flashes
through the bedroom window.
A young woman yells in pain
while the midwife crouches below her hips.]
 
Midwife: One more push!
 
[The woman lets out one final scream
and a wrinkled, red baby issues from her loins,
crying heartily.]
 
Midwife:  It's a boy!
 
[In the shadows, a mysterious old woman
has been watching this whole event.
Her relation to the family at this point in the story
is unclear, but her stringy hair and haggard face
are not unlike a witch, and her severe demeanor 

            recalls Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein.]
 
Old Woman [murmuring ominously]:
I see troubling times for this boy.
 
Father: Why? Is he sickly? Is he deformed?
 
Old Woman: No. But he bears a mark
that bodes a disturbing future as he grows.
 
Mother: What? Will he become a criminal?
A womanizer? An addict? A werewolf?
 
Old Woman: No. He will become...a POET!
 
[Lightning flashes, thunder crashes.]
 
Father: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
 

PAD Day 13 Extra: The Elbow Project

 Here's another in the series of poems I'm writing inspired by the songs and lyrics of the rock band Elbow. This one also responds to today's Write Better Poetry prompt of writing a poem titles "How to _______." I now have about 23 poems (four written this month), which should be almost enough for a chapbook.

How to Die Happy
 
...my sweet trampoline...
―Elbow, "Fly Boy Blue/Lunette"
 
all of this bouncing, this back and this forth
and the layover boredom, I wait with a drink
and a smoke and whatever they have on the idiot box
 (in the old days they would let you  smoke in the bar)
 
but now those two monkeys are climbing my back
the one is bile-green and the other soot-black
and I know if I shake them I'll save my own life
but the pangs are too much like a dull rusty knife
 
so will you be my solace, my rising red moon
when I wake in the morning with a pain in the chest
my sweet trampoline, let me sleep on your breast,
let your mystery kill me, your scar and tattoo
 

PAD Day 13: Have an Amazing Day!

First, I want to share a very short poem unrelated to today's prompts. This was inspired by my friend Vince Gotera's "kimo" poem about the fact that the once-ubiquitous K-Mart department store chain has now been reduced to just three stores nationwide. You can read his poem, and many other excellent ones he has written this month, here.) My poem is in a form created just for fun by Robert Lee Brewer, which is inspired by the current Wordle word game craze, and which he calls "Wordy 30." Basically, you write a poem that consists of only thirty letters, but all the words must be the same length. The classic "Wordle" format would be six five-letter words, but you can do five six-letter words, ten three-letter words, etc. Here is mine:

Extinction

K-Mart
lives -
three
shops,
dying
dodos.

Todays' dual prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry: (1) Write a poem about "Everything is Going to Be Amazing", and (2) write a poem entitled "How To __________."  So here's my take on those prompts. (With again, a nod to the endangered K-Marts.)

How to Know Today Will Be AMAZING
 
When you got up this morning,
you were not on fire,
like hundreds of acres in California.
 
You were not running for your life 

with your children, like a Ukrainian refugee.

You were not on a ventilator,
like your neighbor, the anti-vaxer.
 
You were not going extinct,
like polar bears, honeybees and K-Marts.
 
You had not been beaten up
for being black, gay, Asian, Jewish, etc.
 
You had not ended up
on the wrong end of a ghost-gun.
 
When you got up this morning,
you were capable of doing something,
even if only a little, about any of the above.
And to make today amazing, you will.

PAD Day 12: The War at Home

 Today's prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry: (1) Write a poem about something tiny, and (2) write a "counting" or "not counting" poem. April is shaping up to be a pretty busy month for me, so I may be posting shorter poems as we go along, but I'll try my best to keep up. Today is another nonet:

The Other War
 
you look like a clove-studded golf ball
under the microscope, but you've
changed everything in our world,
as we count casualties,
little insurgent―
we mask, we vax,
but still you
invade
us

PAD Day11: The Bigger They Are...

 Today's dual prompts from NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about something huge, and (2) write a poem about "power." The two seem to blend together very well, and it just so happens that I read an article in the most recent New York Times Magazine this morning about the unimaginable (huge) amount of money that Jeff Bezos (powerful) has. It used some startling, offbeat and even amusing graphics to demonstrate the disparity of wealth between Bezos and us of the hoi polloi. For instance if wealth were temperature, the average person's "temperature" would be 52 degrees Fahrenheit ("sweater weather"), Mitch McConnell would be as hot as a pizza oven (900 degrees), Dolly Parton would be the heat of lightning (50,000 degrees) and Bezos would be the core of the sun (27,000,000 degrees, or 450 feet higher than the top of the thermometer graphic on the page). So anyway, here is my not-so-accurate take on such comparisons:

The Relative Worth of Jeff Bezos
 
(after the New York Times Magazine article by Mona Chalabi)
 
If you are the ant crawling up a chair leg,
Jeff Bezos is the elephant in the room,
or maybe a herd of elephants in an airplane hangar.
 
If you have one song on your Spotify playlist,
Jeff Bezos has every song ever recorded since 1934.
 
If you have a three-month-old issue of Time Magazine,
Jeff Bezos has the Library of Congress.
 
If you live in a shotgun shack in rural Alabama,
Jeff Bezos has the Palace of Versailles, the Taj Mahal,
and the Burj Kahlifa.
 
If you have a single McDonald's burger,
Jeff Bezos has every one of the billions served
since they started counting.
 
If you made $150 delivering newspapers this week,
Jeff Bezos bought every street you delivered them on,
plus the town, the county, the newspaper you worked for,
and the forest used to make all that paper.
 
If the average size of a man's penis is about 5 inches,
Jeff Bezos' is the size of a rocket ship.
 
If you are five feet, eight inches tall,
you are taller than Jeff Bezos.
 

PAD Day 10 Extra: The War Again

 I had to write something about this. It has nothing to do with daily prompts, which today are "love" and "taste." It's about the continuing horror and atrocity by a vicious and vindictive dictator against a people who refuse to be subjugated by him. And it seems to get worse every day. This short poem is in a form called the "kimo," which I understand is an Israeli variation on the haiku.

Kramatorsk
 
things left behind at the bombed-out station―
backpacks, water bottles, food,
a blood-soaked teddy bear

PAD Day 10: The Taste of Love

 Today's prompts from NaPoWriMo and Write Better Poetry are very basic and direct: (1) Write a love poem, and (2) write a "taste" poem. So here is my very simple response, a senryu (haiku with a human element):

when she finishes
the chocolate I gave her
she gives me a kiss

Day 9: War vs. Music

Last night I attended my first in-person indoor poetry reading since the pandemic began. It featured a poet I know and admire, J.C. Todd, and her daughter Savannah Cooper-Ramsey. I got to read two poems from my new book plus one newer poem during the open mic. Everyone was masked, and it was an excellent evening.

Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "breaking" poem, and (2) Write a "nonet," a none-line form that starts with nine syllables and decreases the number in each successive line down to one syllable. I guess the utter destruction of war can be seen as a kind of "breaking" - in the sense of physical structure, but also, especially in the case of the current war in Ukraine, in the sense of breaking the spirit of the people who are attacked. I wrote a "double-reverse" nonet, I guess you can call it, where the syllables increase again with an additional nine lines. I thought it was a good way of showing a kind of "rising from the ashes." I also wanted to pay tribute to the bravery of Ukranian musicians who have performed for their countrymen sheltering in place, and even in some cases in the open air under the threat of missile attacks. Music has always been witness to history. 

Pathétique
 
They bombed Tchaikovsky's home, a villa
in Trostyanets where he wrote
his first symphonic work. They
levelled the whole city.
Hundreds have been killed,
even children.
But by God
we will
turn
around
this horror
with pianos,
violins, trumpets,
singing in bomb shelters.
Music will be the witness,
all the grief and all the triumph,
a brave anthem against tyranny.

 

Day 8: Spirit Animal

First, I want to bring a new anthology to everyone's attention. The Poet Magazine, a British-based journal, has just published a collection called Poetry for Ukraine, a 300-plus page volume featuring over 250 poets from around the world, writing about the war in Ukraine, or war and peace in general. The book is available directly from them as a PDF, or you can get a paper or Kindle copy through Amazon.com. All profits from the book go to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. I'm proud to be part of this project with a poem on page 84. Here's the link: 

https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/poetry-for-ukraine

Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "what they never told you" poem, and (2) Write a poem in the voice of a character that you consider your "alter-ego."

I always wondered what my "spirit animal" would be, and recently I took one of those dumb Facebook quizzes, which told me it would be a deer. "Nah," I said. "Too gentle and graceful." I always imagined myself as a bear - lumbering, grumpy, and prone to sleep a lot. Then a few years ago I discovered the wonderful series of children's picture books by Ryan T. Higgins about Bruce, a grumpy black bear who reluctantly adopts a gaggle of geese who hatched in his presence and imprinted on him.  And I thought, "There he is! My spirit animal!" I love the books every bit as much as my grandkids, as Bruce grumbles and complains through one situation after another, but still looks out for his adopted family. So here is my poem in the voice of my alter-ego, Bruce the bear.

Bruce the Bear
 
All I ever wanted was to sleep all winter
and be left alone, but one day
I stole a nest of eggs for dinner,
and four little goslings hatched.
They imprinted on me, called me "Mama,"
followed me everywhere.
I tried to get them to migrate,
but instead they coerced me into
wintering in Florida -
hot, sandy, sunburning Florida.
 
These birds caused me nothing but trouble -
and while we were away, some mice
turned my house into a hotel.
Then worst of all, some young animals
in the forest thought I was Santa Claus,
and I was forced to wear a stupid red suit
and give out presents.
These geese, teenagers now,
turned my life upside-down.
 
But they're my family,
and what no one ever told me
is that even when you're not looking for a family
sometimes one still finds you.
It's amazing how much they change you,
how much you're willing to sacrifice for them,
and how they never really leave you.
They will always be your kids,
no matter how annoying,
and you will defend them any day

with a swipe of your giant paw. 

But I still could use a nice long nap.

PAD Day 7: Dissecting a Phrase

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write an "abundance" poem, and (2) "Write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying." I'm not sure if it's because these prompts didn't really speak to me today, or maybe it's other things on my mind. (I had a car accident this morning - I'm ookay, but the caris a mess.) Anyway, I took a phrase rather than a saying or proverb and just mused on it a bit, it's meaning and semantics. Here's the result:

Abundance of Caution
 
We've heard about that a lot lately,
all the steps we take out of
an "abundance of caution."
It seems almost an oxymoron―
 
when did caution ever yield
abundance? On the other hand,
is caution really something we
could ever have in abundance?
 
Maybe we just need a different phrase:
a "plethora of preparedness,"
a "cornucopia of carefulness,"
a "surplus of circumspection."
No, none of those work.
 
Caution seems to run a spectrum
from sheer recklessness
to paralyzing inactivity.
We need just enough caution,
I think, to avoid the consequences
we don't wish to come up against.
 
But what if an abundance causes us
to have leftover caution?
Can we bank it for the next crisis,
or if we come up short,
can we borrow caution from someone
who never takes a risk?
 
I think it's abundantly clear
that we can't throw caution to the wind,
but we can't hoard it either,
unless we aspire to a very boring life.

PAD Day 6: On Friends

 Today's dual prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title, "________ in the _________," and (2) write a poem that takes a phrase or section from someone else's piece of writing, and uses those words in order as the first word in each line of that poem - "a variation of an acrostic poem," as Maureen Thorson calls it. I look at, especially if I use a poetry source, as a variation on the "golden shovel," a form invented by Terrence Hayes where the last word of each line is taken from the words in another's poem. In any event, I will use this prompt as another opportunity to write a poem for my other project, powm based on the the lyrics of the rock band Elbow. The epigraph of this poem is my source, and as you will see, each line of my poem begins with a word from that epigraph, used in order.

Looking in the Rearview

(A "word acrostic" poem)
 
Dear friends
You are angels and drunks
You are Magi
Old friends
You stuck a pin in the map I was in
And you are the stars I navigate home by
―Elbow, "Dear Friends"
 
Dear departed, dear still there,
friends who have been part of the journey,
you all got me here today.
Are you sleeping, are you awake?
Angels and demons
and graybeards and ghosts,
drunks and teetotalers, scoundrels and saints,
you all are indispensible, you
are worth more than any gift of the
Magi, more than any billionaire's cache.
 
Old days sometimes fade like photographs, but
friends, you are the afterimage in my eyes,
you are the memories that make me smile,
stuck in the brain like
a favorite record, a butterfly on a
pin. I am still driving
in from the wilderness, dust on
the windshield, creases on the road
map, and I don't know exactly where
I will rest, but I do know I
was in the greatest company
in all the towns you found me in,
 
and you have my gratitude,
you clouds in the sunset, you who
are a two-lane highway through the plains,
the rest stop, the last gas, the
stars that knock me back at night when
I gaze overhead, the same ones I use to
navigate toward the last leg of this trip,
home by breakfast, home
by morning.