Poetry Month is Almost Here!

 It's going to be a very busy April this year, so I hope I'm able to stick with the Poem-a-Day challenges. It looks like carving out even an hour a day to write might be tough, especially this week, as Easter is a big deal with my family, between baking the traditional family Easter breads, the Easter egg hunts for the kids, a big family Easter brunch or dinner, and so forth. Somehow, I manage every year though - in fact, one of my best published poems was about prepping sweet potatoes for Easter dinner. 

I'm getting a head start thanks to the NaPoWriMo website (now in its 23th year!) headed by Maureen Thorson. Here is her prompt for today:

"Start by reading Katie Naughton’s poem, “Debt Ritual: Oysters.” Now, write your own poem in which you refer to a specific writer or artist (or work of literature/art) and make a declarative statement about want or desire. Set the poem in a particular, people-filled place, like a restaurant, bus station, museum, school, etc."

Here's one based on my recent experience in New York City:

Terminal
 
I have an hour to kill
before my train rolls out
of Grand Central, and I
want a hamburger.
 
Beneath the marble arches,
below the false heaven of
an almost-impossible ceiling,
past the information booth
like an island, and the iconic
ball-shaped clock,
 
past the flurry of people I dodge
and weave around on the concourse,
I find on the sidelines a Shake Shack,
and as I’m biting into my greasy
but satisfying lunch, I wonder
 
how all this looked sixty-some years ago,
before they started to care again
and shined and buffed it up,
and made it once again

the landmark destination it deserved to be,
 
and whether back then 

I might have run into 

Simon and Garfunkel,

busking on the 4 Train platform,
wondering if they had 

enough change in their guitar case 

for a hamburger.