April 29 – Such a busy week

I had a long load out yesterday, and a travel day today, so not a lot of time. And yet, the prompt today somehow spoke to me. The prompt from NaPoWriMo.net was:

And now for our optional prompt. If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.

I chose “Albatross”

Albatross

You are not
You are not an albatross
You are full of vague
Untapped memories
Jiggling together
Small and large
Tiny portraits of time
You are not
An albatross
Tucked away
With the unfinished scripts
And scores of poems
Of the false start genre
You are not an albatross
No winged, webbed footed
Flight of fancy
Rather a rattle in my
Sojourning soul
A glint of things to come
Nestled in the desk drawer
An albatross? No.
You are a promise
My box of Canadian coins

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April 25 – just under the wire

Hello All. Hard to keep up this April, but I will catch up eventually. Today NaPoWriMo.net asked to write a poem inspired by a “Proust Questionnaire”. After reading the questions, my brain went straight to wisdom learned as a child, so I wrote this

Inspiration from a Literary Elephant

A person is a person, no matter how small

A person is a person, no matter how tall

A person is a person, in rain or fair weather

A person is a person, wearing flora or feather

A person is a person, singing high or low

A person is a person, playing in sun or snow

A person is a person, living east or west

A person is a person, no matter their dress

A person is a person, they all have concerns

A person is a person, each grows, each learns

A person is a person, all can spread the joys

A person is a person, when all share their toys

A person is a person, let me tell you quite true

A person is a person, is a person like you
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April 22 – a hard month

Hello All. It has been a hard April this year, as there is too much going on at work to allow me time to think, and to top it off, the last few days I had a terrible cold. But I have been writing. It is just the posting of poems here that has fallen behind. So hopefully, starting today, I can catch up. Beginning with the NaPoWriMo prompt for today – to write a poem about a fight. This age old struggle came to mind.

Bow and Arrow

“You are nothing without me”
The arrow said pointedly 
“I quiver at what will become of you”
The sharp tone cut like a razor
Bow, unstrung and relaxed
Stayed quiet, reserved, reticent 
“I will not be drawn into this fight.
I am not a target for your hostility”
But Arrow continued, to prick and poke
Aiming barbs tipped to sting
Bow’s limbs, tense and strained
Arched and knotted with
Strength of sinuous reason
Calmly, tendon tight, bow grinned
And released a response 
Sending Arrow far, far away

A faint whisper feathered in the air
“You complete me”

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April 9 – A Yo-YOde

The prompt today, to write an Ode to a common or mundane thing. Some might think a toy could never be mundane, but having been around for hundreds of years, it is certainly common.

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April 8 – Pillows and Rebecca: the sonnet

After reading the prompt today, the last two lines jumped into my head. The rest of the sonnet took its own sweet time. The prompt on NaPoWriMo.net today was “Today, we challenge you to write a poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason.”

Pillows and Rebecca:  the sonnet

one plush and bold from a distant dirt road

one tabby and sleek, from a shelter showed

two cats from two worlds adopted by us

two feline lives and twenty years of fuss

curled up in balls, in two different chairs

private squares of sun on separate  stairs

decades of time in the same car or house

no sharing food, laps or the cat nip mouse

oil and water, the tough combination

can’t fully describe this situation

mentos and coke says it more precisely 

what happens when noses touch unwisely 

effervescence of hisses as they meet

plus an explosion of running cat feet

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April 7 – Post card wishes

A good prompt for a busy work day, a Wish You Were Here postcard. Mine is done in haiku.

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April 6 – now I’m 64

The prompt for today, from NaPoWriMo.net “Today’s we’d like to challenge you to write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom,” by which we mean something objectively odd that someone told you once, and that has stuck with you ever since.” The following is from my life, and can be sung to the tune of When I’m 64, by the Beatles.

Now I’m 64

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April 4 – Thomas R Henry’s The Strangest Things in the World

Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net was to use something from The Strangest Things in the World, by Thomas R Henry, as inspiration. I chose:

 Where Snails Become Flowers

Swirl of berry, vanilla and lemon

      Tightly painted and wrapped on my back

Hard candy sparkle of orange and lime

      Curled stiffly on my exoskeleton spine

My tree home blossoms in spirals of

       Colorful gastropod families 

Shades that delight, cream and lavender,

      Woo your eye to my flirty crust

But, beware

      Hues without scent

      Stripes without stamens

      Oh woe to one who falls for my

      Colorful candy shell

Nothing but bitter mollusk beneath

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April 3 – Surreal?

The prompt, – a surreal prose poem. Well, my mind wandered from the prose, and maybe left the surreal at a left turn. But here is my entry – done for the dy.


The View

Seeing the city from afar

     Long star studded thumbs 

           Piercing the sky 

                Sparkling in the night

                       How must they see me

                             My balcony a blaze 

                                   With roasted hotdogs 

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April 2 – a day late

The prompt today – a non-romantic love letter. Celebrating a love of a different type, with memories of time together. Mine is sweet and simple.


2

The two of us – best friends we’ll be

There is one of you and one of me.

We sing, and paint, and laugh, and play,

Rock-Paper-Scissors can last all day

Thumb Wars are silly, Go Fish is grand

But most of all, I love holding your hand.

There is one of me and one of you

Best friends forever – just us two.

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