#NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twenty-four

Bone Dry

Pen in hand
open to
blank page

Gossamer
the ebb
and flow
of verse

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today, I’d like to challenge you to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile. Feel free to use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes till it’s . . . as dense as bread baked by a plumber, as round as the eyes of a girl who wants you to think she’s never heard such language, and as easy to miss as a brass band in a cathedral.

Good evening and welcome to day twenty-four where my mind refused to speak in simile. So I read my book most of the day. I picked up The Midnight Library by Matt Haig and started reading it when my semicolon haiku was posted on the Haiku Pea podcast. A little eerie of a coincidence since the subject of the book is suicide. The protagonist, Nora, is able to try out various alternative lives on the premise there is a multi-verse from all the different choices we make in life. Our root life goes one way and a new branch grows off the choice not taken. It’s interesting to wonder what your other selves lives are like. Nora in between life and death after attempting suicide gets to find out.

Blank Slate

The last week
of April
is here

Well of
Inspiration
dry as the
Desert

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#NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Seven

Begin Again

All good things
Come to an
End…

Twenty years
Pass before
Denouement
Really begins

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our (optional) prompt! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. They say that “all cats are black at midnight,” but really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has some mild dyspepsia.  Whatever phrase you pick, I hope you have fun complicating its simplicity. Happy writing!

Good afternoon and welcome to day seven of NaPoWriMo where I let my fangirl out. Yes, season three of Picard was announced on First Contact Day, April 5th. And most years I have written poems about Star Trek on that date. This year I’m a couple days late, but I know Trekkies are aware the finale of TNG was titled All Good Things… so it seemed like the logical 😉 proverb to use. Also I don’t understand why youtube gives you an embed code if they have it blocked. But if you haven’t seen the trailer for season three of Picard, you can watch it on youtube. Im hoping it won’t be a true denouement where Picard dies at the end. They almost did it at the end of season one (they really did kill Picard but then put his consciousness in a synthetic body). I’m aware it’s been more than twenty years since the conclusion of the TV series; but I counted from the release date of Nemesis in 2002. Thank you for reading my day seven contribution and for allowing my enthusiasm to bubble up. Since it is Thursday, I’m off to watch the latest episode of Picard season two.

#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Twenty Seven

Scar on Right Hand Surrounded by artwork by Mr. Tookles

Initial V

Scar
Between right thumb
And forefinger

After surgery
Giving hand ability
To grasp
Scabulous!

NaPoWriMo Prompt – In today’s (optional) prompt, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name.

Good Afternoon and welcome to day twenty seven of #NaPoWriMo. I’m feeling much better today; boy the second shot really does pack a punch. Yesterday I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Thankfully Gretchen was here to keep my water glass full and my cooling towel damp. She even made me soup while FaceTiming with Robin and I heard her ask, When it says lower heat to a simmer, how low do they mean? However it was accomplished, the soup was yummy. It may have been because it was the only thing I ate yesterday though. But after finishing one bowl I actually had enough energy to get up and serve myself a second bowl.

This morning I busied myself with all the chores that were not touched yesterday and so I started the prompt a little later than usual.

scabulous

adj. proud of a scar on your body, which is an autograph signed to you by a world grateful for your continued willingness to play with her, even when you don’t feel like it.

I’m not sure I am exactly on point with the definition of scabulous, but the word spoke to me especially after how I felt yesterday. I really do adhere to the idea that scars need not define us so I’m not sure if I’m particularly proud of my scar or have just learned to live with it.

#NaPoWriMo Backyard Garden

Tortoise enjoys a treat

Backyard Garden

Tortoise
surveys his kingdom
slow and
methodical

Little dog
scurries about
seeking an audience

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s (optional) prompt is ekphrastic in nature – but rather particular! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Whether you take the position of a twelve-legged clam, a narwhal with a cocktail olive speared on its horn, a man using an owl as a pool toy, or a backgammon board being carried through a crowd by a fish wearing a tambourine on its head, I hope that you find the experience deliriously amusing. And if the thought of speaking in the voice of a porcupine-as-painted-by-a-man-who-never-saw-one leaves you cold, perhaps you might write from the viewpoint of Bosch himself? Very little is known about him, so there’s plenty of room for invention, embroidery, and imagination.

Good morning readers and welcome to day six of napowrimo. I’m not sure my septolet is exactly on point, but back in my early bird post I wrote about how Shawn has been working on a garden in our backyard. He also put together a nice sitting area (where Gretchen and I took her birthday photo with the  pink garland filter). I have been spending my mornings out there, drinking my coffee. It is also where I was reading my book. Since I finished the book, I decided to take my poetry journal out there this morning hoping for inspiration. The septolet came from watching the dog and tortoise interact though I’m not too sure I’d really call it interaction. The tortoise seems to tolerate the dog’s nonsense.

Well my coffee is finished and my poem is written so I guess I have to get on with my Monday. I hope everyone is hanging in and finding inspiration in their everyday life. As I wrote later in the day yesterday –

Wish for excitement
Life continues as normal
Keep towel handy

Yes, my life has had barely a blip with the stay at home order, but if any alien ships show up in orbit I do know where my towel is. 😉 And no I would never intermingle two different sci-fi domains.

#NaPoWriMo 2018 Day Three

Seventeen

Sweet sixteen
does not last
forever

Changes
come around…
make us women
and men

Good morning! Welcome to day three of #NaPoWriMo – tomorrow is someone’s birthday. Yes, my baby will stop being 16. I guess you can only hold onto sixteen for one year. Who would have thought?

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s prompt (optional as always), is inspired by our interview with Peter Davis. As he indicates there, his latest book is rooted in endlessly writing ideas for band names. Today, we challenge you to try this out yourself by writing a list poem in which all the items are made-up names. If band names don’t inspire, how about a list of titles for romantic novels? Or new television cop dramas? They can be as over-the-top as you like, because that’s (at least) half the fun. Happy writing!

My poem today is a septolet. I thought I’d go with a theme of seven for a seventeenth birthday. I actually played Jack & Diane for Gretchen yesterday and told her she needed to stop growing. What is with my children thinking they can get older? Rachael says Gretchen isn’t old. Rachael will be turning 20 in May. Apparently that is old because she will no longer be a teenager. 😉 I keep blaming Shawn because I was a pretty, young 17 when I met him. I met him, married, and look what happened – I grew old! So yeah, it’s definitely his fault.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed my poem isn’t a list poem, but I thought of the song thinking of band names. Speaking of over the top names, remember when John Mellencamp went by John Cougar Mellencamp? Yes, I’m old. My poem was also inspired by the PAD prompt at Writer’s Digest – write a stop poem. But I really don’t think my children are going to stop growing. Oh well, I try every year.

In other poetry news, I woke up to a nice email this morning. My poem, Pedernal, was posted on ekphrastic.net this morning.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 18

By The ad and program were produced by NBC. – NBC Radio ad-photo from 2 page ad “Monday Night Comes to Life” from Life Magazine, April 12, 1937. NBC Radio ad, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31086637

Fibber McGee

Mom,
Guess who
I am

Okay,
Fibber McGee
No, try again
I don’t know

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates “the sound of home.” Think back to your childhood, and the figures of speech and particular ways of talking that the people around you used, and which you may not hear anymore. My grandfather and mother, in particular, used several phrases I’ve rarely heard any others say, and I also absorbed certain ways of talking living in Charleston, South Carolina that I don’t hear on a daily basis in Washington, DC. Coax your ear and your voice backwards, and write a poem that speaks the language of home, and not the language of adulthood, office, or work. Happy writing!

This is a combination as I say Fibber McGee to my children often. When I was young, my mother would say Fibber McGee, I can’t remember the context but she had used the name enough I remembered it. I remember giggling, too, because who is really named Fibber McGee. Flash forward and my girls are constantly being someone else and want their mother to guess the character. One time out of exasperation I said, I don’t know, Fibber McGee. The girls started laughing and said, that’s not a real name. I told them, I don’t know I just remember your grandma saying it. I knew they’d get a laugh out of it, because I always had. But one day I was curious enough to google the name (the handy dandy tool wasn’t around when I was a child) and sure enough grandma didn’t pull the name out of her… MOM.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 9

Saturday morning
slow as a sloth
I

Slept past
10am
now I feel
spry

NaPoWriMo Prompt – for our prompt (optional, as always). This one sounds simple, but it can be pretty difficult. Today, I challenge you to write a poem that includes a line that you’re afraid to write. This might be because it expresses something very personal that makes you uncomfortable – either because of its content (“I always hated grandma”), or because it seems too emotional or ugly or strange (“I love you so much I would eat a cockroach for you”). Or even because it sounds too boring or expected (“You know what? I like cooking noodles and going to bed at 7 p.m.”). But it should be something that you’re genuinely a little scared to say. Happy (or if not happy, brave) writing!

A line I’m afraid to write. Hmmm… I’ve done this in the past as recently as yesterday. When the prompt said, write about a flower, I didn’t want to get melancholy but looking through pictures, the blue daisies were the first to say something to me. And then there is the line, living with cerebral palsy.

Me and Jennifer DuVal

Shawn posted this picture to Facebook, after we went to a Fred DuVal fundraiser saying, you’re going to hate me. Ugh… he knows I try to hide my hand and usually feet (as I mostly wear sneakers) in pictures.

Well now that I’ve shared something I don’t like about myself, the wonderful thing about a house with two teenagers and Saturday morning. They both sleep in too, and Rachael just finished cooking bacon…P.S. the bacon was yummy.

Twins – Fun Fact

My brain hurts Photo credit

Add
an hour
to the day

First born
twin becomes
younger than
the second.

Okay in two more weeks, my twin sister and I will celebrate 42 years. Since 42 is the answer to everything in the universe maybe I’ll be able to decipher this math problem on the 17th. Until then, I am glad I live in Arizona where we don’t have to worry about trying to figure out who is older. I beat my sister by a day! 😉

NaPoWriMo Day 30

May
Upside down
First is last

Poem
Written bottom
to top
Last on first

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our final prompt (still optional!). For the last day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like you to try an odd little exercise that I have had good results with. Today, I challenge you to write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning. Another way to go about this might be to take a poem you’ve already written, and flip the order of the lines and from there, edit it so the poem now works with its new order. This will probably feel a bit strange (and really, it is a bit strange), but it just may help you see the formal “opening” and “closing” strategies of your poems in a new way!

Ugh…I’m not even going to get into my day yesterday. It was long, tiring and mostly counterproductive. I did write a haiku off the #haikuchallenge word – habit

Last day in April
Thirty poems, thirty days
Time to break habit

I checked twitter before napowrimo and found it funny because when I saw habit, time to break the habit was the first thing to pop in my head. Then when I come up with the other lines, I thought time to break habit would make a better last line than first. Viola I wrote my last napowrimo poem without realizing I was following the prompt.

Well things around here are getting riled up AGAIN! So I’m back to focussing on my real life drama. I really do NOT understand human behavior.

Sculpting Septolet

Artwork created by Shawn Hosking

Artist sculpts
without hesitation
fervent desire
blooms

Tender ministrations
consummate Jack
in-the-pulpit

Shawn told me this piece was inspired by Jack-in-the-pulpit. Never heard of it? It is a wild flower.