#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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Semicolons Important Punctuation

Life is beautiful;
semicolons help give pause
to collect one’s breath

Good afternoon. I am sure most of my readers are aware of the two celebrity suicides recently. Did you know June is PTSD awareness month? And September is suicide prevention month. As my family has had to deal with suicides, I learned many family and friends touched by suicide create hope through semicolons; a semicolon shows there is more to a sentence. It does not end prematurely.

The end of November this year, it will be 5 years since my brother-in-law ended his life. Only a year later we lost one of my cousins to suicide – Swallowed Whole. And with extra media coverage on suicides when it happens to a celebrity, suicide rates have been known to increase. So take a breath, pause and reach out; if you feel depressed, find someone to talk to life is beautiful.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day Two

Thanksgiving Dinner 2001

Thanksgiving

Twin sister
Hosts dinner
At her house
Nieces stood together
Katryn dressed in white
Scott turned his head
Gretchen held secure
In Dad’s embrace
Veronica smiles big
In front of Sean
Nonnie wrapped the
Girls with loving arms

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today, I challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a family portrait. You could write, for example, a stanza for each member of your family. You could also find an actual snapshot of your family and write a poem about it, spending a little bit of time on each person in the picture. You don’t need to observe any particular form or meter. Happy writing!

A family portrait you say. I immediately thought of this picture. When my mom passed away, she had set aside pictures for each of her daughters. The above picture was in my envelope. It is Thanksgiving Dinner at my sister Katryn’s house when they lived in Arizona. It is her girls, my girls, and my in-laws and niece. My brother-in-law committed suicide just before Thanksgiving 2013. This may have been the last time we were all together and I wanted to write about it.

Note – yes, I did not mention Tina (standing between Scott and Katryn) in the poem.

Tattoo Story Day

Shawn’s tattoo

Commemorate loss
Brother’s lasting impression
Double dagger brand

I saw on twitter it is #tattoostory day. My husband got a tattoo in honor of his brother’s 40th birthday, he did not see. September is also #suicidepreventionmonth more information can be found here.