It was the best of times . . . USAID shut down caused global humanitarian crisis. It was the best of times . . . ICE agents wreak havoc, innocents shot and killed.
It was the worst of times . . . Cataract surgery reveals brighter world. It was the worst of times . . . Family reunion brings laughter and love. It was the worst of times . . . Sunshine always glows brightly behind the clouds.
NAPOWRIMO Day 7 Prompt: Write a poem using a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.
directions to self, and you, if you wish. Stop imbibing Trumpian news. Take only one small sip per day. Think revel instead of wallow. Revel in sunshine, a best seller book. Walk outside breathing in fresh air, plan for someone’s birthday surprise. Arrange day trips away from news. If you ruminate, Trump wins. Do your small part pf course. One political post per day. Donate to a cause. But do not allow him to fester in your brain, to loose fistulas of lies that chafe, clouding your eyes to the joys nearby. Take care of your mental health. That is of prime importance in these days of . . . well, I don’t know what they are of. But that’s the point. It’s our task to define them. To decide how we change them. How we live and love in them. And God knows, we must.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe! Today Dora asks us to write a poem using an imperative….a demand of sorts.
Photo from a spring walk last year along the Charles River. A habitual dog walker often takes a rest at this bench….always makes me smile. We need more smiles these days.
One, two, what can we do? Three, four, can’t bear any more. Five, six, need a fix. Seven, eight, it’s not too late. Jump ahead to twenty-five, that amendment’s power drive. Then go back to the standard rhyme, he exits out in rhythmic time. Nine, ten, a thankful amen.
NAPOWRIMO Day 7. Prompt for the day: Write a poem that can be a “song: something to clap, snap or jump around to.” I’ve changed the words here to the childhood rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. etc”
If you don’t want to read a political statement in explanation of the poem above, stop reading here.
Today, the President of the United States is playing the “proverbial game of chicken” with an unstable and violent regime. “A whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM EST. Note: the Strait of Hormuz was open until the US and Israel bombed Iran. Listen to President Trump’s recent public appearances: IE standing beside the giant Easter Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Roll, talking about Iran, how great his military is; telling children they can sell the pictures he colors with them because he’s signing them and his autograph is worth a lot of money. But they couldn’t sell anything from President Biden because he had people follow him around with an autopen. Look at his Truth Social posts in the last few days: laced with expletives. The man is more than unhinged. He is seriously mentally ill. He is not competent or fit to be in the office of the Presidency.
It is time to evoke the 25th amendement and remove him from office. At the very least, his family should stage a serious intervention meeting with him; as should members of Congress. Handle it discreetly and quietly if they wish. If he won’t resign, invoke the 25th amendement. We can not allow this man to continue in this powerful position.
So she said to me . . . I did it! I’m here in New York City, finally in the Easter Parade. Cost a bundle for the flight. But I looked out the plane’s window and saw the Archangel Gabriel. A real added plus to the trip. Couldn’t afford a real Easter bonnet so I resurrected my Christmas wreath. Tied it under my chin with pink ribbons, made it look more spring-like. Everyone said I just glowed. Best part of all, was the tinsel. It framed my face in a sparkly fringe!
NAPOWRIMO day 6! Today’s prompt: try writing with a breezy conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.
Image from Bing Create. And no, I didn’t get a phone call like this yesterday and I don’t know a Mabel. But if she was real, I suspect she’d be a lot of fun.
. . . eggs! Hens lay them, people abscond with them. Shelled with white and yellow insides, eggcellent when fully cooked.
Who among you drinks raw eggs? Holiday eggnog is not for me. Bourbon or rum added to nog? Never enough for me to imbibe!
Runny yolks pool on your plate, drip from your fork, require slurping to consume. That is definitely not for me!
Give me on-the-dry-side scrambled, well done frittatas, firm omlettes, or a good solid hard boiled egg. What can I say?
I’ve always been a firm handshake kind of gal.
NAPOWRIMO day 5!
The prompt today, for National Poetry Writing Month, is “to write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particulary something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.”
I thought it appropriate to write about eggs today since that silly Easter bunny has presumably been hopping around leaving Easter eggs for so many folks.
Mother Nature’s flirtatious ways. Lightning flashes, crocus buds, lilac blooms that scent the air. Dew droplets on pink rose petals, fall colors as she bares her leaves. A silent caress of soft falling snow.
Most audacious of her alluring ways? Her cunningly sly, seductive wink. Unlike a camera aperture’s click, more like a Texan gal’s slow drawl. Her alluring, magnetically titillating total eclipse of the sun.
NAPOWRIMO Day 4. April is National Poetry Writing Month!
Prompt for today: “Craft your own short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.”Sorry folks: I don’t do rhyme. But I did write about a weather phenomenon: a total eclipse of the sun.
Photo of lilacs taken some years ago at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum on their annual Lilac Sunday.
Long-legged Lucy played with the boys, Barbies or baby dolls not her toys. Miniature soldiers marched in her room. Games with a ball, she really bloomed.
Grown up Lucy? A soccer star. Local legend, legs are her fame. Precision, passing and footwork her game. Pele’s bicycle kicks win acclaim.
Off season? You’d never guess. Third from the left in that famous line, a seasoned Rockette her kicks still shine.
NAPOWRIMO Day 3. April is National Poetrey Writing Month.
Prompt: “Write a poem in which a profession or vocation is described differently than it typically is considered to be.”
Confession: as a young girl, I always wanted to be a Rockette!
. . . our December twenty-fourth dinners with Alice’s jello salad and pineapple-coconut bars. Rather than bowing our heads and saying grace, we shared cards at the table. One for my mother, dad and brother. And theirs to me.
Raising our family, the tradition continued. Handwritten notes inside meant the most. Some just covered with Xs and Os, some with a memory from that year. Always a personalized declaration of love.
Alice’s recipe is long forgotten. But miles away, with children of their own, our children still live the card tradition. Now, almost in our octogenarian years, we still smile knowingly on those nights as we reach for the personalized card on our plate.
It’s NAPOWRIMO (National Poetry Writing Month) day 2! Today we’re asked to “write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.” Photo from an old photo album…note the writing at the bottom of the photo. Yep, that’s me with my brother (9 years older than me) and my mother.
Dew drops on petals. Nature’s evidence of rain or her sweet soft tears singing Cry Me a River for humanity’s deaf ear?
Written for NAPOWRIMO (National Poetry Month) day 1’s prompt. We’re to write a Tanka: an ancient Japanese poetic form composed of five lines with the syllable content as follows: 5/7/5/7/7. “It’s like a haiku that decided to keep on going!”
Photo taken last month in San Diego. “Cry Me a River” is an American song first published in 1953 and made famous in 1955 when recorded and sung by Julie London. Justin Timberlake’s 2002 hit “Cry Me a River” is not at all musically similar. London’s version is known as a torch song….listen below!
Smoke filled jazz club. Those in tune tap fingers on sticky table tops, keep time while rhythmic brushes swish on snare drum tops. Others slump in chairs, empty shot glass littered tables. I lean forward, waiting . . . for Sandburg’s oozing saxophones.
Escapists. Jazz aficionados. Musician wannabes. Tourists like me. We all sit while tired bouncer stands outside struggling to hear riffs between terse turndowns of fake IDs. Another night. Another dollar. A job’s a job. Music or not.
Written for Day 1 of NAPOWRIMO. April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write one poem, every day in April. Prompts are given daily at https://www.napowrimo.net
I’m joining my Australian friends and writing to the early bird prompt for those “whose geographic relationship with the international date line means that April 1 arrives a bit earlier than it does at National Global Poetry Writing Month HQ.” Here in Boston, it’s 9 AM on March 31 but it’s the start of April 1 in Sydney.
The early bird prompt? “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.”
NOTES: References to Dizzy Gillespie, famous jazz musician; and Carl Sandburg’s iconic poem, Jazz Fantasia. Image from Bing Create.
lillian the home poet 