NaPoWriMo 2024

Lillian as Lily?

lillian9 Comments

Living my life as a perennial?
Lily of the valley, that would be me.
Closest to forever
I ever would be.

Lily of the valley, that would be me,
planted beneath our family tree.
I ever would be
blooming and seeing generations to come.

Planted beneath our family tree.
Closest to forever,
blooming and seeing generations to come,
living my life as a perennial.


Written to fulfill the prompts for for day 18 of NaPoWriMo and for Meet the Bar Thursday at dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a poem where “the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else and explains why.”

Prompt for dVerse today is to write a Pantoum: a poem of any length written in quatrains and using the prescribed line directions below:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8

Last stanza:
Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza

Time in a Bottle

lillian3 Comments

When I was very young
time meant having fun.
The road ahead of me . . .
well I couldn’t see the end
much less fathom the turns,
detours, or optional routes
in the long journey to come.

A septuagenarian now,
closer to eighty than seventy,
my memories are glued in scrapbooks.
From early marriage days
to birthdays and holidays,
newspaper clippings,
and recital programs.

Wedding albums,
birth announcements.
Photo albums filled with
tent-camping vacations,
early grandparenting days,
family reunions,
scenery shots from cruising days.

There is no doubt about it, time is a glutton.
It eats up seconds, months,
and precious years. But if we could stop it,
collect special events,
and put them in a bottle,
the question is,
at what point would we do that?

What would be the ripple effect?
Which moments might be lost,
what aspects of human development
might be missed in that stutter moment
between stopping the clock and starting it again?
Can we really judge what is significant enough
to stop everyone’s else’s world to save our own?

And just as important to consider,
how many bottles would we need?


Written for NaPoWriMo day 17 where the prompt today is to choose a song, and write a poem whose title is the name of the song. Time in a Bottle was made popular by Jim Croce.

Oh Magnificent One!

lillian13 Comments

Ah, I understand now.
You never cared for the name Mount McKinley.
In your earliest years, and many years after,
native peoples addressed you as Denali.
Translation: the tall one, the great one.
They recognized your power and majesty.

How difficult for you to share a name
with an American President who never
set foot in the shadow of your magnificence.
After all,
you rule over six million acres of wild land
intersected by one road, ninety-two miles long.

You watch over taiga forest,
high alpine tundra, amazing wild life,
beautiful fauna.
You are the highest peak
in North America,
towering over magnificent landscape.

In 2016,
on the eve of its 100th anniversary,
the  National Park Service righted a wrong.
Your name was officially changed
to what it should have been all the years before.
Denali. For you are the mighty one.

William Shakespeare,
you had it all wrong in Romeo and Juliet!


Written for both Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe and for Day 16 of NaPoWriMo.

The Prompts: At dVerse, Sanaa asks us to write a poem in a conversational mode of address. In my post, I’m having a conversation with Denali. The NaPoWriMo prompt is to “write a poem in which we clearly describe an object or place and then end with a more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.“

The great mountain Denali would disagree with William Shakespeare’s line in Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”

Photo is from our trip to Alaska some years ago when we did indeed travel through Denali National Park and see this magnificent mountain!

In a Peanuts World

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In Lucy’s words:
Snoopy’s on a stamp?
What is wrong with philatelists?
Are they all dog lovers?
Do they all have beagles?
I’ll bet they all have
at least one girl in their family!
A mother, a sister, an aunt.
When you look at it that way,
they probably have more!
I’m smart.
I give sound advice for five cents a pop.
I’m confident and strong.
You’ll be calling me
Madame President some day!
So WAKE UP!
It’s Lucy for the WIN!!!

Screenshot


Written for day 15 at NaPoWriMo where we’re directed to a site that includes postage stamps from many countries and asked to pick one and write about it. Not one of my better poems…..but for day 15, it’ll have to suffice.

An Anaphora

lillian2 Comments

What if every dawn illuminated hope?
What if every house was a home?
What if words had only positive meanings?
What if gross only meant twelve dozen?
What if thirst only happened to plants?
What if everyone holding hands produced a circle of love?
What if politicians had no power over a woman’s womb?
What if simple soap and water could eliminate prejudice?
What if war was only a card game?
What if every dawn illuminated peace?

Written for NaPoWriMo day 14. The prompt is to write an anaphora: a poem of 10 lines where each line begins with the same word. Photo is from Cape Cod some years ago.

A Silly Tale

lillian2 Comments

Mr. and Mrs. Tabby Cat
sat down to have a very long chat.
They’d just returned from quite a sail
that really produced quite a tale.

They bravely decided to set afloat
in what they thought was a sturdy boat.
They left at night under a harvest moon
only to be met by a horrific typhoon.

The seas roiled and got very rough,
they soon decided they’d had enough.
Now back home, they sat in a puddle
whiskers rattled, feelings a muddle.

Boots came off, dropped with a plop.
“What can we do so our spirits don’t flop?”
“I’ll bake a pie,” said Mrs. Cat. “We’ll savor its scent
then eat, until we’re quite content.”

Tummies full, their dreams so sweet
and now this prompt is finally complete!

Image created in Bing Create.

This was quite a prompt for day 13 at NaPoWriMo! Yes, April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write a poem every day.

Today’s involved prompt: create a word list that includes 5 words related to the senses, two concrete nouns, and two verbs. Then come up with a rhyming word for each of those 7 words! See my list below. And then, of course, write a poem using all those words, trying to include the rhyme in the poem! It’s what I call a sudoku prompt!

5 sense words chosen with they rhyming word
sweet : complete         for taste
scent : content             something you smell
rough : enough           for touch
plop : flop                   a sound you can hear
puddle : muddle         something you can see

Two concrete nouns and their rhyming words
cat : chat
moon: typhoon

Two verbs and their rhyming word
sail : tale
float : boat

What’s the Real Story Behind that Image?

lillian27 Comments

Sporting a Gibson girl hairstyle,
always the first to beguile.
She artfully arched her eyebrows,
never intended for marriage vows.

Expelled from finishing school
because she’d broken many a rule.
Back at home with daddy dear,
all his money was temptingly near.

She arose very early that particular day,
absolutely not allowing any kind of delay.
Murder weighed heavily on her crafty mind,
the perfect crime, she’d cleverly designed.

Poison added to daddy’s cornflakes,
doused all over his yummy pancakes.
And wouldn’t you know, one glorious week later
she was named the estate’s sole curator.

Grinning, she thought, no need for a suitor,
and there’s no one that would possibly suit her.
Now she’s contentedly ensconced, happily rich,
fully independent and a liberated bitch.

Written for Day 10 of NaPoWriMo. Also using at OLN Thursday at dVerse.

I had so much fun with this one! 

The challenge today was to “write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing.” The image above is from The Buffalo Times, New York, June 12, 1910. I think it might be an ad for breakfast cereal?