NAPOWRIMO 2026

Poetry for me is . . .

lillian9 Comments

power and magic and lilt
and creativity and rhythm and feelings
and making sense with words.
Rhyme scheme, haiku, free verse
and so much more.

WTF? NGL.
Will the flying thumbs of today
have the patience to spell it all out?
I’m just asking, will poetry survive?
FAWC, I’m SMH and wondering.
You may be BWL,
but this is FR.
SRSLY, PLZ tell me
how to write a sonnet,
create a rhythmic flow
or express my POV
using this shorthand chicanery?
IKR?
Maybe like Basho,
there’s an enterprising new poet
waiting in the wings
who will add RIZZ
to this new language.
Teach us oldsters to translate.
PAW. I’m watching.
I’ve got TFW
something new is on the horizon
and the actual problem is,
I’m just really over the hill.


TRANSLATION

What the fuck? Not gonna lie.
Will the flying thumbs of today
have the patience to spell it all out?
I’m just asking, will poetry survive?
For anyone who cares,
I’m shaking my head and wondering.
You may be bursting with laughter,
but this is for real.
Seriously, please tell me
how to write a sonnet,
create a rhythmic flow
or express my point of view
using this shorthand chicanery?
I know right?
Maybe like Basho,
there’s an enterprising new poet
waiting in the wings
who will add charisma and charm
to this new language.
Teach us oldsters to translate.
Parents are watching. I’m watching.
I’ve got that feeling when
something new is on the horizon
and the actual problem is,
I’m just really over the hill.

NAPOWRIMO Day 14. Prompt today is to “write a poem that bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.” AI image generated on Bing Create.

Mary Alyce and I

lillian3 Comments

We were
two third-grade girls who often roamed
through a nearby overgrown plot of land.
In our minds, the vast Old West.
That mound of dirt about half-way in?
Boot Hill where we’d tether our steeds.
We were certain the Lone Ranger rode these parts.
We’d gallop many a mile in those days.
We’d capture bad guys with unholstered guns
using only one index finger and thumb.
After a long day of protecting Dodge City,
when the sun was about to set
we’d adjust our cowboy hats
and mosey on home
to Martin Avenue
in Waukegan,
Illinois.



NAPOWRIMO Day 13. Prompt: Write a poem about a cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny stip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal spoken speech – like a rhyme or syntax that feels old fashioned or high-tone (“mosey on home”).

True story from my childhood days. I have no idea what ever became of Mary Alyce.
AI image made from Bing Create.

She was my mother. . .

lillian6 Comments

“He went to sea in a thimble of poetry.” 
Opening line in the poem Poet Warning, by Jim Harrison.

Wynken, Blyken and Nod
my childhood friends,
lived in the well-turned pages
of mother’s Child Craft Poetry Book.
So many friends who made me smile.
The Old Lady who lived in a shoe,
Miss Muffet sitting primly on her tuffet,
Old King Cole and Jack Sprat too.

We laughed about the crazy cow
who jumped over the moon.
I lived in those pages then,
where no one yelled at anyone.
Sitting on mother’s lap
I’d hug my yellow teddy-bear
smeared with mother’s lipstick,
so at least, it always smiled at me.

When mama took out that book
I knew she’d take me
to magical places.
And for those moments
her love for me was real and clear.
So calm, so comforting,
so warm, so fun, so motherly,
in those make-believe lands.

And here I am, decades later
near to being an octogenarian,
wondering why I write poetry.
I’d forgotten this side of her,
so many other memories crowding in.
I live by the words, “no regrets”
always have and always will.
So I am thankful to remember
this other side of who she was.



NAPOWRIMO Day 12. Prompt: Write a poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

Image from an illustration in the book, which I still have. Published in 1947, the year I was born.

The Pall of Grief

lillian1 Comment

As if struck by lightning
or a slow moving deluge,
watching life’s last curtain call
aches like hell.

Grief envelops like low-lying overcast sky.
Why is the air so thick? So heavy without you.
How can I still feel your embrace?
Death takes so much more than life.

That biblical allusion, the Valley of Death.
More like a chasm with unending depth.


NAPOWRIMO Day 10. Prompt: Write your own meditation of grief. Try using Brock’s form (from his poem “Goodbye”) as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, wtih a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.

Image made on Bing Create.

Sunflower Tanka

lillian2 Comments

I stand tall and proud.
Yellow petals round my face
mirror my namesake.
I sway in summer breezes,
turning always to the sun.


NAPOWRIMO, Day 9. Prompt is to write a poem in the voice of an animal or plant. Photo taken some years ago in Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod.

Tanka: a Japanese poetic form with 5 lines in the following syllabic pattern: 5-7-5-7-7. Some say it’s a Haiku that has more to say!

Appropriating Charles Dickens

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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.

Image by cliffoa from Pixabay

Jump Roping Rhymes for the Times

lillian3 Comments

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.

Mabel’s Phone Call from Yesterday

lillian1 Comment

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.

The subject is . . .

lillian2 Comments

. . . 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.

Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay