Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo

Midday Trialogue For NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 5

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Midday Trialogue 

You follow me wherever I go
or walk in front of me.
At day’s middle, I trip over  you.
Never am I free.

I have no light inside me,
I’m your dark side. You’re my cue.
I have no choice in where I go.
I’m always here with you.

I send them both where they must go,
The power is all mine.
I am their master painter.
I keep them both in line.

Without me, neither one would be.
Shadows are borne by sun,
and the entire world would cease
if my light were done.

I grow every living thing,
body and silhouette.
So you can see that both of you
are purely in my debt.

For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 5

Two Moon Poems For dVerse Poets, Apr 2, 2024

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Moonshadows

They lie on the surface without sinking in.
All around them is darkness that does not soak into them.
The moon causes but does not shape them.
What shapes them is what you have chosen to surround yourself with.
Trees or perhaps tall horses that stand unflinching in the moonlight,
making patterns of themselves on the front of your world.
Moonshadows are not the moon.
They are just a hint of it, altered by what comes between them.
Moon shadows are not today what they were yesterday.
They change every night and pull you along with them.
They filter out light but show you precisely where it is by its absence.

 

Moon Pie

When the moon is full
and everything ripe on the vine
I must have pie

juice running from the crisp crust
vanilla ice cream clouding its surface like clouds over the moon.

I bite into the piece like a slice of the moon..
like swiss cheese on apple pie.

slice of the moon.
moon pie.

 

For dVerse Poets “Stepping Out of the World”  Photo by John McKaveney: Bright Moon.
Go HERE to see how others responded to the prompt.

Crazy Shirley Gives a Ted Talk for NaPoWriMo

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For NaPoWriMo Day Three :surreal poem. jdb image

Tummy, Dear–For NaPoWriMo Day 2, 2024

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Version 2

Tummy, Dear:

Stomach, darling, first of all I’d like to tell you how indispensable you are.  Literally, you are irreplaceable in my life.  Aside from digesting my food, you separate my waist from my chest and keep my belts from straying.  You warn me about absolutely revolting subjects as well as food and are handy for nudging ahead in tight crowds.

That said, I need to bring up one large touchy matter.  For all the good you do in this world, do you need to be quite so large?  Lately, for instance, I’ve watched you extending your territory–venturing out into one plump donut extending around my back.  This makes looking at my rear view in the mirror extremely distressing.  “I never look at myself in back,” one friend told me years ago, but darling, that had been evident for years–testified to by the tight snarl of hair in the middle of her head.

But I digress.  You’re  awfully quiet.  I’m a bit worried that I might have offended.  But, the topic of magnitude of sound being brought up, I’ll continue.  Were you aware that you have taken to communicating with me at inopportune times?  A small growl after midnight to remind me of today’s brownies hiding in their microwave storage space safe from ants and marauding family members and friends?  That’s fine…and probably the real reason you were given a voice in the first place. But that long low rumble increasing in volume in the middle of the significant pause in the dialogue of the movie playing in a hushed movie theater?  Totally unacceptable. Other times your voice is uncalled for?  At the dentist’s office and in the throes of a long passionate kiss.  In teachers’ conferences and at ladies bridge afternoons.  No. No. No.  You are not invited in this capacity.  Yes, digest the margarita, the popcorn or the rich dessert.  Comment upon it? No.

That’s it, dear stomach.  I appreciate you. I know you are vital to my health and happiness.  You provide me with countless pleasures–those pleasures increasing with the years.  But, sweet middle of mine, if you could see your way clear to not increasing at a rate commensurate with my pleasures, I would appreciate it very much.  Oh.  Talking again, I see.  And probably not listening.  Oh well.  I hear your message loud and clear.  A pint of triple chocolate extra fudge gelato in the freezer?  Well, honey, this time you are speaking my language.  No one is around.  And it is totally acceptable!

Love, Judy

The NaPoWriMo prompt Day 2 is to write a platonic love poem in the form of a letter. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.

Pieces of Toast

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Pieces of Toast

They dip into
the smooth
round yolk
of a fading dream.

They interfere,
these conscious words,
an uninvited jentacular
mob that enters

without invitation,
shedding their crumbs.
I make exception
and surrender
control,

accepting
their sharp crisp corners
into the broken centers
of my smooth round
subterranean
stanzas.

For NaPoWriMo 2029, Day 29 the prompt is to write about food personified. Piece of toast!!!
And, coincidentally, for RDP, whose prompt today is food!
Photo downloaded from Unsplash

Love Story After Rain, for NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 25 and Wordle 319

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Love Story After Rain

If I had a penny for each
of all my thoughts of you,
my dear, I’d buy us lollipops
for one hand,
yellow tulips for the other

and as the rainbows disappear,
replaced by brighter clouds,
stay near—
together
as we have been wont to do,

everybody else
disappearing
except us,
your sunshine drying
up the puddles.

Do not seek to join us,
world,
We are enough—
sticky-tongued

with pollen
clinging
to our lips and fingers,
silly grins.

Love story after rain.

For Wordle 319 the prompt words are: sunshine lollipops rainbows disappear join stay near penny together brighter cloud everybody

Also, for NaPoWriMo, the prompt challenges us to write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.

Things That Go Bump in the Night, for NaPoWriMo Day 19, 2023

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Monster Mash

When wind howls like a banshee to fill the dark night air
and monsters lurk in closets or in creakings up the stair,
when your brother knows they’re out there––these creatures he can’t see,
when nightmares wake you up at night and you have to pee
but daren’t leave your bed in fear those creatures will come “getcha”
(all those night-born monsters that come out at night to fetch ya.)
It’s times like these when all the kids form a small tribunal
and determine that their parents’ bed should be declared communal.

A scary night poem For NaPoWri Mo

Not a Love Poem for NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 16

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Not a Love Poem

This is not a love poem. I will not relate those charms
you’ve displaced from earlier boundaries to someone else’s arms.
You no longer fill my daydreams and every random thought.
I’ve cleared my mind of schemes with which it formerly was fraught.
You are not the one I reach for to fill out the night.
Not the one I quote to friends. Your wisdom I don’t cite.
I’ve ripped up all the old words and replaced them with these:
bounder and philanderer, liar, cheat and sleaze.
And now that I have located the words that better fit,
whatever is the opposite of love poem? This is it.

For NaPoWriMo today we are to write a poem that talks about what something is “not.” Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash.

Love’s Illusions for NaPoWriMo Apr 15, 2023

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Love’s Illusions

I fear that my Adonis became an Achille’s heel.
His charms were an illusion. He wasn’t the real deal.
His bombastic bearing was one I could not bear.
I plumbed his deepest psyche and found it wasn’t there.

His attempts to woo and win me were perfectly rehearsed.
We were Samson and Delilah, but the ending was reversed!
I was the one who lost my head. Thank God it was not literal,
for when he sought to wield his sword, his target was just clitoral.

My romantic Odysseys give precious little peace.
At times I’ve felt like Jason, seeking the Golden Fleece.
A female Don Quixote, with endless optimism,
If I’d met Dr. Jekyll, I’d have overlooked the schism.

I’ve felt passion ignited via heroes from the telly,
but then found out that my Clark Kent turned into Machiavelli!
Bat Man became a vampire, which was most disillusioning.
So at least for the present, I swear off romantic fusioning!

 

For the NaPoWriMo prompt today, we are to think of a person – real or imagined – who has been held out to you as an example of how to be of live, but who you have always had doubts about. Write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of the person in a way that exposes your doubts. Illustration by King Lip on Unsplash, Used with permission

Bossing Words Around

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Bossing Words Around

Poems used be as easy as falling off a log,
but I get more rickety with every single blog.
Sure, there is a wellspring of thoughts within my head,
but there’s a bit of work involved before those thoughts get read.
Sometimes they disband and fall apart before they’re pieced,
and no one ever sees these poems that end up as deceased.
So though words are my idols, whether earthy or dramatic,
I must say dealing with them is sometimes most traumatic.
If only words would step in line in meaning and in rhyme,
perhaps I would achieve my goal every single time!

Today’s prompts are log, rickety, idol, wellspring, dramatic, and disbanded.

Maybe also for NaPoWriMo?

I had a very traumatic day, actually, and when I came to the end of it and finally had time to write this poem, I found that Forgottenman had totally set up all the prompt links for me, including for NaPoWriMo.  This for me is sweeter than chocolates or flowers!  And that is the reason why I’m even posting a poem today.  oxoxox to him.