Onefer

Starting National Poetry Writing Month small (and unobservant of any prompts), just hoping to get through the month one poem at a time. 

No guarantees.

Reluctance Senryu

even though I could
easily (fill in the blank)
most days I don’t dare

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NaPoWriMo 
04.01.2023
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NAPO2023

Shhhh. . .

One thing I definitely DON’T want to talk about is the fact that I had two (2!) poems rejected by this otherwise outstanding issue of Free The Verse, with its “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” theme, ably edited by Zara Shams Kassem.

I would have been in some fine company, IF the editor had found me worthy, but, umm…nope.

Oh well.  Onward, right?

Here’s one of the rejects:

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Modern Medicine

He calls the pill guy and the pill guy
has the pill guy’s aide call him back
and the pill guy’s aide tells him to
call the doctor’s office and
tell the doctor’s answering machine
to call the pill guy back
and to leave a message
on the pill guy’s answering machine
to let him know that the doctor’s sure
it’s okay to give him some pills
or to give him some other pills instead
and the next thing he knows
the pill guy calls him back and
—Lo and Behold—
PILLS !!

No sweat.
Easy Peasy, right?

A couple days later, the mail guy
delivers indecipherable papers
from the insurance guy…

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Read everybody else’s work here:
Free The Verse Issue #5
I Don’t Want To Talk About It  ~

FREE THE VERSE

Squirrel

(Hey, ya gotta eat, right?)

But I… if I…
If only… if, maybe…
Ummmmm…  

No.
I know this much:
I don’t;
haven’t. 
Yet.

Won’t.
Or…

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dVerse Poets Pub
Open Link Night
OLN #335  ~
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dverse-nightime-final

The Lovely Miss X

Ms X

He knows he should pay attention,
….. maintain some degree of focus.
Distraction’s his second nature:
….. (he ought to just keep his eyes closed).
She’s his hottest first date ever
….. but he just can’t recall her name.

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Wednesday Sijo Poetry
03.29.2023 – Sijo #55
Distraction  ~
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Realization

VT Hillside

I remember:
I stood out back
on the green sea
and thought
“If anything’s a weed here,
it’s me.”

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dVerse Poets Pub
Tuesday Poetics Challenge
Weed  ~
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dverse-nightime-final

Vowel Movement

So You Say
(Before The Poetry Reading)

Everybody knows now
if bells paid the bills
they’d want their 
true sound found:

they’d want their
ding-a-ling-a-ling 
to be ding-a-ling-a-ling
not just dung along a lung.

Vowels can be fickle: 
A can be ā as in Hāte
or å as in Håt
but 
A should never be
Uh as in hut 
(which would, in fact,
leave fact fucked).

You get the idea
so shoot the hill up;
don’t mar your sheets
with shit; don’t let your
let your lips lapse.

Don’t make the words weird.

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Tuesday Twiglet #318
bells like clear vowels  ~
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twiglet

Direct Pressure

It’s Haibun Monday again, and American Haikai Master Frank J Tassone asks us to join him at the dVerse Poets Pub and create/share a Haibun (prose/haiku combo) incorporating some reference to ‘Pressure’

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Direct Pressure

He tries to remember his training, even though it’s probably already too late. He peels off his sweatshirt, gathers it into a balled-up mass, kneels down beside her and attempts to apply direct pressure to the wound. She’s on her back, so it’s not immediately apparent that the exit wound is six times larger than the point of entry he’s trying to plug. He wonders what they’ll say to her mother.

the next bullet’s his
facing the future alone
—rejected lover—

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dVerse Poets Pub
Haibun Monday
Pressure  ~
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dverse-nightime-final

Almost. . .

Just about a decade old & originally published online at the now-defunct Every Day Poets, I’m offering up this rerun in response to today’s Promote Yourself Monday at the Go Dog Go Café: 

(Special nod to the E E Cummings poem, in just-, from which I’ve borrowed the adjectival ‘mud-luscious’)

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Not Quite Mud-Luscious Yet

This latest snow, I hope, will also be
the last.
             I wait for white to fade,
for drifts to drift away, for warmer
nights and longer days.
                                       I pray
for crocuses to come and go,
or an April shower of tulip blooms
and lollipop roses; for anything
that shows us that the sun is less
removed, is less remote.
                                            I hope
these bloomless snowy days are past,
this latest snow will also be —at last—
the last.

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Go Dog Go Café
Promote Yourself Monday

promote-yourself-mon

Fitmess

My daily workout:
650 quick steps 
to the driveway’s end

check out the friggin mailbox
ignore the contents
let it simmer one more day.

Walk back home to the porch swing.
1300 steps.
Daily exercise complete.

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Sammi Cox Weekend Writing Prompt #304
03.25.2023 – 37 Words
Mail  ~
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COX MAIL

Shadormatorium

Quitting Time

Housekeeper?
I can’t keep this house.
(I’m feeling 
swept away).
Housework doesn’t work for me
(Vacuum cleaners suck.)

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dVerse Poets Pub
Meeting The Bar 02.23.23
Word Play  ~
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dverse-nightime-final