Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves. Perhaps it’s people who tailgate when driving, or don’t put the caps back on pens after they use them. Or the raccoons who get into your garbage cans.

NaPoWriMo

Little wasp, sir
I have made a pledge
to not kill those who find themselves 
in the wrong place 
at the wrong time
I don’t believe you truly 
want to irritate me when
you smack your body
against the walls --(for attention, 
no doubt)
Or the way you make yourself
at home
Finding a noon-time spot in the sun
by the plants I need to water
An evening snooze in the crevice
of the ceiling light
If only you came down to my level
I could save you

I see the way you look at 
your outside friends between the glass
But I wonder --
Do you want to join them,
or are you plotting to lure them inside
to make my apartment a home
for other runaways?
Please, just come along now
Right into this jar here
And no one gets hurt 

This one comes to us from Stephanie Malley, who challenges us to write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s  table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature*

NaPoWriMo

A pile of words collects like
snowflakes on the sides of my brains
Right behind the earlobes 
like dangling secrets
This pile has words that
stir my center: 
Serpentine      loneliness 
Elated              belonging 

There are others thrown in
to the mix --emotions, really
And when I name them
they become real,
The feelings, valid

Unrevoir:
the uncertainty of 
seeing a loved one again
To re-encounter, to re-see,
To re-embrace 
It is all un-
Known
Stable 
Fair 
Un, un, un
Hun
Darling, 
Let’s make the negative
our song
And sing it until it has
lost all meaning
And then
we can re-write and
re-trace 
from the beginning
Again 



*I took inspiration from these two titles: Collecting words and creating a wordpool, 
Snowflakes and secrets

Today, I’d like to challenge you to stop fighting the moon. Lean in. Accept the moon. The moon just wants what’s best for you and your poems. So yes – write a poem that is about, or that involves, the moon.

NaPoWriMo

If I remembered to check-in 

with the moon each month,

would the dull ache in my back subside?

If I remembered to search for her rounded

or crescent outline in the sky,

would I feel the day was whole? 

For some the moon is their 

god, goddess, queen

She recharges something deep 

inside them

And unlike other gods, we can see

Her with our own naked eyes

save the nights when she

hides–

The moon gets asked a lot

as the eternal, voiceless audience she is

It’s only fair she takes a respite

behind the trees and the fog

Or, when she’s so slim she simply

blends into the darkness,

a mere tear in the tented night sky

as if she never existed at all

And without her

our prayers–our poems–

would drift into the galaxy

never ever being heard

Because it’s Friday, today I’d like you to relax with the rather silly form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each line should be short, and should aim to have two or three stressed syllables. And the lines should rhyme. You just rhyme the same sound until you get tired of it, and then move on to another sound.

NaPoWriMo

My mind is blank 

I could really use a spank

Or I suppose I could do a plank

But the oven is almost ready

And my limbs are unsteady

It’s no good reason

I’ve been a bit lost this season 

Waiting for life to happen

Instead of just living

Today’s prompt comes to us from Juan Martinez. It asks you to think about a small habit you picked up from one of your parents, and then to write a piece that explores an early memory of your parent engaged in that habit, before shifting into writing about yourself engaging in the same habit.

NaPoWriMo

Like cats, we’d hiss and bite.

Expel swear words like scratches

to the face.

I never had more hatred for anyone

or anything in my entire life,

not even the end table that consistently

stubbed my toe. 

And before my heat could ever subside

she wanted to lick the wounds.

As a child, as an adolescent 

I was resistant to this.

I wanted it to fester,

for the anger to float in the air

so I didn’t have to expend energy on

a math test

or my broken heart.

But her hatred wasn’t as strong

as its lifelong opponent.

As I grew up I swore to remain

stubborn

But my mother’s kiss-and-make-up-quick

routine was a bandage I placed

eagerly on my own intimate relationship.

A maternal inheritance 

that can extinguish a flame.

Not forever.

I couldn’t bear that. 

The heat will still rise

and I will still respond

but it will not consume me.

That is my birthright. 

Today’s prompt comes from the Instagram account of Sundress Publications, which posts a writing prompt every day, all year long. This one is short and sweet: write a poem in the form of a news article you wish* would come out tomorrow

NaPoWriMo

How would you like to have more time in your day?

Scientists have discovered a drug

to keep you awake for 24/7 

without side effects. 

More time for that project !

More time to have sex !

More time to create, produce, 

Do, do, do ! ! ! 

Who needs sleep?

Rest?

Rejuvenation?

Why waste a moment cuddled

under warm blankets or curved in

the arms of a lover?

There are books to write,

diseases to fight,

planets to claim,

oceans to explore. 

If you even just wink,

it will all be missed.

But now,

you don’t have to choose. 

Don’t sleep on it.

Just wake up. 

*I don’t actually wish this article to come out!

Finally, our prompt (optional, as always). I’m calling this one “Past and Future.” This prompt challenges you to write a poem using at least one word/concept/idea from each of two specialty dictionaries: Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary and the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

NaPoWriMo

Some have called me

minor, lesser, little

But you may call me Ursa.

I was once a skybound braintape:

I carried the contents of man’s

mind so that he may voyage

the seas and reach safe ground.

Now, as the world has broadened

wide and far

And grown brighter than even my

infamous asterism,

I search for my humanity. 

While Earth creates her new stories,

I dig up my past:

a young girl, a nymph, who nurtured the one 

who gifted me this life –one I did not choose. 

My name was Cynosura, earth-born never bound,

a chrononaut, and storykeeper of the North. 

It is time I write a new tale of a liminal life

between dirt and stardust, one in which I

dip my tail into something expansive,

something big

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters. The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person. The second part should be the letter you receive in response.

NaPoWriMo

Dear Shirley, 

How is it that you take the darkness,

stuff it into a cake, and eat it piece

by piece until it is so sweet you forget

the ingredients were harvested from 

the poisonous woods?

You give voices to the voiceless, the voicelost.

I feel chills at my bones as if

you were reading my x-ray.

But I do not feel exposed, 

I feel seen. 

I also feel as though I’m sinking. 

So tell me, Shirley, what is your true profession? 

                                             -melancholic galaxies  

 

Dear  “melancholic galaxies,”

For one so anonymous you are

Quite upfront.

I can tell you think you know me.

And if I didn’t know any better,

I’d say you were accusing me of witchcraft. 

You ask to know my profession, but

What you really want is to know my soul. 

I do not give away such power to strangers.

 

 P.S. I’ve never baked a damn cake in my life. 

                                                           -Shirley J. 

First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be a favorite song of yours, or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about your notes making sense. Next, rifle through the objects in your junk drawer – or wherever you keep loose odds and ends that don’t have a place otherwise… On a separate page from your song-notes page, write about the objects in the drawer, for as long as you care to. Now, bring your two pages of notes together and write a poem that weaves together your ideas and observations from both pages.*

NaPoWriMo

Consumerism tells me what I need:

Fortune, plastic convenience, a worryless world.

But what if I am depleting like

my cellphone that *needs* to be replaced 

because it was not designed to last.

I am designed for escape,

a building up of restorative journeys,

culminating in ten swords piercing my back — 

The tarot tells me I am afflicted, desolate 

but I am not an envelope to be stamped

and mailed away,

or an empty pill bottle to be prescribed.

It is not maintenance I need,

It is recollecting a short life lived;

reusing the broken words in my head to 

reform the way I move among the trees;

rewilding the scenery before me,

consuming it whole, bite by bite,

free of charge,

and in fear of a groundless future

 

*I chose the song Cough Syrup by Young the Giant. Some of the items in my drawer included: a tarot card deck, stamps, checks, several empty containers including an empty pill bottle, a plastic fork. 

Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character.

NaPoWriMo

Keep couples apart 
Remind them to listen to the birds 
right outside their window 

Kill the vulnerable 
Demonstrate kindness 

Make them cry
Creative pursuits, dole some out 

Hoard all the toilet paper 
Cut away their breath

Compel them to think of a new world

If I get everything else done, 
Give them a gift --that green currency they like, 
another day with a loved one, 
one last favorite moment from before

But I really have so much to do --