Posted by Poetry from The Mad Cosmos
2021 Poetry
By
Jake Cosmos Aller
April 2021 Poetry Contest
Cosmos 2020 April Poetry Part Two
Cosmos’s 2020 April Poetry Part One
2017 April Poems
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Commentary
This is the fifth and perhaps final time I am doing the April poetry challenge. The goal is to write at least one poem per day. I am averaging about eight per day and posting four reserving four as “unpublished”. I am basing the poems on prompts from “Writing com Dew Drop Inn”, “Writers Digest”, “Poetry Superhighway” and “NaPoWrMo” prompt daily prompts and on “Pensively Prompt’ et all daily prompts. I am combining prompts where possible. I will post these here in batches every five days or so.. Each poem will have an image that helped inspired the poem. All postings will be podcasted a few days later on Spotify and elsewhere. Each posting will be a separate posting, but the index will be cumulative. The final posting will have the complete list of all poems written whether posted or not. Comments welcome but please keep it civil. Some of my poetry tends to be a bit “in your face” or “political” from a “leftwing perspective.” If it offends you in some way, please accept my apologies in advance. That is never my intent.
First Posting April 1 To April 5
April 1
Warm Up Poem Every Day I Turn on My Computer “Writers Digest”
Coffee Pot Blues “Poetry Superhighway Prompt” Prompt
Who Is Jake Cosmos Aller? “Writer’s Digest” Prompt
“Good Golly Miss Molly,” A Dew-Drop A Day in April, “Writing com Dew Drop Inn”
“Sam Adams Wakes Up Dead “NaPoWrMo” prompt Poetry
April 2
Surprise/Haiku Writing Com Dew Drop In
Modern connections Writers digest prompt
Life as an Expat In Korea – Poetry Superhighway prompt
Falling in Love with My Dream Girl
The Future is Here writers digest
April 3
Superman On Mars Napowrmo Cross Post Writer Digest April 4th!
Cat People Cross Post Weather Poem Writing Com April 4th Prompt
Mirror Poem Pensively Cross Post Poetry Superhighway
April 4
Errors in My Life
Little Houses on The Hill Side
Alone NaPoWrMo prompt
April 5
The First Time I Saw Her -writer digest
Driving the world in my Lexus Poetry Superhighway
Potential Mistake Writers Digest Dew Drop In Prompt
Poetry From the Visa Line Poetry Superhighway
“Writer’s Digest” Prompt
“Writer’s Digest”: for today’s prompt, write a warm-up poem. The warm-up could be related to sports, like warming up before a baseball game or track race. Or it could be about a computer warming up, the weather warming up, or even a relationship warming up.
I hope everyone is warmed up for some major poeming in April
Every Day I Turn on My Computer
Every day I turn
On my computer
And pray
That everything will work right
Usually, I encounter numerous errors
Non-response errors
Spinning blue balls
Computer thinking
How can I mess
With my master’a head errors
Refusing
To open documents
Mysterious haiku-like error messages
2hat makes sense only to computer geeks
From the planet Mrs8
Saying the file is open
And blocked for use
By the administrator
But I am the
Damn administrator!
And I did not block the document
Or can’t open the document
Due to a dialogue box
Close the dialogue box
To proceed
But there is no dialogue box
Just more lies
From my computer
Designed to drive me
Quite mad
So sad
So bad
Want to shoot my computer
Put it out of its mystery
Joining the other five dead
Computers in my house
Am I a computer serial killer?
Perhaps that is why
Do they refuse to work for me?
Are they afraid of me?
Sometimes they say
They can’t find the document
Which just kicked me out of
Five minutes ago
Or the computer says
It can’t save a document
With the name of an open document
But I just saved the open document
Under the same name
Five minutes ago
The latest trick
the change case function
is now working
on a random basis
some times it takes ten tries
before it will work
or not
Usually
After half an hour
These errors recede
But I often have to reboot
The computer
Giving it the old kick up the head
Of a stubborn mule treatment
Before it gets to the point
And gets to work
To give Microsoft some credit
These errors are less frequent
Down to 40% of the time
When I first open a document
Down from 90% error rates
Success in a way
I complained to Microsoft
Sent them a nice frown message
But I would be shocked
If they ever respond
Just not something
That they would do
Part of their “superior”
Listen to their customer
Customer Friendly service
No doubt
Friday, April 2
For posting
“Poetry Superhighway Prompt” Prompt
Pick an object where you live and write a poem in the voice of that object describing how they spent this last year, during the pandemic. Think about “what I did last summer” type of essays you may have written in school. How did the events of the past year impact this object? Are there any aspects of the past year that the object particularly liked or disliked, and if so why? What does the object think about you, and your behavior over the past year? Feel free to use humor.
Coffee Pot Blues
The coffee pot sighed
He was getting so tired
Of the whole Covid thing
Every morning his master
Would make himself two cups of coffee
Using him to make the coffee
The worst thing
About this covid thing
It keeps them home
For almost one and half years
He wanted them to just leave
So, he could have
Some peace
And not have to work
Every damn day
As their mechanical slave
But did they ask for his opinion
They most certainly not
Much to his dismay
(click here to check out all the 2021 April prompts.)
For today’s prompt, write an introductory poem. Introduce yourself, introduce a friend, or introduce a stranger. If you don’t wish to introduce yourself, consider writing a persona poem (a poem in which you write from someone else’s point of view like Emily Dickinson or a bumblebee). Of course, you could also introduce a problem, solution, or just a situation. Have fun with it!
Who Is Jake Cosmos Aller?
Who is Jake Cosmos Aller?
You asked me
Who am I?
And thanks for asking me
I am Jake Cosmos Aller
The only one
65 years old
Retired from the government service
Living in Korea
Grew up in Berkeley, California
Lived all over the world
Did so many things
And now I am a published writer
But what is more important
Is this
When I was a young man
I met and married
the girl of my dreams
She walked out of my dreams
Into my life almost 40 years ago
That was the date
I met my fate
And started my life
With the love of my life
Who became my wife?
In the end
That is all that matters
My friends.
Folly in Rhyme (some kind of folly in some kind of rhyme, subtle or overt)
Good Golly, Miss Molly
Good golly,
Miss molly
What a bit of folly
Let’s be jolly
Have a red-hot tamale
“NaPoWrMo” Prompt
And without further ado, our daily prompt (optional, as always)! Sometimes, writing poetry is a matter of getting outside of your head, and learning to see the world in a new way. To an extent, you have to “derange” yourself – make the world strange and see it as a stranger might. To help you do that, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by this animated version of “seductive fantasy” by Sun Ra and his Orchestra. If you don’t feel after watching it a little bit like the top of your head’s been taken off, and your thoughts are given a good stir – well, maybe you are already living in a state of heightened poetic awareness!
Sam Adams Woke Up Dead
He had met a strange man
In a strange bar, in a strange land
The man told him
Beware, today is the date
You will meet your fate
Sam Adams drank too much
Twenty drinks too sober
Drank until he died
Found himself in a huge room
With hundreds of people milling about
The hangover from h … pounding his head
Sam Adams groans,
Shouting out
Where am I?
“In limbo, my friend, in limbo”
Growled, Mr. GR, the grim reaper
Dressed in a sharp, expensive, tailored black suit
Wearing cool sunglasses
State your name
Sam Adams
Hmm
My Dude, my man, bro
Good news for you
Not for me
There may be a mistake
But what the hey,
The records are never fake
Not yet the date
For you to meet your fate
Go back to your mate
He found himself
Home with his wife
The love of his long life
Wondering until late
If it had happened?
What was his fate?
He asked her
Did I go out last night?
What, no you’ve been here
He explained what had happened
She said it was just a bad dream
Covid fears had kept them home
The phone rang
It was the man from the bar
Did you have an interesting night?
Oh well, Mr. GR comes for us all
Soon you will meet your fate
But not on this date
Hey lets go out
For a drink again
Sam Adams demured
Did not trust
His new drinking buddy
The White Rabbit Beckons Sam Adams – “NaPoWrMo Prompt”
One morning
After a night of drinking
And drug binging
Sam Adams woke up
Went for a walk
To clear his pounding head
He saw a white rabbit
Who said to Sam
” Join me Good, Sir
And we will go
On a journey
Of your life
Follow me down
The rabbit holes
Of life
Take this first he said
It will cure your hangover
And allow you to enter
An alternative reality”
Sam took the pill
Washed it down
With a beer
And disappeared
Into wonderland
Never to be seen again
Saturday, April 2, 2021
‘Writer’s Digest Prompt” to write a “Communication” Poem
Modern Communication
In this day of social distancing
We all have thousands
Of virtual friends
Facebook friends, social media fans
Zoom buddies and the like
But few people
Have real old-fashioned friends
And in the new social distancing world
Meeting people the old-fashioned way
Is becoming rarer and rarer
As people develop their virtual friends
Real live friends are fewer and fewer
We are so hyper-connected
Yet many people are so alone
In their hearts
Starting at their smartphones
Connecting but not connecting
“Writing com Dew Drop Inn” Prompt, Surprise/haiku
Cats they offer us
Plenty of things to ponder
We post videos
“NaPoWrMo” prompt cross-post writer digest April 4th!
Personal universe deck
(Michael McClure)
Your universe exemplified in 100 words.
Rules:
These words are to exemplify your past, present, and (ideally) your future.
The words must sound good together, even beautiful, to you.
Your good side and bad side must be reflected.
You can make up a word or two if you have feelings that current words can’t express.
Use concrete words.
Words should be root words, no words ending in “ing,” “ly” or “yes.” No plural words. Reduce words to their most concrete, original, basic grammatical structure.
Use specific words, not categories. Beef instead of meat. Lily instead of the flower.
Divide 80 of the 100 words evenly among sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, sixteen each. (to achieve derangement of the senses, of which Rimbaud spoke.)
Use free association to determine the words.
Use ten words of movement. Again, no “ing” words.
Elect the words in isolation, preferably alone, with no distractions, in candlelight. Approximate a meditative state. Even the cat must not bother you.
One or two words will be parts of the body. It does not have to be your body. It can be the body of a mother or lover.
Include some words for personal heroes or sheroes, places in the universe, invented words, times of night or day, symbolic signs like astrological signs, totemic animals, birds, and plants, and only one abstraction. What is the most significant abstraction in your life? You should not brood on it; you should possibly take the first answer that comes into your head. Patriotism, prayer, and thriftiness are three examples.
If the deck is done correctly, you will get a little high from it.
Get at least 50 three-by-five index cards.
Write each word in big letters on one side of each card. Each side of each of the fifty cards should end up with a word.
Use the cards to play games, make conversations, tell jokes, make poems.
Comment: 100 words were too much to deal with, so I chose 50 words. I did not have index cards, so I did it on my computer. Here is my result. It was an interesting project. End Comment
Sight
Light
Dark
Dim
Bright
Sun
Moon
Red
Blue
Sounds
Loud
Soft
Shout
Whispers
Talk
Noise
Ring
Yell
Taste
Sweet
Sour
Bitter
Medicine
Coffee
Tea
Beef
Chicken
Smell
Fragrance
Rose
Lavender
Pepermint
Garlic
Butter
Eggs
Fish
Movement
Run
Walk
Stretch
Yoga
Stand
Sit
Fly
Swim
Heroes
Superman
Places in the cosmos
Mars
Invented word
Scumbagary
Totemic animals
Wolf
Astrological sign
Scorpio
Time of day
dawn
Bird
Parakeet
Plant
Peppermint
Abstract word
Love
Superman on Mars Poem
Superman one day
In the early dawn
Dismayed by the scumbagery
Of the people of the earth
Decided to fly to mars
He took with him
Super wolf
and super parakeet
His pets from krypton
It was his birthday
He was a Scorpio
He set up camp
Drank peppermint tea
And contemplated
The power of love
Thinking of Lois lane
And the humans
He had learned to love
Cat People Cross-post Weather Poem “Writing Com Dew Drop Inn” April 4th prompt
The cat people
Go out in bad weather
To make sure
That the wild cats
Are fed and taken care of
The cats respond
With love and affection
Stepping out of the cold rain
April 3, 2021: “Poetry Superhighway Prompt”/Pensively Prompt Use Homophone words
Write a mirror/selfie poem. See “mirror” by Sylvia Plath.
Our homophones this week are:
Err -to make a mistake
Heir – one who will inherit
and
Base – the bottom support for anything
Bass – the lowest musical pitch or range
In my life
I have many a number
Of errors
I was heir
To a rich family tradition
Prominent father
A unique one of a kind mother
The biggest error I made
Was to not get into politics
I had a base of sorts
In Berkeley, my hometown
I never did
The other error
Was that I never could sing
Carry a tune
I was a bass singer
Growling “Howling Wolf”
Kind of voice
But “Oberlin Conservatory”
Had a requirement
That all musicians
Could sing and keep
A tune
Because I made an error
In that simple task
I failed my first year
Of college
Our daily optional prompt. Poetry often takes us to strange places – to feelings and actions that are hard to express except through the medium of a poem. To the “liminal,” in other words – a place or sensation that exists at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold, neither one thing nor the other, but something betwixt and between.
In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @spaceliminalbot and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces. ll you pick the empty mall food court? The vending machine near the back entrance to the high school gym? The swimming pool at what seems to be M.Sc. Escher’s alpine retreat? No matter what neglected or eerie space you choose, I hope its oddness tugs at the place in your mind and heart where poems are made.
Little Houses on The Hill-Side
Little houses
On the hill-side
Filled with lonely people
Lost in their virtual world
Connecting with millions
Of virtual friends around the world
Ignoring the people
Right down the street
Everyone lost in cyberspace
While all around them
People are lonely, hurting
And need real people
But no one cares
Everyone stays at home
Turning out the chaos outside
April 4
“NaPoWrMo” prompt prompt
And now, for today’s (optional) prompt. In the world of well-known poems, maybe there’s no gem quite so hoary as Robert frost’s “the road not taken.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about your road not taken – about a choice of yours that has “made all the difference,” and what might have happened had you made a different choice.
Falling in Love with My Deam Woman
When I was a young man
I dreamt of meeting a woman
For eight years she haunted my dreams
Then I met her in Korea
Where I was teaching
For the U.S. Army
After finishing the peace corps
I had a choice
Follow my heart
Seize the moment
Be with her
Or leave Korea
Within a month
To go to graduate school
I decided to postpone
My graduate school
For one year
Got a deferred admission
And joined the woman
Of my dreams
Thinking back
I had no real choice
But to choose to walk
The path of life
With my dream girl
And that has made
All the difference
In the world
“Writer’s Digest”
For today’s prompt, I want you to answer the question, “what does the future hold?” then, make your answer the title of your poem and write your poem. Your answer could a general idea about the future like “robots will rule the world” or more personal things like “veggie pizza and sweet tea.” even if it’s not in your title, I’m hopeful the future holds a lot more poeming.
The future is here
They say we live in an sf world
Everyday sf stories become real
Ai proliferating
Robots cooks, robot workers,
Soon robot maids, robot drivers
Yet our politics
Fighting the battles
Of the past
With the challenges
Of the future
Overwhelming us all
Where it ends
My friends are anyone guess
All I have is questions
Will the promise
Of technological marvels
Benefiting us all come to the past
Or will it lead to a world
Where the powerful
Control the technology
Will a real ai be a god-like figure
Will humanity become nothing
But slaves to the ai supermini
That may be the future
Coming at us
The future is here
I don’t know
Whether to fear
The future or embrace it
April 5
“Poetry Superhighway Prompt” Imagine you have made your life in another country. What excited you most? Which aspect of that new life was the most difficult to conquer?
Life as A Retired Ex-Pat in Korea
Korea has become a second home
For me
I have in-laws
And some old friends
It is a tough place
For foreigners
I will always be an outsider
The language is hard
I still struggle daily
But it is an interesting dynamic place
The food is mostly outstanding
And I am now addicted to k drama
And my daily kimchi fix
There were a lot of things to do
Before the covid nightmare
Let to a partial shut down
in the end, I feel safer here
Than in the gun-crazed,
At times violent
Covid pandemic
Spreading America
I still love in my heart,
But for now
I am here
In my second home
April 6th
“Pensively Prompt ‘cross-post PSH prompt
They say smell triggers memories better than any other sense. But sometimes you’ll hear a song that brings you back to your teenage years or see a park that reminds you of your childhood.
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE: Choose either sight, sound, or smell, and write a memory it triggers in you.
Driving the World in My Lexus
We have had a Lexus
For several years
A black ES350
We bought it at an auction
Drove all over the world
In that car
With my lovely wife
By my side
Drove across Spain
Drove across the country
10 thousand miles
31 states
Drove around Korea
Where we now live
I love my Lexus
But more importantly
Love my wife
The love of my life
She is always there
Everywhere we go
In this wide world
The First Time I Saw Her “Writers Digest”
Happy Monday! Let’s put the pedal to the metal and keep poeming.
(click here to check out all the 2021 April prompts.)
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “the first (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “the first kiss,” “the first day of the month,” and/or “the first time I rode a bike” (which, by the way, ended with me in a fence because we didn’t cover how to brake).
The First Time I Saw Her
When did I first see my wife?
The love of my life
When did we meet?
Was it when I first dreamt?
Of her in 1974?
Was it when she walked
Off a bus into my life
In 1982?
Does it matter
When I first saw her?
I knew I had met my fate
On that date
Later she became my mate
“NaPoWrMo” prompt alone
This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “w,” and the third line with “a.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary’s stylist’s “we think we do not have medieval eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapiro’s “Pennsylvania.”
No Longer Alone from the First Moment
From the first moment
At that date
At that place
Met my fate
Fate intervened in my wife
Meeting her changed my life
All of it
That was the date
On which I met my fate
The mystery which binds me still—
From that moment forward
From that date forever
From then to now
We have been together
Onward we fall in love
Alone based on Edgar Allen Poe’s Alone
From childhood’s hour, I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source, I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I loved—I loved alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’s
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—
Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/alone-by-edgar-allan-poe
“Writing com Dew Drop-In” “- April 5—Potential Mistake
There have been many times
In my life
When I think back
On the past
Thinking that was a mistake
Or a potential mistake
If I had gone another path
But in the end
It does matter
The past is the past
The future is not yet here
All we have is today
We should find
Love and happiness
It is all around us
Waiting for us
To discover
April 6th Command or Challenge “Writing com Dew Drop in Prompt
Challenges of Being Me
I have had many challenges
In my life
It is not easy being me
For you see
I am a rather unique person
I see things my way
And well the challenge
This has always been
How to navigate my way
Through the world
Keeping to my unique vision
Of the way, things ought to be
The One Thing I Would Never Change Writer Digest Change, Don’t Change Poem Prompt
If I could go back in time
And change the past
Knowing what I know now
There are many things I would change
But there is one thing I would not have changed
Being in Korea in September 1982
When I met my wife
For you see
I had been dreaming
Of meeting her
Since that fateful day
I first fell in love
With her in my dreams
In 1974
So, I had a date
With fate
When she came to me
And became my mate
The Poetry of the visa Line Poetry Superhighway Prompt
“Use poetry to merge creativity and content.” – Kenny White.
This year, I have seen examples where data science, C++ programming language have been expressed in poetry. Which area of your expertise could you express in poetry?
Examples –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLv624w1U14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx_Tjp9WIII&t=470s
Poems from the Visa Line
I worked for many years
As a diplomat
All over the world
I roamed
Representing the U.S.G
Along the way
It inspired some poetry
Some published
Some not
Being a visa officer
Was always something
That was soul-draining
So difficult
That it would be hard
To see the beauty
In it
But I found moments
In which I saw
Some poetic gems
After all, I spent hours
Every day
Listening to hundreds
Of stories
Some of the truth
Some of them not
Most were quite interesting
But I had two minutes
To decide and move on
Now that I am retired
Perhaps I will write
Some more poetry
From the visa line
To be Contiuned in Part Two Poems for April 6 to April 10th
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