Posted by April 20 to April 25th 2021 Poems
April 16 to April 20 2021 Poems
April 10 to April 14 2021 Poems
April 6 to April 9 Cosmos’s Poetry
Cosmos 2020 April Poetry Part Two
Cosmos 2020 April Poetry Part Two
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 I am averaging about eight per day and posting four reserving four as “unpublished”.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.
This is part three covering poems written April 20th to April 25th, posted on the 26th
I am writing some other poems per day but not posting them as I need to reserve some “unpublished” poems. There will be a podcast version shortly on Spotify, Public Radio, and elsewhere. I will list all the poems I wrote in my final April posting, May 1 KST. Posted
Index
A Million Ways to Say I Love You, Writer Digest
An Angel in My View, PSH prompt
On That Date, Sijo NaPoWrMo
Justice at Last – Take That Ann Coulter
Uncle Sam Wants You PSH
Poem based on a question Writing com Dew Drop-in What is Love? Vrs one
Make Love to Me as We Used To Writers Digest
My Life Began NaPoWrMo
Free will (or not?!) Writing com Dew Drop-in
Appointment with the Grim Reaper, Writers Digest
PSH Blue Blues
Not Alone – Response to Alone by Edgar Allen Poe
When I was a Young Man, She Came to Me, Sonnet About a Shakespeare Sonnet PSH
Earth Abides, Will Humanity Prevail? Writers Digest Earth Day Poem
Ode to Kimchi NaPoWrMo
Play Around with Historical Facts If China had Discovered Europe
Writing com Dew Drop
Watching Movies with Subtitles
A Million Ways to Say I Love You, Writer Digest
Write a love poem or an anti-love poem
A Million Ways to Say I Love You
They say
There are a million ways
To say I love you
In this day and age
I could only find
In my computer’s brain
The words to say I love you
In 53 languages of the 10,000 languages
Spoken on this planet
Someday I may be able
To say the simple words
I love you
In all known languages
This will have to suffice for a start
So, I will say it
Loud, and clear
Just so you understand:
I love you (English)
Mein tumse pyar karta hoon (Hindi)
Tu Tane prem karoo chu (Gujarati)
Ame tomake bhalo bashe (Bengali)
Me tula premkarto (Marati)
Hum apse mohabbat karte hain (Urdu)
Mein thoda prem karanga (Punjabi)
Man Dooset Daram (Persian)
Ana Ahabik Yanooni (Arabic)
Havala (Hebrew)
Yongchon(Chinese)
Aloha (Hawaian)
Cinta(Indonesian)
Dangshinun sarang hayo (Korean)
Ajo (Japanese)
Kasih (Malay)
Phom tirak khun krap (Thai)
Akoay Paginghe ikou (Tagalog)
Toi yeu ong (Vietnamese)
Renmen (Creole)
Jesuis l’amour voies (French)
Liefdle (Flemish)
Estoy amor tu (Spanish)
Yosono amore tu (Italian)
Estou o amore tu (Portugese)
Dashuri (Albanian)
Maiteizam (Basque)
OBHYAM (Bulgarian)
Ljubav (Croatian)
Laska (Czech)
Jeger en kaerlighed du (Danish)
Ikben houden van jig (Dutch)
Gra (Gaelic)
Ich bin lieben tu (German)
Agape/eros (Greek)
Ami (Esperanto)
Armastama (Estonian)
Rakam (Finish)
Envagyok szeretet te (Hungarian)
Elska (Icelandic)
Ejekirin (Kurdish)
Milestiba (Latvian)
Meile (Lithuanian)
Eu dragoste tu (Romanian)
JHOBOEL Lubush (Russian)
Elske (Norweigan)
Easka (Slovak)
JBYBAB (Serbian)
Jagdan karlek du (Swedish)
KOYATH (Ukraine)
Benin sevi sen (Turkish)
Ahava (Yiddish)
An Angel in My View, reverse that Ending and Rev Up the Chiasms, PSH
The Backflip Poetry Prompt: Imagination’s Reversal Strategy
Anyone who has ever taken a creative writing course with me knows how much I dislike “prompts.” I have read very few poems written by an assignment that has the necessary duende to stand on their own feet.
However, the allusion in Cornelius Eady’s poem “Sherbet,” in The Best of Crazy Horse, to Langston Hughes’s poem about Harlem led me to consider the following prompt: end a poem with the same word that a famous poem concludes with, except you Frame it in the negative. Eaddy ends his poem with “explode,” except that it is framed as “can’t …. Explode.”
A similar approach is to consider any statement, especially at the end of a poem, for the possibility of extending into a chiasm. One obvious example is the ending of James Tate’s “The Lost Pilot.” This is not a matter of “inspiration,” I tell my students, who are almost always unfamiliar with this rhetorical construction. One must simply grow into the discipline of asking oneself if such a reversal is possible, and does it nurture the negative capability of the poem’s endeavor.
The Best of Crazy Horse: Thirty Years of Poetry and Fiction, edited by David Gauss (Fayetteville, Arkansas: The University of Arkansas Press, 1990). Eady’s poem can be found on pages 131 through 133.
An Angel in My View
When I first saw her
I saw an angel
In my view
In my dreams
I knew
From that moment forward
Someday
I would meet her
On that date
I would meet
My fate
Eight years later
She walked off a bus
Into my life
Became my wife
Alone
by
Edgar ALlen Poe
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 lov’d Ilov’d alone—
Then 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—
On That Date, Sijo NaPoWrMo
On that date, truly I met, the love of my life, became my wife
In my dreams, she appeared for years,haunting my dreams
She came to life, on that date, I met my fate
Justice at Last -Take That Ann Coulter!
Justice at Last
There is Justice in America
At long last
God Bless America
Finally, there is Justice
For the black man
For the victim
Of police abuse
For the underdog
Today the jury spoke
The murder of George Floyd
Was simply that
Murder most foul
Today in America
We begin living up
To our pledge
That we are all
Created equal
And that no one
Is above the law
That black lives
Do indeed matter
And so, I say
To Anne C
And her odious ilk
You lost
Go home
And shut up
Chauvin was not a hero
He was simply a zero
The jury saw him
For what he was
A despicable human being
Who killed a black man
Because he thought
That as a white policeman
He could get away it
He was wrong
And so today
Is a great day
As Justice comes
To America
Uncle Sam Wants You PSH
Choose 1, 2, or all 3 of these imagistic phrases to write about. Google the phrases for specific images if that will help you to get started.
Old rusty 1940s pickup truck
Uncle Sam wants YOU!
Sunset in black and white
Uncle Sam Wants You
He wants you to sail
The ocean blue
He wants you
To travel the world
He wants you
To meet local people
Then kill them
To preserve democracy
And protect our freedom
what is love? Quesiton Poem NaPoWrMo
Poets have tried for years
To answer a simple question
What is love?
Scientists believe
That Love is a delusion
Nothing but chemicals
Designed to get us
To do our
Reproductive duties
Social scientists
Think they can determine
Our compatibility
That it is all predictable
All can be nailed down
Explained away
But the reality is simply this
Love is not just a matter
Of body chemistry
Love cannot be explained
Love cannot be quantified
Love can only be experienced
Love happens when it happens
When two people meet
Their souls become entangled
Love is mysterious
Love is beyond
Our understanding
In the end
Love simply does
What love does.
Make Love to Me as We Used To Writers Digest
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Me,” 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: “Tell Me,” “Forgive Me,” and/or “You’ve Got to Believe Me.” Of course, feel free to bend the rules and have a title like “Home Sweet Ho(me)” or “Pick a (me).”
Make Love to Me as We Used To<
All I want to do
Is to have you
Make love to me
Like we used to
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Take me in your arms
and never let me go
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Hold me close
and tell me
what I want to know
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
All I want to do
Is make love to you
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Whisper to me softly
while the moon is low
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Tell me how you want it
Tell me where you want it
Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Hold me close
and tell me
what I wanna know
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Tell me now
How you like it
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Come a little closer
Make love to me
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
Based on the song by
Make Love to Me
By Jo Stafford
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-boom)
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Take me in your arms and never let me go
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Whisper to me softly while the moon is low
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Hold me close and tell me what I wanna know
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Say it to me gently, let the sweet talk flow
Come a little closer
Make love to me
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Kiss me once again before we say goodnight
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Take me in your lovin’ arms and squeeze me tight
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Put me in a mood so I can dream all night
(Ba-ba-ba-ba-boom)
Everybody’s sleeping so it’s quite all right
Come a little closer
Make love to me
My Life Began NaPoWrMo
And now for our (optional) prompt. Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of the double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “I was like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre throughout the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up. Here’s an example I came up with after seeing this video of . . . a bucket of owls.
My Life Began
My life began with a Dream
My life began with a scheme
My life began that date
My life began when I met my fate
My Life began when she came to me
My life began when she came to be
My life began when she walked into my life
My life began when she became my wife
Appointment with the Grim Reaper, Writers Digest
For today’s prompt, write an appointment poem. My first thoughts with appointments conjure up visions of doctors, dentists, and parent-teacher conferences. But there are also business meetings and romantic dates. For the most part, people are very appointment-centric, because it gives people a reason and opportunity to come together (kind of like my annual appointment to poem daily on this site).
Appointment with the Grim Reaper
Sam Adams
One day received a summons
From the Grim Reaper
The note read
“Your appointment
For final status determination (FSD)
Is confirmed for midnight Saturday
A driver
will come for you
Be prepared
Tell no one
This appointment is high
Q level classified.”
Sam got up at 11:30
And waited for the courier
While his wife slept
There was a knock on the door
He went out
The courier was dressed
In a black uniform
But did not look entirely human
He had a blank face
No hair
And horns on his head
He said
I am your driver today
After your hearing
I will drive you
Either to Hell,
Or to heaven
Or back here
If you are given a reprieve
Of your FSD
They drove off
In his black SUV
The plates read, 666 hell
They soon entered
A dark forbidding forest
The road ended
They got out
And walked
Found themselves
In a large field
They parked
And walked
To a large black tent
A demon attendant
Barked
Name and DOB
Sam Adams
10-30-195
You have an appointment
With Mr. GR
Proceed to door number 2
For you FSD
Good luck
He entered the room
Mr. GR dressed in black
Wearing cool Ray-ban glasses
Looked up from his computer
Sam Adams
He growled
You have been given a reprieve
From Hell
For five years
Your next FSD will be final
Probably Hell but maybe Heaven
That decision is beyond my pay grade
You may go back home
My driver will drive you
Go!
The driver took him home
He went to bed
Woke up convinced
It was all a dream
Later that day
A letter arrived
Appointment with GR
For final status determination
Has been confirmed for
Five years from today’s date
We advise you to get
Your affairs in order
There is no appeal
From the final FSD
PSH Blue Blues
Use color to spark your imagination. For starters, I suggest you brainstorm /green/! Consider green with envy; green around the gills; green grass of home; eco-green; and finally, all the myriad shades of green in the landscape. Use the word /green/ in your poem or imply it through your word choices. If you don’t care for green, try another color that adds poetry to the rainbow!
Here’s an example that is both implicit and explicit based upon green: a traditional 5/7/5 Haiku: Shamrocks greening now/after winter dormancy/one white bloom for luck.
Blue Blues
Once in a while
I wake up
Feeling the blues
Singing the blues
Being the blues
Then I lookout
At the bright blue sky
And the dawning sun
And at my wife
Wearing a blue shirt
And blue jeans
She smiles
The blues fly
Out the window
Joining the sky
I go for a walk
As the fog of blues
fade away in the morning sun
Not Alone – Response to Alone by Edgar Allen Poe
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite (or least favorite poem) as the source for your response. And if you’re having trouble finding a poem to respond to, here are a few that might help you generate ideas: “This World is Not Conclusion,” by Peter Gizzi, “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” by Wanda Coleman, “La Chalupa, the Boat,” by Jean Valentine, or “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm,” by Carl Phillips.
Not Alone – Response to Alone by Edgar Allen Poe
Sam Adams
Was a bit of a loner
Lost in his inner world
Filled with dreams
Nightmares
Poetic fragments
Short story ideas
Always felt like he was living
The Edgar Allen Poe poem,
“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—”
But then one day
He met the girl
Of his dreams
She walked off a bus
Into his life
Became his wife
And he was alone
No more
Free will (or not?!) Writing com Dew Drop-in
I believe in fate
I believe that we are doomed
To live out our life
As our fate unfolds
40 years ago
I met my fate
On the date
That I met my mate
For eight years
I had dreamt
Of meeting her
Then on that date
She walked out of my dreams
Into my life
Becoming my wife
That was foreordained
Nothing but the operation
Of fate
April 23—Poem based on a play (It’s Shakespeare’s birthday, but any play!) Writing com Dew Drop-in
Juliet and Romeo Romance
My life at times
Seems to be
Like a Fairy tale
Or like a play
Written by Shakespeare
My wife commented
That our love affair
Was like Juliet and Romeo
But without the tragic ending
Even Shakespeare
Could not have dreamt up
How we met
We met in a dream
45 years ago
She haunted my dreams
For eight long years
Then one day
She walked out of my dreams
Into my life
Becoming my wife
That was the date
I met my fate
I often say
That if I had heard the story
From one of my visa applicants
I would have denied the visa
For they were obviously
Either lying
Or clinically insane
I have often thought
Our story would make
A great rom-com movie
a great K Drama maybe
or a Bollywood romantic comedy
Perhaps one day
I will write it
But I am not sure
Anyone would believe
The reality of our love
When I was a young man, she came to me, Sonnet about a Shakespeare
Sonnet PSH
When I was a young man, she came to me
When I was a young man, she came to me
She came to me one day while I dreamed
I met my fate that date, our love came to be
I saw her there who are you I screamed?
She just smiled, filling my heart with love
I did not know what I should do or say
As she entered my life, became my wife
I will never forget for on that day
When she walked off that bus became real
I saw here there standing love in her eyes
I did not know what right then I should feel
I looked at her, my heart began to rise
Just like in a famous Shakespeare poem
My heart began just like a poet
Earth Will Abide, Will Humanity? Writers Digest
For today’s prompt, write a nature poem. Write about the natural world, sure. But don’t be afraid to delve into human nature or the nature of love or whichever other interpretation comes naturally to you. Poem on!
Earth Will Abide, Will Humanity?
On this earth day, world leaders
Held a climate summit
And for the first time, in four years
The US president led the meeting
Recognizing that the future
Of the earth lay in the balance
The earth will no doubt abide
Until the end of time
I wonder if humans
Will do the same?
Ode to Kimchi NaPoWrMo
In a prompt originally posted this past February, Poets & Writers directs us to an essay by Urvi Kumbhat on the use of mangoes in diasporic literature. As she discusses in her essay, mangoes have become a sort of shorthand or symbol that writers use to invoke an entire culture, country, or way of life. This has the beauty of simplicity – but also the problems of simplicity, in that you really can’t sum up culture in a single image or item, and you risk cliché if you try.
But at the same time, the “staying power” of the mango underscores the strength of metonymy in poetry. Following Poets & Writers’ prompt, today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.
Ode to Kimchi
Kimchi
The essential element
Of Korean cuisine
Like Koreans
Hot, spicy, uncompromising
Full of love
And mystery
April 24—Play around with historical facts Writing com Dew Drop-in
If China had Discovered Europe
What if China had discovered Europe>
One of the greatest mysteries of history
Is why did China close down
Their great global expedition
That in 1430 would have resulted
In China discovering Europe
And probably the Americas
The fleet was sailing around
The Cape of Good Hope
When the order
To return came down
The greatest maritime expedition
In history at that time
Turned around
The ships were decommissioned
China turned inward
And never met their destiny
I often wonder
How the world would have been different
If the Chinese had discovered Europe
Back in the day
In 1430, China was way ahead
Of Europe
By the 1600s, when the Europeans
Began knocking on their doors
Europe was racing ahead
And China was still in their
Epic century-long decline
If they had discovered Europe
Would I be writing this in Chinese?
Would China have colonized America
Would my homeland
San Francisco be a colonial outpost
Of the greater Chinese Empire?
Subtitles Writing com Dew Drop-in
Watching Movies with Subtitles
For the last 40 years
I have been watching movies
With subtitles
My wife
Is not a native speaker
And she early on decided
That when she watched
English language movies
She needed Subtitles in English or Korean
I went along
And found that subtitles
Do help
Sometimes
In the midst
Of action
It can be hard to hear
The dialogue
Subtitles help
When I watch Korean programs
I still need
English subtitles
I find I get 60 percent
Of the dialogue
Without the subtitles
Many years ago
When I was
Teaching ESL
One of my students
Had a part-time job
Writing subtitles in English
I smiled
His English was clearly
Not up to the task
But I must say English subtitles
Have gotten better
In the last few years
Nowadays when I watch Korean TV
They usually have Korean subtitles
That helps me a lot
As I can read Korean
A lot better than
I can speak it
The subtitles
Allows me
To usually follow along
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