Posted by April Poetry Madness 2024 April 15 to April 2024
This is the third batch of my April Poetry Madness challenge poems, (for April 15 to April 20), following daily prompts supplied by Poetry Superhighway, Writer’s Digest, Writing Com Dew Drop Inn, and NaPoWriMo. I am not posting any more PSH poems as I need to keep some unpublished for future submissions.
I have included the poem, the prompt, and occasionally a bonus poem or comment or two. I am also cross-posting this on All Poetry, Blog Lovin, Cosmos Funnel, Facebook, Fan Story, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, Wattpad, Writer’s Digest, Writing Com, and Twitter. This is probably my last time doing this. Just getting too old to keep up.
You can find my previous entries here:
April 1 to April 6 Poems 2024 Poetry Madness
April Poetry Madness 2024 April 7 to April 14
Writers Digest April 2023 Poems
Comments are welcomed but keep it civil.
Part One
April 1
PSH Ode to Durian
WD Optimistic Letourneau
WC Dew Drop Inn
Easter Bunny -warm up March 31
Sarang pabo love fool
NaPoWrMo Springtime Flowers Blooming Love
April 2
PSH The Words of the Year 1955 PSH
WD Sad and happy days
WC Dew Drop Inn
NaPoWrMo Cage
NaPoWrMo It Can’t Happen Here
April 3
Berkeley Mad Pyscotic Pineapple Burns Sonnet
PSH 2 AI Version Traditional Sonnet
WD My Musical Street
WC Dew Drop Inn
NaPoWrMo Ode to Coffee
April 4, 2024
PSH The Cosmic Dog from Goa
WD Don’t Make a Mistake Vote for Jake
WC Ending Daily Shaving in Retirement
NaPoWrMo The Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
AV version The Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
April 5, 2024
PSH Love Expressed Through Food
WD Tell Me No Lies
WC Make Baseball Great Again!
NaPoWrMo Resurrecting the Dodo Bird
April 6
PSH Cosmic Dog From Goa
WD Meeting My Fate Minimum Poem
WC Daily Ritual Drinks
NaPoWrMo Only In SF
Part Two
April 7
PSH Visiting My Father’s Grave
Bonus: Yakima Dessert Blues
WD Meeting My Fate Minimum Poem
WC Why Trump?
NaPoWrMo Planetary Nut Re-Configuration Program
April 8
PSH Area Codes
WD My Lucky Number
WC Economic Perception Delay
NaPoWrMo Wish You Were Here
April 9
PSH Dearly Beloved
WD the Major Event of My Life
WC Death to All Humans
NaPoWrMo My Dysfunctional Family
April 10
PSH You Can’t Write That!
WD Better Political Discourse Needed
WC Green Trees Don’t Make It
AI Bing Version
NaPoWrMo Ode to My Coffee Pot
April 11
PSH Quote Poem About 9-11
WD Crazy Love Nonet
WC April 11—Eclipse/d two Lunatic Lune Poems about the Eclipse
NaPoWrMo Tribute to John Dean
April 12
PSH Subway Journey
WD Old Man Lost In His Old Memories
WC Civil War 2.0
NaPoWrMo 11 One Liners
April 13
PSH First Time to Eat Kimchi
WD Five Trumpian Humor Poetic Fragments
WC April 13—Discovery Shooting Down the Alien Visitors
NaPoWrMo Saga of Big Daddy
April 14
PSH 99 Haiku TBC
WD life worth Living
WC Tech Peeves
NaPoWrMo Shy Man Fishing
Part Three -This Posting
Not posting PSH saving them as “unpublished)
Writer Digest Poems
April 15 New Middle Poem Middle Of Political Silly Season In The U.S. Trigger Warning Mild Political Rant
April 16 Trump Shardona Poem
April 17 New Tuesday prompt write a Shadorma poem about recent tech layoffs CEO To Labor Units of Production Shardona – You are Not Wanted
April 18 WD pessimistic Poem -not the Way to Fire People New Rules in the New Corporation World
April 19 Emotion Poem -fears of falling
April 20 The circus bear escapes
Bear in collar hears praise while rambling
alt. bonus poem Met And Married My Dream Lady
writing com Dew Drop Inn Prompts
WC April 15 Lament Drifting Towards Civil War 2.0
WC Prove Something – God’s Demented Sense of Humor
WC Question something -The basic decency and sanity of Americans
WC Scumbagology
WC Comedy – The Donald Trump Show is Getting Old
NaPoWriMo Prompts
April 15
My stamp collection
April 16
late Night Earthquake blues
April 17
What is Hip?
April 18 It’s A Dog’s Life for Me
April 19
Hunting the Monsters in Hell
Day 20 Trail of Tears – My Family Connection
Begin Poems
Writers Digest Prompts
April 15 New Middle Poem Middle Of Political Silly Season In The U.S. Trigger Warning Mild Political Rant
We are in the middle
Of the us political season
Unlike any other before.
The choice is clear.
Vote for the incumbent
Who is an old man
With good intentions
And a good heart.
Vrs
The prior president
Who is a narcissistic sociopathic
Twice impeached
Whose family is the real crime family
Nothing but grifters through and through.
Or RFK jr who is running
For his inflated ego reasons
And Cornel West as well.
Thinking that somehow
Lightening with strike
And make them president!
Everything all on hold
Until the dust settles
After the election.
After today’s poem, we’ll be in the exact middle of this poem-a-day challenge, which means it’ll be all easy writing from here, right?
For today’s prompt, write a middle poem. Some people feel stuck in the middle; others like being in the middle of things. Some foods are known for their middles (like jelly doughnuts and empanadas). So poem your way to, within, or away from the middle today.
April 16 New Tuesday prompt write a Shadorma poem about recent tech layoffs
CEO To Labor Units of Production Shardona – You are Not Wanted
new Memo
To all employees
redundancy
if you are on the list below
You are not needed.
the tech world is brutal people are being fired by impersonal quotes, Twitter or just hearing about it after the fact a favorite tactic is mass firing with selected people being asked to reapply. The underlying message in Corporate America is that workers are just disposable labor units, and this includes everyone except the top people who get golden parachutes or bonuses for showing how cruel they can be to their labor unit of production drones.
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, we have our third two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:
- Write a poetic form poem, and/or…
- Write an anti-form poem.
I recently discovered a poetic form called shadorma (thanks to P.J. Nights via Tammy Trendle) that I had no record of in my two poetic form handbooks. Shadorma is a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines, respectively. Simple as that
A bonus poem is included as an example of a Shadorma poem.
Also, you can link multiple shadorma (shadows? shadorma?) like in my example below:
“Miss Shadorma”
She throws birds
at the school children
on playgrounds
made of steel
who run intense spirals to
the chain-link fencing.
Sad teachers
watch as they spiral
into air
like reverse
helicopter seeds searching
for their maple trees.
April 18 WD Pessimistic Poem
CEO Fires Workers at Midnight by Email-Arrests Those Who Did Not Get the Memo
Welcome to the new improved
Corporate America
As more and more people
Become corporate wage slaves.
The CEO fired workers
At midnight via email
And arrested those
Who did not get the message.
They did not even get the customary
Meeting with HR flacks
Just told
“ Your services
Are no longer needed
“: F… Off, you are fired
You did not check your email
Before work – that’s not my concern.
They were not allowed in the building
Had their ID’s canceled on the spot
Told to go home.
Did not get a customary
Goodbye lunch
Or a chance
To clear out their desks.
At least he did not
Just blast a list of fired employees
On X
Which would have been totally
In character with him.
Perhaps he is a bit afraid
Of his workers now?
No doubt
Part of a new secret AI
Business management program.
The message is
“You are nothing but
Disposable labor units
of production.
Nothing more than pawns.
And I am the Chess master
And will decide whether you live
Or die.
Get used to it”
That’s the new America
And the world we are building.
While many people were appalled
At the craven horrid mistreatment
Of his workers
Wall Street investors were delighted.
Welcome to the new
“corporate America”.
Where workers are just
Disposable labor units
Of production.
And the wage slaves
Live in fear
Of losing their jobs
And joining the ranks
Of the homeless.
After today’s poem, we’ll be three-fifths of the way through this challenge. Remember in the beginning when we were all writing such optimistic poems? Well…
For today’s prompt, write a pessimistic poem. Think about what’s gone wrong, what is going wrong, and what will go wrong in the future. Some people would say this
April 17
Not the Way to Fire People New Rules in the New Corporation Dominated World
Not so long ago
corporations treated workers
as valued members of the corporation family
and were reluctant to fire people
once they were hired.
Only firing them for cause
or when unavoidable
but doing it with some dignity.
Managers taking them aside
offering to help them transition
to another company
even having a goodbye lunch.
But not anymore
In the new corporate world
driven by profits, and the ruthless bottom line
and AI-driven redundancy rules,
The new way to fire people
is simply this
Fire them impersonally
by midnight emails
or Twitter blasts.
Never by in-person meetings
or phone calls
who the hell has time for that
or even cares about the labor units?
Often while they are on vacation
because in the corporate world.
Workers are now nothing
but interchangeable labor units
of production.
Firing them the day before Christmas
is applauded
Firing them by public tweets
Good business model.
Firing them by midnight email
Sunday night
Brilliant movie.
As workers are the enemy
and must be controlled
monitored and constantly subject
to fear of being fired.
And once you are fired
the social safety net
is disappearing.
Soon unions will be illegal
safety rules gone
welfare benefits gone
child labor laws have gone
civil rights laws are gone.
Medicare gone
social security privatized
in a race to the bottom.
Homeless becoming a crime
as well
as redundant workers
are treated as less than human.
Sub-human animals
and vermin
trash to be deposed of.
The goal is to make workers
Like the disposable as labor units
in third-world countries
Fighting for table scrap wages.
All done by people
Who think that they
are Christians and pro-workers!
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a Not Blank poem.
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Not (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “Not the Only One,” “Not Like This,” “Not Without Eating One More Piece of Pie,” and/or “Not Sure What I Was Saying.”
*****April 19
Emotion Poem -fears of falling
As one gets older
One becomes consumed with fears
Fear of almost everything.
Climate change, earthquakes
Monster storms, volcanos.
political chaos and war
The other day, I stumbled and fell.
Adding fear of falling to my list.
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write an emotional poem.
For today’s prompt, pick an emotion, make it the title of your poem, and write your poem. Possible emotions might include happy, sad, grumpy, angry, scared, and more. Here’s.
April 20
The Circus Bear Escapes
The rambling bear
Woke up from his winter nap
Found he was now a circus bear.
Wearing a flared collar
Forced to perform
For his supper
Hearing praise from his owners
Who fed him
Until he rose up
Eescaping back into the woods.
prompt words used six words
Bear
Collar
Flair
Hear
Praise
Ramble
Or for extra credit, use all six words.
Also, as an alternate prompt: Write a six-word poem (doesn’t have to use any of the above words).
Met And Married My Dream Lady
I
Met
and
Married
My Dream
Lady
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Prompts
April 15 Lament Watching the News
While watching the news
I am constantly lamenting
The sad state of political discourse
In these increasingly
Disunited United States of America.
Where we have retreated into enemy tribes
Blue, red, and purple states
With each convinced their tribe
Is righteous, patriotic, and pro-American.
Accusing the other tribe
As anti-american fascists
plotting to set up a dictatorship.
Some talking darkly
about Civil War 2.0.
That is my daily lament
Particularly when insomnia
Steals slept from me
At 0 dark hundred.
revised to make it less of a rant
“O Dark Hundred” is military jargon for the time two hours before dawn when operatives get up for dawn operations. I use it to denote the hours in the middle of the night I have nightmares.
April 16—Rain
No Rain
In 2025, the world ended
With the collapse
Of the worldwide climate system.
Monster storms of the century
devastated half the world.
But the other half of the world
Had no rain or snow
For almost a whole year
The once-green grass was dying.
Crops failed everywhere
And baked in the unrelenting
Blast wave furnace-like heat
Heatwave after heatwave.
Military coups took place
Fascism re-emerged
The public demanded action
The politicians played
The blame game.
With the collapse of trade
And travel restrictions
People stayed home
Making do the best they could.
Home-grown gardens
Proliferated.
Feudal townships grew
As people walled themselves off
To save their communities.
The rich build underground cities
While the poor starved
And civilization crumbled
Wildlife proliferated
As did neo-savage
cannibal gangs.
By the year 2030
It was all over
And the rains
Never came out west.
The prompt was “Rain”
April 17—Prove Something God’s Demented Sense of Humor
I sometimes think
That God if he/she/it exists
And created the Universe
It must have a demented
Sense of humor.
How else can you explain
Why did he create a parasite
That hides in your system
Inert but if you take
Steroids for any reason.
It blows up like a basketball
Bursting out and killing you,
In thirty minutes.
Leaving the doctors
Wondering WTF
Just happened.
Recording your death
As a medical mystery.
Very few doctors
Have ever encountered
Or heard about
This weird parasite.
Note: Based on a true story. Back in the day, I contracted this parasite in Thailand. A few years later, I was in the hospital battling an MRD staph infection and underwent 14 operations. Almost lost my life and my leg. The internal medicine doctor said that there was something else going on and finally told me I had this weird parasite that is inert, but I should take some medicine to kill it because if I ever took steroids it would blow up to the size of a Basketball and kill me in 30 minutes. I always said Thank God for that doctor. Nine months later, I developed a frozen shoulder because of excessive antibiotic use and had a steroid shot. If that internal medicine doctor had not found the parasite, I would have died a medical mystery.
April 18—Question Something The Basic Decency And Sanity Of Americans Trigger warning – anti-Trump Rant!
These days I wonder about
the basic decency and sanity
of the American people.
How can 40 percent
Of my fellow Americans
Still, support him?
Still believe he was
The greatest President ever.
I just don’t understand it
Why he is polling at 40 percent
And not 4 percent
Is beyond me.
April 19—Define or celebrate a word or concept -Scumbagology
Scumbagology
is the study
Of the actions of a scumbag.
A scumbag is a narcissistic, sociopathic
Self-center person willing to do anything
to get ahead.
No loyalty to those who serve him
it is all about me!
The greatest person
in the world.
Unfortunately, there are so many
Scumbags in the world,
In a position of power
In business and politics.
Don’t need to name names
You know who they are.
April 20—Standup Comedy – The Insult Comedy Tour!
How and why he
Remains so popular
With some Americans
Remains a mystery.
He remains me
Of an old-time insult
Comedian, Don Rickles
Who was infamous
For insulting his audience
Who loved his edgy comic styling,
As he cruelly mocked
everything and everyone.
But, over time,
people got tired of his routine
And his style of humor faded away
But the former President
has resurrected the insult comedy routine.
Going to his rallies
Is akin to a religious revival
For some people.
They delight in being
Part of his whole mad
Carnival scene.
But for many of us
the T comedy tour
is no longer funny
if it ever was.
NaPoWriMo Poems
April 15 My stamp collection
When I was a young man
Almost 55 years ago
I had a stamp collection
I inherited it from my grandfather.
I loved looking
At stamps from
Around the world.
I had a lot of African stamps
Caribbean stamps.
Costa Rica stands.
Korean stamps.
Vietnamese stamps.
Japanese stamps.
Polish Stamps.
Spanish stamps.
Even a few stamps
From 1860 or so
Including a rare
Confederate States of America stamp.
That was worth something
Back thirty years ago
When there was
A collectible market.
Sadly, no one cares anymore
The stamp and collectible market
Dying out as us old people die out.
As younger people
Just don’t see the value
Of stamps or collectibles
In a world of instant
Entertainment
streaming TV services
Fears of war
Fears of climate change
Fears of political violence
And economic uncertainty.
And fewer people
Even use stamps anymore.
I have not looked at it
In years, still have it.
And my stamp collection
CD and book collections
Will go
Into a trash can
When I die.
No longer of any value
Just the way
of this modern world.
And now for our prompt – optional, as always! Today, we’d like to encourage you to take a look at @StampsBot and become inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. For example, while it certainly makes sense that China would issue a stamp featuring a panda, it’s less clear to us why the Isle of Man should feel the need to honor 2001: A Space Odyssey in stamp form. From Romanian mushrooms to Sudanese weavers to the Marshall Islands getting far too excited over personal computing, stamps are a quasi-lyrical, quasi-bizarre look into what different cultures (or at least their postal authorities) hold dear.
And if you’re not on or able to access the @StampsBot account, fear not! You may find an inspiring stamp or two by perusing the online “International Philately” (say that three times fast) exhibit from the National Postal Museum.
April 16
Late Night Earthquake Blues
Often at night
At o dark hundred hours
I am wide awake
Thinking of things
As my mind drifts down
Endless rabbit holes
What if plays in my mind
As my wild imagination takes off.
Woken up by a real earthquake.
True Story
Based on my recent trip to Kyunshu, Japan, when I was up at night with insomnia about midnight. Then woken up by an incoming message screaming Earthquake over and over again, followed in 30 secnonds by a real earthquake. The Japanese have a great diaster notification system – goes out to every cell phone in the country, in English and Japanese, within moments of either an Earthquake, Volcanic eruption, Typhoon wild fire or the dreaded Tsunami.
O Dark Hundred is military intel jargon that is the period two to three hours before dawn when intelligence and special forces get ready for dawn operations depending on the time and day between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. I often have insomnia at 0 dark hundred and get up to write down my wild poems and stories floating in my head at 0 dark hundred.
Finally, here’s today’s (optional) prompt, taken from our 2016 archives. Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. The “surprise” ending to this James Wright poem is a good illustration of the effect we’re hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
April 17
What is Hip?
My favorite music
Has always been funk
The tower of power
The best funk band
Of them all
Formed in the East Bay
In the turbulent 60s
Still going strong
Almost 50 years later!
Their love song
You’re still a young man
Is perhaps the greatest
make out song
Of all times.
The first song I slowed danced to
Back in high school
A song I played
To seduce my wife.
I wonder how many babies
Were conceived because
Of this classic soul song.
Another classic song
What is hip
Which poised
An unanswered question
And inspired this triolet
What is love, tell me if you know
Love is what it is
Do you know what love is, Joe?
What is love, tell me if you know
And how can you make it grow?
Madness is what it does
What is love, tell me if you know
Love is what it is
Based loosely on the classic Tower of Power Song, “What is hip?”
What Is Hip Lyrics
[Verse 1]
So ya wanna dump out yo’ trick bag
Ease on in a hip thang
But you ain’t exactly sure what hip
So you started to let your hair grow
Spent big bucks on your wardrobe
Somehow, ya know there’s much more to the trip
[Chorus]
What is hip?
Tell me, tell me, if you think you know
What is hip?
If you’re hip
The question, “Will it show?”
You’re into a hip trip
Maybe hipper than hip
What is hip?
[Verse 2]
You became a part of a new breed
Been smoking’ only the best weed
Hangin’ out with the so-called “Hippie set.”
Seen in all the right places
Seen with just the right faces
You should be satisfied, but it ain’t quite right
[Chorus]
What is hip?
Tell me, tell me, if you think you know
What is hip?
If you’re hip
The question, “Will it show?”
You’re into a hip trip
Maybe hipper than hip
What is hip?
[Break]
Come on
[Refrain]
Hipness is. What it is
Hipness is. What it is
Hipness is. What it is
Sometimes hipness is, what it ain’t
You’re still a young man
Baby, Oo, don’t waste your time
You’re still a young man
Baby, Oo oo, don’t waste your time
Down on my knees
Oh, heart in hand
I was accused of being too young
But I’m not so young
I could make you happy
I’m not a bad man
You’re too young to love (If you and I could be together)
You’re too young to love (I’ll never never leave you alone baby)
You’re too young Ooo Ooo (No I won’t sweet lady)
Don’t waste your time
The damage is done
You see that you were wrong
You wake up wondering just
How well I’ve done
Well I’ve done alright
Yes there are some girls but you know
I dropped them on sight
Just for you
Because I love you
You’re still a young man
Baby, Oo oo, don’t waste your time
(Someday you’ll understand just what it means when a man
Comes to you with his little heart in his hands
Just to love you)
Don’t waste your time
You better listen to me
Sayin that I’m loving you yeah hey now baby tryin to tell
You that it’s you you you you you you you you talkin to you
Baby, I’ll never never never never I’ll never do you
No wrong no no lady if you would check my stuff out one time haha
Just to hold you, just to squeeze you and all I wanna do is to
Get next to you and please please please you baby
See where I’m coming from!
<iframe width=”1366″ height=”768″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/rtE4V6YxKZ8″ title=”You're Still a Young Man (Remastered)” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” allowfullscreen></iframe>
Written by legendary sax players Emilio Castillo and Stephen Kupka, the song portrays a young man at the wrong end of a break-up. The situation is bleak because his lover pins the break-up on an age difference. In an interview with Songfacts Castillo said:
It’s based on a true story. I had a girlfriend that was six years older than me. I was 18, she was 24 and that’s actually what happened. She had kind of cut me loose because of the age difference thing and the whole plea in the story is the young guy’s saying, ‘I’m not too young, I’m not wasting my time and I do love you like a man can truly love a woman.’”
The song would go on to be the band’s first major hit defining their sound with a prominent horn section inspired by Curtis Mayfield:
“On that album, there’s a song called “A Woman’s Love” that starts with beautiful trumpets high. When we heard that we wanted to write a song with a great trumpet intro like that. – TowerofPower.com
Last but not least, here’s our optional prompt for the day. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music. Need an example? Here’s A. Van Jordan’s “Que Sera Sera” and Adrian Matejka’s “Soave Sia Il Vento.”
“Que Sera Sera”
Soave Sia Il Vento
after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
In the wobbly pirouette between song
& dust, dog-nosed living room windows
& a purple couch that should have been curbed
last July: Saturday sunlight cuts it all every
time you lean into some kind of ballet pose.
Your belly & knobby elbow & leotarded knee
wavering in a slim balance. Jeté, effacé—
I don’t know what they mean & nod anyway.
You reach & spin & dog hair hangs
in the air like the start of heartfelt applause.
Copyright © 2017 by Adrian Matejka. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 18, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
April 18 It’s A Dog’s Life for Me
It’s a Dog’s life for Me
In my next life
I’d like to come back
As a dog.
It seems dogs
Have it made?
All they have to do
Is cute
Look at their owner
With love
Blazing from their eyes.
Listening to their owner
Blather on and on
Which is never boring.
Even though they don’t understand
Much human speech.
Still amazing to watch
And listen to
These foolish people.
Occasionally acting tough
When unauthorized people
Get too close.
And they get food
A walk
And their owner
Even cleans
Up after them!
What a carefree life
For a dog.
Yes, my next life
I want to be
A cute house dog.
And now for our (optional) prompt! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else and explains why. Two possible models for you: Natasha Rao’s “In My Next Life Let Me Be a tomato,” and Randall Jarrell’s “The Woman at the Washington Zoo.”
In my next life let me be a tomato
The Woman at the Washington Zoo
Randall Jarrell, “The Woman at the Washington Zoo” from The Complete Poems. Copyright © 1969, renewed 1997 by Mary von S. Jarrell. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://www.fsgbooks.com. All rights reserved.
Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
April 19 Hunting the Monsters in Hell
Joe Lewis woke up
In a dark forest
Haunted by my monsters
From his worst nightmares.
He saw in the clearing behind him.
Giant apes, space aliens, banshees, bats, Bigfoot, centaurs, Cerberus, cheetahs, crows, coyotes, Cthulhu with tentacles, dragons, demons, dinosaurs (raptors and T. Rex), devils, dwarfs, gangbangers, gangsters, gangster rappers. Gators, goblins, ghouls, ghosts, giants, giant ants, giant wasps, giant spiders, giant lobsters, gunmen, hellhounds, big game hunters, government bureaucrats, holocausts, imps, Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars, naked incubus, leprechauns, jihadis, Lucifer, lions, politicians, mafia made men, ravens, monsters, orcs, reporters, bewitching beautiful yet deadly sirens, Satan, satyrs, snakes, winged monkeys, serpents, special forces soldiers, tigers, werewolves, wolves, witches, warlocks, wraiths, wild things, yeti, and zombies all staring at him. A half-centaur, half-pig monster with two heads–Putin and Trump led the mob.
He began running away from them
They were gaining on him
He saw a fort ahead
Ran inside.
The Grim Reaper handed him a gun
Said,
“If you can kill the head monster
You will live
And be sent back
Good hunting.”
And threw him back
Into the fray.
Joe Lewis took aim
Hunting down the Putin-Trump
Two-headed Pig Monster.
The monster squealed
And died.
The other monsters
Ran away
Having seen who was master.
Joe woke up in his bed
Saw a note on his phone,
“Good hunting.
You have been given
Five more years.
Of life on earth.”
Your friend,
GR.
Finally, here’s our prompt – optional, as always! This one comes to us from Moist Poetry Journal, which posted this prompt by K-ming Chang a while back:
What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.
Happy (and potentially spooky) writing!
Day 20 Trail of Tears – My Family Connection
My Mother’s history
One day many a year ago
My mother spoke to me
About her family’s tangled history,
She spoke to me
Of lies, half-truths, and myths
Some of which may have been true
And throughout the evening
Her history came alive.
She was born in the hills
of North Little Rock
The 10th of 11 children
Of an ancient dying race.
The Cherokees
who had run away
Refusniks
Refugees who fled into the hills.
Part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee Nation
Part Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole
and African Americans
Who fled to the mountains
To avoid the trail of tears.
Rather than join the rest
In the promised land
Of Oklahoma.
They did not exist
I did not exist.
The BIA told us
No Indian scholarship
For you
Since you can’t prove
You are in fact
Of Native American ancestry,
I asked my mother
What does this mean?
She spoke
No BIA money for you,
My non-Indian son.
Her family and Bill Clinton’s family
Were related
Bill Clinton and I are distant cousins
When I met him
I related my family history
He concluded that we were indeed cousins
Said I could call him Cousin Bill
And he would call me Cousin Jake
And he too was part Cherokee
Irish, Scotch, French
And African American
Part of the lost tribe
Of the Cherokee nation
I told my mom
This story
She spoke
It was true
She was a distant cousin
Of Bill Clinton
Still did not like
The lying SOB
Her people disappeared
From history’s eyes
DNA data banks
My history was over
As was hers
And so,
I learned at last
The painful truth
Due to the genocidal crimes
of politicians so long ago
My mother’s people
Lost their land, their culture,
and their hope
And became
downtrodden forgotten people
Hillbillies were called
Living in the hills and mountain dales
Clinging to the dim fading memories
Of their once glorious past
As proud Cherokees
Now no one knew their name
The old ways were forgotten
And the new world never forgave them
And they never forgave the new world
As they lived on
In the margins of society
Forgotten people
And I vowed that as long as I lived
Their history would not die
As I knew the truth
And I would become a proud
Cherokee
And make my mother proud of me
And my accomplishments
When I am down and out
I recall her stories and her warnings
And realize it is up to me
To live my life
To let the Cherokee in me
Live his life
And in so doing
My mother’s history does not die
It lives on in me
Until the day I die
Long live the Cherokee nation
Long live my mother
Note: My latest DNA test analysis finally revealed that I do indeed have some Indian ancestry but less than 5 percent and African American also less than 5 percent, and the rest mostly Scandinavian, German, Irish, Scottish, English, Italian, French, Eastern European, Spanish, Mongolian (everyone who is part Eastern European has some Mongolian DNA) Russian, Jewish and for some strange reason part Basque, and part Laplander (related to the Eskimos living in Norway. Sweden, Finland, and Russian arctic regions).
My family name is German, but they were originally French who fled to protestant Germany during the 100-year war.
The Lost Tribe of the Cherokees were also called Black Irish and were a mixture of Indians who had run away into the hills rather than go to Oklahoma, and intermixed with runaway slaves, Scot-Irish settlers, and others. They were and are a small insular clan of about 25,000 people or so. Mostly living in Arkansas, East Texas, and Missouri – the Ozark mountains where they had fled. My mother reported that her parents spoke Cherokee and one of her sisters had a Cherokee name. I recently discovered a list of her siblings and indeed one had a foreign-sounding name. I had the name of a great-grandfather who was born in 1831 about the time of the removal so I might be able to see if he is on the Cherokee enrollment rolls which were done just before the removal in 1832 I believe. I will follow up shortly.
Our optional prompt for the day challenges you to write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents. If you’re interested in a little research, you might find interesting this collection of letters written during the American Civil War, or this collection of primary documents concerning South Sea voyages. Or perhaps you might find something of interest in digging through European, an online clearinghouse of digitized materials from cultural institutions across Europe.
Mary Aller Obituary
Mary Geneva Aldridge Aller Sept. 9, 1923 – July 31, 2007 Former Resident of Berkeley Mary was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and came to the Bay Area in the 1940s and settled in Berkeley where she resided until 2003. During the 1950s, she was active in the labor movement, and served several years as the President of the Pacific Telephone Operators Union. During the late 1950s, she was a real estate agent and involved with the Berkeley League of Women’s Voters, and the “Save the Bay” movement. In 1952, she made local headlines when she told President Truman’s staff that she did not want to meet him unless he wanted to meet her. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a big article with the Headline “Harry Meets Mary.” She was a long term political activist and active member of the Berkeley Co-Op along with her husband, Dr. Curtis Aller, who passed away in 1985. During the 1960s, she accompanied her husband to Washington, D.C. when he served as the Undersecretary of Labor. She returned to Berkeley in 1968 where she worked with her husband until 1984 as the business manager for the Center for Applied Manpower Research. Mary is survived by two sisters, Mildred and Robbie who live in Arkansas. She is also survived by six children, Roger Aller of Sebastopol, California, John (Jake) Aller of Washington, DC, Thomas Aller of Albany, California, Inga Aller of Gualala, California, Richard and Larry Wilson from her first marriage, and many grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. The family will have a private ceremony Friday August 3 for interment. Flowers can be sent to the Sunset View Funeral Home, 101 Colusa Avenue, in El Cerrito (510) 525-5111.
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