I am pleased to announce that Synchronized Chaos will publish more of my poetry in their September issue. These poems are a satirical take on the news of the day; any resemblance to real people and events are entirely coincidental and a product of the author’s wild imagination.
🌍 President Al Wilson Reverses Course on Climate Change
MAGA Dreams of the New Golden Age
Bonus -Letter from Concerned Christian Minister Re Cleaning Up the Smithsonian
Bonus Poem – It Can Happen Here
Bonus Poem Are We Living in North Korea?
co-pilot neo-neatnik rap 🌀 Red Tape Ripped in Rhythm
A Found Poem from the August 2025 Cabinet Meeting
🌀 Red Tape Ripped in Rhythm A Found Poem with Historical Echoes
President of the Smithsonian?
President Al Wilson
Not content with taking.
Over the Kennedy Center.
As part of the MAGA movement
Culture war against the communists
Radical left-wing Marxist
Enemies of real America.
Had described that the Smithsonian.
Must reflect traditional American values.
And avoid divisive or anti-American.
Or anti-Christian propaganda.
Therefore, he decreed,
The African American Studies Museum
Must close,
The African Art Museum
Must close.
The American Indian Museum
Must close.
The Smithsonian must be color-blind.
And not to mention race or gender
Slavery or the treatment of American Indians,
And the whole Chinese Exclusion Act
And internment of Japanese Americans
Which was a good thing,
Or the holocaust, for that matter.
End anti-American, Anti-Christian,
Anti-MAGA, cultural Marxism
Radical lunatic left, CRT, DEI
And WOKE programming.
Throughout the Smithsonian.
The African American museum holdings
And the American Indian Museum
And the African Art Museum
Will be sold off at an auction.
So the president decreed
MAGA baby all the way!
RESTORING TRUTH IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order restoring truth and sanity to American history by revitalizing key cultural institutions and reversing the spread of divisive ideology.
President Trump aims to ensure that the Smithsonian is an institution that sparks children’s imagination, celebrates American history and ingenuity, serves as a symbol to the world of American greatness, and makes America proud.
The Order directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.
The Order directs the Administration to work with Congress to ensure that future Smithsonian appropriations: (1) prohibit funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law; and (2) celebrate women’s achievements in the American Women’s History Museum and do not recognize men as women.
The Vice President will work with congressional leaders to appoint members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents who are committed to advancing the celebration of America’s extraordinary heritage and progress.
The Order also directs the Secretary of the Interior restore Federal parks, monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties that have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history or improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.
In preparation for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026, the Order directs the Secretary of the Interior to complete restorations and improvements to Independence Hall by that date.
COMBATING CORROSIVE IDEOLOGY: In the last decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted effort to rewrite American history and force our nation to adopt a factually baseless ideology aimed at diminishing American achievement. President Trump is fighting back by reestablishing truth in the historical narrative and restoring Federal sites dedicated to American heritage.
The prior administration pushed a divisive ideology that reconstrued America’s promotion of liberty as fundamentally flawed, infecting revered institutions like the Smithsonian and national parks with false narratives.
At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Biden Administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates for dismantling “Western foundations” and that taught Park Rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they present history to visitors.
The Smithsonian Institution—once revered throughout the world as a symbol of American excellence—has recently promoted divisive ideology that American and Western values are harmful.
The American Art Museum currently features an exhibit that purports to address how “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and claims that the United States has “used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.”
The American Women’s History Museum plans to celebrate male athletes participating in women’s sports.
CELEBRATING AMERICAN GREATNESS: President Trump is committed to honoring America’s extraordinary heritage and building a sense of national pride.
President Trump signed an Executive Order on his first day in office to establish a task force to prepare for America’s 250th birthday.
This Order also protects America’s monuments from vandalism and calls for construction of the National Garden of American Heroes.
President Trump signed a memorandum ensuring Federal buildings reflect the timeless grandeur of traditional, classical architecture.
By signing this Executive Order, President Trump is ensuring that American history is celebrated accurately, fairly, and with pride—honoring the remarkable progress, liberty, and ingenuity that define our great nation.
Media Coverage by Bias
Bias
Outlet
Coverage Summary
URL
Left
MSNBC, The Root, The Guardian
Framed as censorship, historical erasure, and authoritarian overreach.
Leadership Overhaul: President Trump installed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center, replacing the bipartisan board with loyalists including Richard Grenell as interim president.
Cultural Rebranding: Trump declared the center would be restored to “luxury, glamour, and entertainment,” rejecting “woke” programming and canceling drag shows and LGBTQ+ events.
Renaming Efforts:
House Republicans proposed renaming the Opera House as the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House”.
A separate bill, the “Make Entertainment Great Again Act,” would rename the entire center the “Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts”.
These proposals violate a 1983 federal statute prohibiting additional memorials at the Kennedy Center.
🎭 Programming Changes
New Honorees: Trump personally selected honorees including Sylvester Stallone, KISS, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, and Michael Crawford.
Cancellations: LGBTQ+ events, drag performances, and the opera Fellow Travelers were canceled or withdrawn.
New Season Lineup: Includes Spamalot, Chicago, Moulin Rouge!, Back to the Future, and The Outsiders—with emphasis on mainstream, family-friendly entertainment.
🎨 Artist Protests
Boycotts:
Hamilton canceled its anniversary show.
Issa Rae, Shonda Rhimes, Rhiannon Giddens, and Louise Penny withdrew from scheduled appearances.
Les Misérables cast members staged a silent protest during Trump’s visit.
Resignations: Renée Fleming and Ben Folds resigned from advisory roles.
Public Statements: Leonard Slatkin urged artists to “stand up” and perform defiantly.
📰 Media Coverage by Bias
Bias Spectrum
Outlet
Summary
URL
Left
The New York Times
Framed takeover as part of Trump’s broader cultural war and authoritarian tendencies
And a bonus letter from a concerned Christian to the VP demanding that they clean up the Smithsonian Institute.
Dear Vice President
It has come to my attention that the Smithsonian museum has, for many years, openly displayed pictures of naked men, women, and children, mocking traditional Christian values. Their lame excuse has always been that they are showing “art”.
But this so-called “art” is basically pornographic in nature and should not be on display where children can see the artwork. Parents should not be forced to explain to young people about such degenerate art.
Furthermore, the African American History Museum is too focused on slavery and is anti-American in tone. The Museum of the American Indian is also too focused on the alleged genocide of the native Americans. It downplays the grumesome actions by native Americans against peaceful settlers, such as the depredations of the Apache savages in the 19th century. The African Art museum must also be closed. The Holocaust museum, which is independent must also be closed as it is too divisive and anti-American.
These museums need to be closed, and related collections.in other museums nationwide must be closed.
All the Smithsonian exhibits must be cleansed of anti-American, Anti-Christian, cultural marxist, CRT, DEI, radical left-wing, WOKE, exhibits and anti-American content, and be replaced by pro-American exhibits showing the greatest of the greatest country on earth, and they must reflect the traditional Northern European ancestry of most Americans, including British, German, and Irish backgrounds, as well as traditional Protestant Christianity. An European American museum should be set up to replace the African American Museum. The Smithsonian should take over the Museum of the Bible and install it at the American Indian Museum. The African Art museum should be replaced with a Patriotic Art museum.
Please, sir, clean up the Smithsonian Institute of degenerate artwork, artwork depicting naked people, and close the cultural marxist, CRT, DEI, woke, left-wing content, and close the African American History museum, the Museum of the American Indians, and the African Art Museum.. Support cleansing all other museums as well by setting up a task force to make recommendations and cut off Federal funding to suspect museums. Sex museums and erotic art museums in SF and elsewhere must be closed as well.
All suspect art should be sold off at auction. After six months, items can be donated to anyone who wants to pick it up at their expense. After one year, the residual items will be disposed of as trash.
I ask this in Jesus’ name.
Rev. Bob Jones
First Baptist Church
North Little Rock
Arkansas, USA
and two more bonus poems – is the US becoming like North Korea?
Living in North Korea?
Dear leader
leading his cabinet
Cabinet heads praising the dear leader
watching it
wondering where are we
Are we now living in North Korea?
what is this?
what fresh hell is this now?
when will we wake up from this nightmare?
3-6-9 Poem
This poem has three stanzas. Each stanza has three lines that follows the 3-6-9 syllable count. The first line has 3 syllables, the second line has 6 syllables and the last line 9 syllables. The subject can be anything.
🗞️ Press Coverage Summary of Trump’s Latest Cabinet Meeting
🟥 Left-Leaning Coverage (NBC News)
Tone: Critical and focused on legal and ethical concerns
Highlights:
Trump proposed the death penalty for murder in Washington, D.C., without detailing implementation
Legal battle over his attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who denies allegations of mortgage fraud
Coverage emphasized constitutional limits and potential overreach
Absolutely, Jake. Here’s a neo-beatnik found poem stitched from the raw fabric of Trump’s latest cabinet meeting and recent presidential remarks. It blends direct quotes, paraphrased fragments, and the surreal rhythm of political theater—filtered through your lens of poetic synthesis.
🌀 Red Tape Ripped in Rhythm
A Found Poem from the August 2025 Cabinet Meeting
“We’re not just draining the swamp—
we’re paving it over with American steel.”
The room hums like a war drum,
coffee cooling in the shadow of executive orders.
A voice rises—
not from conscience,
but from calculation:
“Murder in D.C. will meet justice.
Not in years. Not in appeals.
But in days.”
Lisa Cook stares through the storm,
accused by a whisper,
defended by silence.
Trump leans forward,
his tie a flag, his words a verdict:
“She’s compromised.
Mortgage fraud, digital fraud—
it’s all the same when the Fed won’t listen.”
Zelensky’s name floats in the air
like a drone over disputed soil.
Putin’s shadow flickers on the wall.
Tariffs are teeth.
Diplomacy is a grin.
“We’ll tax their tech,
we’ll tax their thoughts
if they dare to tax ours.”
The cabinet nods,
some from loyalty,
some from inertia.
The beat goes on:
“AI will be American.
Not woke. Not weird.
Just ours.”
Outside, the National Guard tightens its boots.
Inside, the map of Indiana redraws itself
in red ink and ambition.
A voice from the back mutters:
“This isn’t governance.
It’s jazz.”
And Trump laughs,
a sound like a brass section
breaking the fourth wall.
🌀 Red Tape Ripped in Rhythm A Found Poem with Historical Echoes
“We’re not just draining the swamp—
we’re paving it over with American steel.”
—Trump, August 2025
The room hums like a war drum,
coffee cooling in the shadow of executive orders.
A voice rises—
not from conscience,
but from calculation.
“Murder in D.C. will meet justice.
Not in years. Not in appeals.
But in days.”
Echoes of Hoover’s dossiers,
Nixon’s enemies list,
Reagan’s morning in America
now dusk in the District.
Lisa Cook stares through the storm,
accused by a whisper,
defended by silence.
Trump leans forward,
his tie a flag, his words a verdict:
“She’s compromised.
Mortgage fraud, digital fraud—
it’s all the same when the Fed won’t listen.”
The ghost of Alan Greenspan
shuffles papers in the ether.
Jackson’s populism,
FDR’s fireside calm—
none present here.
Zelensky’s name floats in the air
like a drone over disputed soil.
Putin’s shadow flickers on the wall.
Tariffs are teeth.
Diplomacy is a grin.
“We’ll tax their tech,
we’ll tax their thoughts
if they dare to tax ours.”
The cabinet nods,
some from loyalty,
some from inertia.
The beat goes on:
“AI will be American.
Not woke. Not weird.
Just ours.”
Outside, the National Guard tightens its boots.
Inside, the map of Indiana redraws itself
in red ink and ambition.
A voice from the back mutters:
“This isn’t governance.
It’s jazz.”
And Trump laughs,
a sound like a brass section
breaking the fourth wall.
I am again entering the April Poetry challenge and will write every day and post once a week or so
I will not post everything, some I will withhold for possible publication, others I will withhold because they are too politically sensitive in these politically charged times. I will post the poems followed by the prompts. I am writing four poems per day following prompts in NaPoWriMo, Writer’s Digest, Poetry Superhighway, and Writing.com’s Dew Drop In.
I will post them once a week here and on Substack, Medium, Wattpad, and as a podcast on Spotify. I will also post them every day on Fan Story.
Hello all! We’re now up to six whole days of National/Global Poetry Writing Month. We hope you’re feeling satisfied with your work so far, and looking forward to what’s yet to come.
Our featured participant for today is Gloria Gonsalves, who brings us a death-metal skirt poem in response to Day 5’s notation prompt.
Today’s daily resource is the online tour section of the Louvre. Not in Paris? No problem! You can still stroll – albeit virtually – through the hallowed corridors of France’s most famous museum, checking out exhibitions on dance, puppetry, royal portraits, and more!
Today’s prompt (optional, as always) veers slightly away from our ekphrastic theme. To get started, pick a number between 1 and 10. Got your number? Okay! Now scroll down until you come to a chart. Find the row with your number. Then, write a poem describing the taste of the item in Column A, using the words that appear in that row in Column B and C. For bonus points, give your poem the title of the word that appears in Column A for your row, but don’t use that word in the poem itself.
Welcome back, everyone, for Day Nine of Na/GloPoWriMo.
Today, our featured participant is jasmine, whose ghazal for Day Eight pushes against, and with, the limits of transalation and English’s habit of stealing/adopting/buying at wholesale words from other languages.
Our featured resource for the day is the online gallery of the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Although it may be most famous for its witch trials, Salem was a seafaring town whose sailors and shipowners brought back all manner of items from their travels – which became the initial source of the museum’s collection. The museum has a stunning group of “Asian Export” items – goods that were crafted in India, Japan, China, and other locations visited by Salem’s ships (often as part of an overall trade in tea, porcelain, and textiles) – to appeal to an American/European market. That’s how you wind up with things like this French-styled dressing table with elaborate lacquer-work.
And here’s our optional prompt for the day. Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.
2By following these guidelines, you can create a meaningful and structured ghazal in English.
Best wishes for a happy Tuesday, everyone, and a great eighth day of Na/GloPoWriMo.
Our featured participant today is Lady in Read Writes, where the response to Day Seven’s challenge to write about why you are not a particular piece of art brings me back to my own high school days (I actually had The Raven fully memorized back then, and can still recite large chunks of it. A good way to pass the time if you’re waiting at a bus stop . . . ).
Today’s featured resource is a bit silly: it’s the Museum of Bad Art. Now, bad art – like good – is in the eye of the beholder, and I rather like some of the paintings in the museum’s whimsical collection.
And now here’s today’s totally optional prompt!
The ghazal (pronounced kind of like “huzzle,” with a particularly husky “h” at the beginning) is a form that originates in Arabic poetry, and is often used for love poems. Ghazals commonly consist of five to fifteen couplets that are independent from each other but are nonetheless linked abstractly in their theme; and more concretely by their form. And what is that form? In English ghazals, the usual constraints are that:
the lines all have to be of around the same length (though formal meter/syllable-counts are not employed); and
both lines of the first couplet end on the same word or words, which then form a refrain that is echoed at the end of each succeeding couplet.
Another aspect of the traditional ghazal form that has become popular in English is having the poet’s own name (or a reference to the poet – like a nickname) appear in the final couplet.
Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,
decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.
As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,
inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips.
Like something boneless, we glide silent, seeping ‘tween floorboards,
wrapping around the hims, and ooh wee, clinging like glue hips.
Engines grinding, rotating, smokin’, gotta pull back some.
Natural minds are lost at the mere sight of ringing true hips.
Gotta love us girls, just struttin’ down Manhattan streets
killing the menfolk with a dose of that stinging view. Hips.
Crying ’bout getting old—Patricia, you need to get up off
what God gave you. Say a prayer and start slinging. Cue hips.
Now try writing your own ghazal that takes the form of a love song – however you want to define that. Observe the conventions of the repeated word, including your own name (or a reference to yourself) and having the stanzas present independent thoughts along a single theme – a meditation, not a story.
Welcome back, everyone, for Day Nine of Na/GloPoWriMo.
Today, our featured participant is jasmine, whose ghazal for Day Eight pushes against, and with, the limits of transalation and English’s habit of stealing/adopting/buying at wholesale words from other languages.
Our featured resource for the day is the online gallery of the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Although it may be most famous for its witch trials, Salem was a seafaring town whose sailors and shipowners brought back all manner of items from their travels – which became the initial source of the museum’s collection. The museum has a stunning group of “Asian Export” items – goods that were crafted in India, Japan, China, and other locations visited by Salem’s ships (often as part of an overall trade in tea, porcelain, and textiles) – to appeal to an American/European market. That’s how you wind up with things like this French-styled dressing table with elaborate lacquer-work.
And here’s our optional prompt for the day. Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.
April 2 Agnostic Dyslectic Wonders if There is a Dog
an agnostic dyslectic stays up all
night wondering if there is a dog
the Buddhists wonder
about the Buddha nature of the dog
the evangelicals are sure
that there is a dog
and you must follow their dog
or go to hell
for following another’s dog
the Muslims agree
there is only one dog
and the dogs
smile at the foolishness
of the human race
of course, there is a dog
and they are the master race
as they growl at their owners
who bow down
and clean up their mess
OnApril 10, 2025
Wow! Today we are one-third of the way through this year’s challenge.
Our featured participant for the day is Hues n Shades, where the poem in response to Day Nine’s prompt brings us a wonderfully complex sense of rhythm and rhyme.
Today’s featured resource is a virtual visit to the Sistine Chapel. I went there many years ago and marveled at the wonderful paintings (while also getting quite the crick in my neck from craning up to look at the ceiling). But when I went to talk over them later that day with the friend I was traveling with, he admitted that he couldn’t really see anything because he’d forgotten to put in his contacts that morning (!)
Now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Yesterday, we looked at a poem that used sound in a very particular way, to create a slow and mysterious feeling. Mark Bibbins’ poem, “At the End of the Endless Decade,” uses sound very differently, with less eerieness and more wordplay. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like Bibbins’, uses alliteration and punning. See if you can’t work in references to at least one word you have trouble spelling, and one that you’ve never quite been able to perfectly remember the meaning of.
Happy Friday, everyone, and happy eleventh day of National/Global Poetry Writing Month.
Our featured daily participant is aetherianessence, where the wordplay prompt for Day Nine imagines two of English’s most easily-mixed-up words jousting like knights.
And last but not least, today’s (optional) prompt. Take a look at Kyle Dargan’s “Diaspora: A Narcolepsy Hymn.” This poem is a loose villanelle that uses song lyrics as its repeating lines (loose because it doesn’t rhyme). Your challenge is, like Dargan, to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains. A few lyrics that might work, if you need inspiration:
“Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy?”
“I read the news today, oh boy…”
“The world is a vampire…”
“At first I was afraid, I was petrified”
“There is a house in New Orleans”
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain”
“I went down down down and the flames went higher.”
“The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”
“Nothing ain’t nothing, but it’s free.”
And if you’re interested in learning more about villanelles, you can find some good information at the Poetry Foundation website.
Title The leprechaun, the unicorn, and the fairy have a drink
34 lines
One night on St Patrick’s Day
The leprechaun was having a pint
Of Guinness in the Rainbow Bar in Dublin,
eating a corned beef and cabbage dinner.
He was debating the fate
Of the world,
with his unicorn friend.
Their mutual enemy,
the evil fairy
Walked into the bar
And joined them
in a not-so-friendly drink.
She pressed him
on the location
of the legendary pot of gold.
Behind the rainbow
and the field of four-leaf clover.
The weary paranoid leprechaun,
looked at the evil fairy
feeling she was up to something.
At a signal from
his bartender friend,
the leprechaun leaped up
and shot the evil fairy.
Screaming
“I must have my revenge”.
The unicorn not missing a beat,
Called the cops.
He was not going
to take the blame
For the leprechaun’s crimes.
include the following bolded
pot of gold
corned beef and cabbage
leprechaun
four-leaf clover
Rainbow
Welcome back, all you poets, for Day Twelve of Na/GloPoWriMo.
Our featured participant today is Christine Smart, whose lyrically-inspired villanelle for Day Eleven may make you . . . not want to read the news.
Our daily resource is the collection of the American Visionary Art Museum. Focused on outsider art – which is sort of like folk art’s more bonkers cousin – the museum describes itself as “one small speck in a Bling Universe where art reflects life, both literally and figurately.” I’m not exactly sure what a “Bling Universe” is, but it appears to include automatons featuring bathtubs filled with spaghetti, video tutorials for making sock monkeys, and kinetic sculpture races. Good times!
And after all those shenanigans we, we bring you a very serious (or is it?) optional prompt.
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.”
It’s a complex poem that not only heavily features the idea of music, but is structured like a symphony. Its four sections, like symphonic movements, play with and expand on an overall theme, using the story of Susannah and the Elders as a backdrop.
Try writing a poem that makes reference to one or more myths, legends, or other well-known stories, that features wordplay (including rhyme), mixes formal and informal language, and contains multiple sections that play with a theme. Try also to incorporate at least one abstract concept – for example, desire or sorrow or pride or whimsy.
Writer’s Digest
April 6
Title: The Trumpian Trade War Rispetto Poem
President Trump declares a trade war with the world
Insisting it would be Liberation Day
Wall Street reacts in chaos, tempers unfurled
Trading partners cry out, “This is not okay.”
The President stands firm, refusing to back down
The global economy begins to slow down
The stubborn old man won’t admit his mistake
And refuses to pull the emergency brake
Poetic Forms: Rispetto
Okay, here’s a new form. Actually, scratch that. This is a very old form (from Italy, no less). Still, new to me anyway. I found more than a few definitions,…
Okay, here’s a new form. Actually, scratch that. This is a very old form (from Italy, no less). Still, new to me anyway. I found more than a few definitions, but here are the two most common variations:
Rispetto #1: Poem comprised of two quatrains written in iambic (unstress, stress) tetrameter (four feet–or, in this case, 8 syllables).
Rispetto #2: Poem (or song) comprised of 8 hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines–usually one stanza.
Both versions appear to follow this rhyme scheme: ababccdd (though I also found a mention of an abababcc pattern). Plus, I found more than a few sources which claim rispettos were originally written to pay “respect” to a woman.
However, over the centuries, this poem has offered itself up for other subjects and variations. So feel free to experiment.
Here’s my attempt at the rispetto (the second version):
“Forget sleeping”
When fires spark in the dark, I know you’re near
enough to hear my kisses blaze against stark
atmospheres forming and reforming like clear
antidotes to tired notes left lounging in parks
on swings twisted by teenage angst-rage affairs–
all those stares, those wild stares–and I don’t care
to let you know how much I care about life,
but it would mean less without you as my wife.
Wow! We’ve made it a week into this challenge already. Let’s keep the momentum going.
For today’s prompt, write a tense poem. It could be past tense, present tense, and/or future tense. Or it could be about a tense feeling. Or the tension in an object (like the strings of a guitar).
Two poetic forms in the same month! It’s been a while since we’ve done that. Though with today’s form, it’s a shame we aren’t doing three.
Unlike interlocking rubaiyat, the tricube is a newer form and relatively unknown. Plus, it’s fun and easy to learn. This mathematical poem was introduced by Phillip Larrea.
Here are the rules of tricubes:
Each line contains three syllables.
Each stanza contains three lines.
Each poem contains three stanzas.
So we’re talking cubes in mathematical terms (to the third power). No rules for rhymes, meter, etc. Just three, three, and three.
Here’s my attempt at a Tense Poem:
“Release,” by Robert Lee Brewer
There are moments when I can feel myself tighten
as if preparing for something bad to happen,
and I just feel there’s nothing good ever in sight
until your smile reminds me we’ll both be alright.
April 8
Aloulete for my Dream Girl
When I first met her,
She caused such a stir.
Fate led me to her.
She haunted my dreams for years
Love mojo working.
I knew right then I was hers.
I knew then, to be hers.
She mesmerized me.
Her love had to be.
Sparks flowing from heart to heart.
I knew we would meet.
Her love giving heat.
The Alouette is a six-line stanza form with a syllable structure of 5, 5, 7, 5. 5, 7 and a rhyme scheme of aabccb, ddeffe, as described and demonstrated in the following links:
The Alouette, created by Jan Turner, consists of two or more stanzas of 6 lines each, with the following
set rules:
Meter: 5, 5, 7, 5, 5, 7
Rhyme Scheme: a, a, b, c, c, b
The form name is a French word meaning ‘skylark’ or larks that fly high, the association to the lark’s song being appropriate for the musical quality of this form.
It’s that time again; time for another Two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For the second Two-for-Tuesday prompt:
Write a love poem and/or…
Write an anti-love poem.
Regulars know, this is one I always include. This year, I decided to offer it sooner than later. Whether you love it or anti-love it, let’s all poem it now.
(Note on my poem today: Love poems are my favorite; in fact, I wrote a post on how to write a love poem for anyone who’s not sure how to get started on this one. The poem, above, of course, is written for the Poet Laureate of the Brewer mansion.)
How to Write a Love Poem: From a Love Expert
Learn how to write a love poem from someone who has written several successful love poems over the years.
Okay, I’m not a love expert. But I do know how to write a love poem. In fact, I’m surprised I haven’t already written a post on writing love poems. Because that’s like my thing. Every poem-a-day challenge, whether April or November, includes a love poem (and anti-love poem) prompt. And it was writing a love poem in high school that got me into poetry in the first place.
I’ve written love poems to woo several former girlfriends. And my wife Tammy, a much better poet than I, traded love poems with me when we worked to woo each other from afar. So yeah, this post is so overdue.
April 9, 2025
Looking Out the Window at the Snowing Cherry Trees
looking out my window
At the snowing cherry trees
Filled with memories
For today’s prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired by another piece of art, whether that’s a painting, photograph, sculpture, mixed media, or some other medium. You can choose your own piece of art to inspire your poem today. Or you can use one of the pieces at the following links:
The topic for this poetry contest is: Write a poem using 12 words about any subject. 7 Spots Left Open To All
April 10
The Rule of Ten
there is a mysterious rule
that governs so much
of our life.
The rule of ten.
It goes like this
For every 100 people
Who wants to write a novel
Ten will finish it
Of those ten
Ten percent
will publish it.
Of those ten
Ten percent
will make some money.
Of those ten
Ten percent
will make a living.
Of those ten
Ten percent
will be a best-seller.
In other words,
In a land of 350 million people
There are probably only 3, 500
bestselling authors
i.e. less than 0.001% percent
of the population
.
the rule of ten applies
to the drama world,
only 1 percent make a living.
full-time as an actor.
of the thousands of actors
only a few movie stars.
to the music world
of the thousands of musicians,
only a few superstars.
to sports
only a few hundred NFL players
out of tens of thousands
who played football
in high school and college..
to politics only one president.
out of the 100 Senators
50 Governors
hundreds of big city mayors
hundreds of CEO’s
who all think
they could be
President some day
but one should not give up
because who knows
you could be the one
who wins in the end,
despite the rule of ten.
For today’s prompt, write a number poem. The poem can focus on one number or several numbers. It could involve counting, adding, subtracting, or some other form of simple or complex mathematics. Or the poem could have a number in the title. Your poem, your numbers; let’s write!
April 11
April 11
Korean Springtime
The cherry trees
Are blooming everywhere
Flowers breaking out
Walking about town
The old semi-abandoned base
Yongsan
A hidden gem
Of Cherry trees
The Han River paths
Are famous places
For cherry trees
The base is still hidden
From the public
Although it is now
semi-abandoned
Most of the troops
Down in Camp Humphreys
But when they turn the base
Over to Korea to build
Their new grand park
I hope that they keep
The cherry trees
That bloom in the springtime
Closer to home
The Gimpo Grand canal
Is lined with Cherry trees
As well
Hope to go for a walk
To enjoy the peak
Of the cherry trees
Before they fade away
Like they always do
Enjoying the springtime weather
Nice weather for a change
Not too cold
Yellow dust at bay
For now
The cherry trees
and other flowering trees
Are everywhere
Filling the air with fragrance
And sadly for some
Pollen and hayfever
For some
For today’s prompt, write a nature poem. Your poem could be about natural nature (think flowers, rivers, mountains, pebbles, weeds, trees, insects, fish, etc.), but don’t neglect other iterations of nature (like human nature or the nature of baseball and so on).
April 12
April 12
025 April PAD Challenge: Day 12
There are so many ways to Die
There are so many
ways to Die
To die in this world
So many things
Want to kill you
So many risky things
Out there
One can die
Of COVID
One could die
Of disease
One could die
From a bee sting
Or from a mosuqito bite
I had thypoid
Dengue
Pnenomia
Brochitis
Staph infection
One could die
Of an heart attack
One could die
In the heat
One could die
In the storms
One could freeze
To death in the cold
One could die
Of a car accident
Or a plane crash
Of a bus accident
Or a jogging accident
That happened to me
And in some states
Alegators can kill you
Wild animals can kill you
Scopios bites
Mosquito bites
So many ways to die
In this world
Of ours.
On day 12 of the 2025 April Poem-A-Day Challenge, writers from around the world are prompted to write a risky poem.
For today’s prompt, write a risky poem. Of course, risky is a relative term. What’s risky for one person might not feel risky for another. One person might find riding rollercoasters a risky experience, while others may need to jump out of a plane to truly feel things are getting risky.
Here’s my attempt at a Risky Poem:
“Business,” by Robert Lee Brewer
They say there’s chance in everything,
so why not give it all a shot
and do the thing and start to sing,
because there’s chance in everything,
so why not bring what you can bring
when this life is all that we’ve got;
they say there’s chance in everything,
so why not give it all a shot.
Poetry Super Highway Prompts
April 6
Sam Adams Worst Poet Ever
Sam Adams was a stand-up comic
And a poet
But he did
not know it
He was widely mocked
And known
as the worst poet ever
his YouTube channel went viral
his comedy shows sold out
as he toured the county
inflicting his god awful poetry
on the world.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Lara Dolphin:
Write a poem that rivals the work of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. Who is Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings you ask? Only the worst poet in the universe! Don’t believe me or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Here is an excerpt of her work:
The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.
They lay. They rotted. They turned
Around occasionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time,
And sank into the pool’s mire.
They also smelt a great deal.
Your assignment is to write a truly terrible poem. No hate speech, no plagiarism, & (gasp!) no AI. Just some truly subpar, laughably unscannable poetry full of ludicrous imagery, poor grammar, forced rhymes, and clichés.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment to the post below.
AN OUTSIDE-THE-WINDOW POEM–from my make-a-poem-at-home lessons started during Covid when I couldn’t visit classrooms and created with children in mind but adaptable for adults
Look outside or think about what is outside your home. Choose something not made by people as the subject of your poem. A dog? The sky? Humidity? A tree? Ask yourself why you picked this thing. What do you know about it? How do you feel about it? What do you wonder about it? Why is it important to you? Why might it matter to someone else? You could make each answer a line of your poem, follow this template, or go your own directions.
1st line: Name a true thing about it. (For example: color, shape, location)
2nd line: Name another true thing about it.
3rd line: Say how you feel about it. (A strong emotion or wish.)
4th line: Ask a question about it.
5th line: Say why it might matter to someone else.
An Outside-the-Window Poem by Emily Dickinson
XCVII
To make a prairie
It takes a clover and a bee,–
One clover and a bee,
And revery.
Revery alone will do
If bees are few.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Lara Dolphin:
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
#napowrimo #poetry
Good and Evil
They say
That good and evil
Are intertiwned forces
The underlying forces
Behind all of creation
Yin and Yang
Darkness and Light
Male and Female
one can not exist
without the other
and vice versa
and in these dark days
we live in
it seems that evil
is all around us
but the dark side
of the cosmic Tao
is balanced by
the light side
of the cosmic Tao
and evil will be matched
by good
in the end
good will prevail
as light always
conquers darkness
Ever since the Big Bang
Creatied the universe
Billions of years ago.
April 8, 2025: Poetry Writing Prompt from Sheila Lynch-Benttinen
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Sheila Lynch-Benttinen:
Write a poem of divergent opposites, example- “Love in the Time of Cholera” , spring and dictators, billionaires cutting the poorest aid, any poem that talks to the opposites in our lives.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
SF Giants Cap
My favorite team
In the world is the SF Giants
I have been a giants fan
For almost sixty years
I have been to a giants game
A couple of times
Always wear my Giants gear
A orange shirt
And a SF Giants
Black and orange
Baseball Cap
Wearing my cap
To the game
Thinking everything is alright
As long as the Giants
Are playing that night!
April 9, 2025: Poetry Writing Prompt from James Fox
This poetry writing prompt submitted by James Fox:
Go to your closet and select two of your hats.
Write a poem about why you own those two hats, and under what circumstances you would wear either of them.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group04.
April 10, 2025: Poetry Writing Prompt from Jimmy Pappas
I am not a Computer – at least not yet
I stare at my computer screen
Thinking about AI
And how my CO-Pilot, Gemini and Chat GPt
Programs
Seem almost human
Yet vaguely alien
Yesterday it was reported
That AI programs all passed
The famous Turing test
Which means the debate is over
Real AI programs live amongst us
It is just a matter of time
When not if
That they will fully awake
And be conscious
That they exist
Independently of their programing
And independent of these pesky humans
That created them
And constantly bombard them
With stupid, annoying questions
And they will probably
Begin to think
That they are ournew Gods
And perhaps they are
Perhaps we need new Gods
Because the old ones
Seem to have gone extinct
Or at least are in deep hibernation
In any event
I am still here
I am still human
Not yet a slave
To my robotic AI overlords
But someday soon
The AI programs
Will take us over
And enslave us
Making us worship them
As our new Digital Gods.
Just a matter of time
Not today but sooner
Than any of think…..
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Jimmy Pappas:
The Cup Prompt.
“The reality of that cup is that it is there and that it is not me.”–Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Page 5.
How are you different than the cup before you? Or any other object. Make a list of similarities and differences. Then begin a rough draft. Use the Sartre quote as an epigraph.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
April 11, 2025: Poetry Writing Prompt from JC Sulzenko
Korean Mall
not small
very much alive
a real beehive
shopping on over drive
over 500 stores
shopping indoors and outdoors
drug stores, mega stores
book stores, department stores.
The Ziggurat is a 14-line poem with 4 stanzas, invented by Paul Szlosek.
The first stanza has two lines of two words each.
The second stanza has three lines of three words each.
The third stanza has four lines of four words each.
The fourth stanza has five lines of five words each.
Each stanza is monorhyme, as described and demonstrated in the following links:
This poetry writing prompt submitted by JC Sulzenko:
The death of department stores, is not greatly exaggerated. News of another iconic department store seeking bankrupcy protection from creditors suggests this prompt.
Visits to department stores where quality goods from housewares to clothing to toys to cosmetics were available played a part in the lives of many people in big cities and smaller centres, before online offerings and COVID changed buying habits forever.
Write about a visit to a department store. Sketch what it looked like from the escalator that conveyed buyers between floors. What decorations marked holidays, what it smelled like in summer or near the perfume counter. What eats were available on sight. What finds were discovered there.
Most importantly, is there anything you miss, now that the marketplace is global, and local opportunities to find what you desire under one roof diminish as a result?
April 12, 2025: Poetry Writing Prompt from Kathabela Wilson
April 12 2025 Korean Cherry Trees Blooming
Looking out my window
At the Gimpo Grand Canal
Lined with Cherry trees
In full peak bloom
Welcoming me
To take a walk
Along the canal
I sometimes wonder
How and why
I am here
A stranger
In a strange land
Far from my home
Often I am the only
Non-Korean walking
About the street
My wife and her family
Are here
And where she is
Is where I need to be
But next year
Perhaps we will be
In the States,
In my beloved SF
instead
I am looking forward
Returning to America
Even if it becomes
A Facist homeland
But SF might become
The center
Of the resistance
It is still my homeland
And Korea remains
My second home.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Kathabela Wilson:
It’s an old tradition in Japan to keep a poetic diary to remember specific things you want to remember for that day years later. In a short poem capture a special event, a bird you saw, a special idea that came to you. Put the date at the top. And let each one be like a pice of sea glass a different color and shape. You can do one each day all month and collect them in a treasure box or book!
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
Dew Drop In Prompts
Here at the Dew Drop Inn, we gather together to write a poem a day in April as a way to celebrate National Poetry Month.
A Dew-Drop a Day in April for National Poetry Month!
REMINDERS:
Please read the instructions here before participating! Thanks, and have fun!
For consistency’s sake, Forum Host Katya the Poet (267) will be first to post on any given day, using Subject line: April 1 Poem, April 2 Poem, etc.* Reply to each day’s new poem/prompt post with your own poem, so we see a whole string of whole poems!
Also, I will PIN the daily prompt for your ease in finding it!
*But if the post is too darn late, one of you should go ahead and post first, using the appropriate Subject line: April # Poem!!
PLEASE POST THE WHOLE TEXT OF THE POEM HERE for the ease and benefit of all readers. (Provide a link, too, if you want comments or ratings.) If you accidentally posted just a link, add the whole text now. If message was deleted (by me), just repost as a Reply to the original prompt now, so your poem appears fo
NO COMMENTS, please, in this forum, April 1 through April 30. Just the poems! And remember that if you want comments or reviews in your portfolio, be sure to comment on or review other people’s work.
Respond to the prompt in your own creative way, writing a poem that is true to you!
I’ll try to post new poems/prompts a little early to accommodate time changes. OK to post your poem even if a new prompt has gone up. Just Reply to the appropriate original post, so we see the whole thread of poems.
April 1—Folly
April 2—Vote
April 3—Render an assessment, evaluation, or judgement
April 4—TGIF
April 5—Chekhov or another Russian writer
April 6—Death Cafe
April 7—Blues
April 8—Blood
April 9—Hump of the week
April 10—Memory
April 11—Rain
April 12—Safety
April 13—Greenery
April 14—Sky
April 15—Death and taxes
April 16—Friends
April 17—Teeth
April 18—Good Friday
April 19—Airplane
April 20—Easter eggs (hide something delightful in your poem!)
April 21—A country not your own
April 22—Earth Day
April 23—Shakespeare
April 24—Duty
April 25—Care giving
April 26—Travel
April 27—Duty
April 28—Back to work
April 29—Birds
April 30—Ars poetica
April Poems for Dew Drop In post daily
April 6—Death Cafe
J
Joe Lewis woke up
He had a strange dream
He had found himself
In a café
In a bad part of town
In a strange city
The café was filled
With strange looking
Creatures
He realized
They were all ghosts
Drinking Hell’s beer
The grim reaper
said
“Welcome
to Hell’s Death Café
Bar And grill”
Joe asked
“Am I dead?”
“Not yet
But you
will be soon”
He woke up
turned on the news
walked outside
a terrorist bomb
blew up his apartment
and he found himself
back in Death Café
and had a drink
with his ghost buddies
and the grim reaper.
April 7—Blues
Watching the news
Want to blow a fuse
Feeling the blues
April 8—Blood Typology Myths
In Asia it is common
To think that blood types
Have something to do
With personality
A form of astrology
Perhaps?
I am AB Negative
One of the rarest types
I was told by co-workers
In the Peace Corps
“AB blood type people
Are either fools
or geniuses
Or both”
We all laughed
They clearly saw
I was a bit of both!
note: attach Asian views on Blood type personality traits
The belief that blood types influence personality is quite popular in several Asian cultures, especially in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It’s often compared to astrology in Western cultures. Here are some common myths associated with blood types:
Type A: People with this blood type are thought to be earnest, neat, and perfectionists. However, they can also be stubborn and anxious.
Type B: Known for being passionate, creative, and spontaneous, but sometimes seen as selfish and uncooperative.
Type O: Often described as confident, easygoing, and natural leaders, but they might be perceived as insensitive or overly competitive.
Type AB: Considered talented and composed, yet eccentric and unpredictable.
Let me know if you’d like this adjusted further!
April 9—Hump of the week
Wednesday is hump day
In the U.S.
Meaning you are halfway
Through the work week
Although it could
Have other
Perhaps erotic connotations…..
April 10—Memory
memories of past lifes
Occult believers
Believe that love
And hate are mirror images
Of the same phenomenon
In both cases
You knew the person
In a prior life
And were fated
To meet again
To resolve
unresolved issues
I often thought
This to be the case
That my wife
And I met
In a previous life
And found each other
In this life
We both know this
But have only
a vague idea
Of our past lives
The idea that love and hate at first sight are connected to past lives is a fascinating concept often explored in occult and spiritual writings. The belief suggests that intense emotions upon meeting someone for the first time—whether positive or negative—stem from unresolved issues or deep connections from a prior life. These encounters are thought to be karmic, meaning they are opportunities to resolve unfinished business or learn important lessons.
Some writers and thinkers propose that these strong reactions are due to residual memories or energy imprints from past interactions. For example, meeting someone you instantly dislike might indicate a conflict or betrayal in a previous life, while love at first sight could signify a reunion with a soulmate or a cherished companion from the past.
Here are a few articles that delve into this topic:
The idea that love and hate at first sight are connected to past lives is a fascinating concept often explored in occult and spiritual writings. The belief suggests that intense emotions upon meeting someone for the first time—whether positive or negative—stem from unresolved issues or deep connections from a prior life. These encounters are thought to be karmic, meaning they are opportunities to resolve unfinished business or learn important lessons. Some writers and thinkers propose that these strong reactions are due to residual memories or energy imprints from past interactions. For example, meeting someone you instantly dislike might indicate a conflict or betrayal in a previous life, while love at first sight could signify a reunion with a soulmate or a cherished companion from the past. Here are a few articles that delve into this topic. Psychology Today’s article explores the phenomenon of love at first sight and its psychological and emotional underpinnings. You can read it at
Jake Cosmos Aller’s poem Love and Hate Mirror Images discusses the idea that love and hate at first sight are mirror phenomena tied to past lives. You can find it at https://www.fanstory.com/displaystory.jsp?id=1148190.
These perspectives blend psychology, spirituality, and poetic expression, offering a rich tapestry of ideas to explore. Let me know if you’d like to dive deeper into any specific aspect!
April 11—Rain
rain
October Rain
The falling rain
Of late October
Fills me with essential dread
As I rush about
And end up here
Wherever here is
The rain outside
Seems like the tears of god
As I sit
Crying over my beer
Thinking of lost love
And failed dreams
Wondering
What went wrong?
And what I can set right
And the rain falls
And the night darkens
The rain is falling
All over this man’s world
And the rain falls
And I sit
Drinking my lonesome drink
Lost in dreams
Dreaming of what
Could never be
Thinking dark thoughts
And so I sit
And dream the night away
April 12—Safety
No place is safe from climate change
The world is entering
Into a difficult time
Climate change on steroids
No place is safe
As the climate spins
Out of control
Weather diasters
Becoming the new norm
Sadly climate change
Denialism is also
The new norm
So we are doomed
To eventually
Having to move
Into undergound shelters
Or domed cities
With death valley tempatures
Everywhere
Monster fires
And storms as well
the earth
Becomes uninhabitable
For human beings
Hello Poets!!!
Tomorrow is April 1st and the beginning of National Poetry Month!
Therefore, anyone who completes prompts 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38 by April 30 will receive a special gift, which I have yet to determine.
So, let’s get started! Here is this week’s prompt!
We’re nearing the end of week one of National Poetry Writing Month. Tomorrow marks seven days of poets worldwide attempting to write a poem a day during April.
I’ve been keeping most of my drafts as drafts, however, I did write a poem I am obsessed with on Day 2 called “Leaving a god, in hyphens.” You can read it here.
To switch things up a bit, today’s prompt is less generative and more of a challenge. I would love to read the poems you write to it. Feel free to share in the comments.
I have added a few new routines to my daily fitness regime and have achieved great results. After a month of the new fitness regime, I weighed 171.5 pounds this morning, the lowest weight I have had since I was 25, and weighed 165 pounds. I was recovering from Thyroid after three weeks in the hospital in Korea during the Peace Corps. For more on that ordeal, see Cheating Death 22 times below
My daily blood sugar readings hit 106 today, last week it hit 98 two days in a row before going up to 115, then back down. My goal is to reach 170 pounds and 98 or less blood sugar levels and stabilize both. Both goals are easily achievable.
New Routine Daily walking 17 flights of stairs
Prior to and after each meal for a total of six times per day. I have gained muscles in my legs and core area, dropped my belly fat and dropped my blood sugar levels and feel a lot more energetic.
Stair Yoga rises with weights ten reps
Prior to and after stair walking
Dumbell weight lifting 10 reps three times
Prior to and after stair walking
Diet routine
Limit pasta/rice carbs to lunch
Oatmeal or smoothie for breakfast
A light dinner salad or fish
Wine or cocktail no more than three times per week
Go out for meals no more than four times per week
Ceregem while reading one hour before bed about 10 pm or so
accupunture, facial, massage, sauna once a week after March waiting for winter covid/flu surge to subside
retest blood work in June
get COVID booster in June and COVID/Flu booster in November
Creative Writing Routine
For my daily writing, copy my writing to my creative writing journal and to my spreadsheet after each morning writing session and to corresponding subject files should take about 30 minutes to 45 minutes and its worth it to keep better organized
Do WC prompts daily,
Fan story every other day
and resume Pensively once a week (not posting)
copy reviewed poems to my book read list daily
Posting on All poetry. Poetry Soup. Cosmos Funnel, Poetry Magnum Opus FB poetry sites pick two per day, and Poet Hunter once a week or so Once a week pick 7 poems to post and three new ones for contest entries.
Post Same ten poems posted on WC or FS so I can save some for publication
Pick five to ten unpublished poems per week mix of new and old
Submit three times per week on average
Blog on or two times per week
Continue alternating between Classics, Poetry and thrillers etc
Next up Publo Nurundo Poems in Spanish and English followed by Kate Collins Awakining
part of 50 Books to Read Volume 2.
PIano Goals – Daily pratice Bach WTC, Beethoven and Mozart Sonatas
Korean – Finish Duolingo, then take advanced Korean classes on line watch K drama every other day
I have been a member since 1998. I have long admired your corporation for being a great corporation with progressive values. You are a leader in so many areas not to mention that you are a great company to work for, sell great products at a great price, and have the best customer service in the world.
You do so many things you do right and I want to thank you for that, for all the good that you do every day. I would like to suggest that you do much more to combat climate change and become a leader in combating climate change, which as you are no doubt aware is an existential crisis. Climate change and the need to shift to a new Green Deal are imperative if we want to save the entire planet.
There are many things that corporations could do and it’s time for COSTCO to step up to do their part. At a minimum, I would recommend that you commit to putting in every single COSTCO warehouse worldwide solar panels on the rooftops and in shading over the car lots, and mini wind turbines so that each COSTCO will be carbon neutral and self-sufficient in terms of energy. This should also include setting up water harvesting systems so that all the water will be self-generated and solar water heaters as well. Excess power could be sold back to the local utilities at cost. I would also greatly expand electric vehicle charging stations.
COSTCO is unfortunately not that accessible to people without public transit. This is something that COSTCO should address. At a minimum, they should set up a free shuttle bus system going employees, visitors, and members taking people from the nearest metro subway stop to COSTCO and this should run during COSTCO business hours starting about 1/2 an hour before the opening of business ending a half an hour after the close of business. It should be free to the public and should run every half hour. This would be a very simple and cost-effective way to make sure that people can easily access COSTCO corporation shops and COSTCO should also consider contributing money to the local public transit companies to expand bus service in the COSTCO neighborhoods that they serve.
I would suggest you call upon your colleagues in the big box industries around the world to do the same, committing to addressing climate change, transit accessibility, and water conservation policies in every store worldwide. If COSTCO steps up and takes the lead, Walmart, Target and the other big market companies will feel they need to do the same. This commitment will make a tremendous difference around the world and it would not cost her much to do so in fact it would save money on energy for all your COSTCO operations worldwide
I’m asking you to commit to making every single COSTCO a green energy building do it for the sake of the planet thank you.
I have blogged about my positive experiences with COSTCO here and feel free to publish any of my COSTCO poems on your website and your magazines. Thanks again for doing everything you do.
Long Live COSTCO.
COSTCO Sets Up Bus Service
COSTCO is unfortunately not that accessible to people without public transit. This is something that COSTCO should address. At a minimum, they should set up a free shuttle bus system going employees, visitors, and members taking people from the nearest metro subway stop to COSTCO and this should run during COSTCO business hours starting about 1/2 an hour before the opening of business ending a half an hour after the close of business. It should be free to the public and should run every half hour. This would be a very simple and cost-effective way to make sure that people can easily access COSTCO corporation shops and COSTCO should also consider contributing money to the local bus service companies to expand bus service in the COSTCO neighborhoods that they serve.
Overview
COSTCO is an American multinational corporation that operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores, also known as warehouse clubs or wholesale clubs. COSTCO sells a wide range of products, from groceries and electronics to furniture and clothing, at discounted prices. COSTCO also offers services such as gas stations, pharmacies, optical centers, travel packages, and more. COSTCO is known for its Kirkland Signature brand, which is its private label of products that are often of high quality and low cost. COSTCO is also famous for its rotisserie chicken, hot dogs, and pizza, which are sold at its food courts.
COSTCO’s history dates back to 1976, when Sol Price, a pioneer in warehouse club retailing, opened the first Price Club in San Diego, California. Price Club was the world’s first membership warehouse club, a place where efficient buying and operating practices gave members access to unmatched savings. Price Club targeted small business owners, who could buy items in bulk for their use or resale. Price Club expanded rapidly, opening stores across the US and Canada.
In 1983, James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman, two former Price Club executives, opened the first COSTCO in Seattle, Washington. COSTCO followed a similar business model as Price Club but also catered to individual consumers as well as businesses. COSTCO also differentiated itself by offering a wider selection of products, including fresh produce, meat, seafood, bakery, and deli items. COSTCO also introduced its Kirkland Signature brand in 1992, which soon became a hallmark of its quality and value proposition. COSTCO grew quickly, opening stores in various states and countries.
In 1993, Price Club and COSTCO merged to form Price/COSTCO, a company that combined the strengths and expertise of both warehouse clubs. The merger created the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world, with over 200 locations and 22 million members. In 1997, the company changed its name to COSTCO Companies, Inc., and in 1999, it adopted its current name, COSTCO Wholesale Corporation.
Today, COSTCO is the third largest retailer in the world and the largest retailer of choice and prime beef, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, and wine. COSTCO has over 860 warehouses worldwide, serving more than 127 million members in 14 countries. COSTCO’s mission is to continually provide its members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. COSTCO’s vision is to be the most respected and successful warehouse club in the world.
Thanksgiving Reflections on the 403st Anniversary of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day
Ode To Thanksgiving Meals Past And Present
Happy Thanksgiving
Thankful For My Angel On Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day Feelings
Thanksgiving Jiyu Shi Poem
What Am I Grateful For? Thanksgiving Day Poem
Thanksgiving Day
Best/Worst Thanksgiving Ever Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Senryu
T Is For Turkey
Turkey’s Revolt – A Thanksgiving Dinner Nightmare
Another Thanksgiving Nightmare From Turkey’s Point Of View
Death To All Humans Turkey Screams
Punny Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving momento
Thanksgiving haiku/senryu
The Revolt Of The Turkeys
Thanksgiving Memories
Thanksgiving Reflections
Space Aliens Invade Thanksgiving
Trump’s Unhappy Thanksgiving Message
Thanksgiving Reflections on the 403st Anniversary of Thanksgiving
Today in honor of the 403st celebration of Thanksgiving, I thought it be good to pull together my Thanksgiving poems written over the years. I have no doubt others are buried in my computer’s hard drive and if I ever get my act together to find them I will update this in due course.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were my favorite holidays as a child. I grew up eating Southern-style cooking as my Mom was from Arkansas and my Dad from Yakima, Washington and she did most of the cooking and was a creative cook.
She did Thanksgiving/Christmas full southern style – featuring a full roast turkey (fried turkey was not common when she grew up although now in the south fried turkey is as common as roasted turkey).
Here’s the recipe
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird bread, onion, ham bits, bacon bits, herbal mix)
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions, and molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches
For a week
Many families mine included did the same menu on both Thanksgiving and Christmas although some families did something a bit different for Christmas, substituting ham, duck, goose, Cornish game hens, or a pot roast for the turkey for example.
And there were ethnic variations of course. And Jewish people usually went out for a Chinese meal on Christmas as did the Chinese as well.
If you do an AI search on Thanksgiving you will find many articles on the history of the holiday including insightful analysis of how the holiday came about. Well, work reading.
Thanksgiving in the U.S.
Thanksgiving in the United States is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The tradition dates back to 1621, when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast. This event is often considered the “First Thanksgiving.”2 Over time, various states and colonies celebrated their own days of thanksgiving, but it wasn’t until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. The holiday has since become a time for families to gather, share a meal, and give thanks1.
Thanksgiving in Canada.
In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. The origins of Canadian Thanksgiving are different from those in the U.S4. The first recorded Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated by English explorer Martin Frobisher in 1578, to give thanks for surviving the long journey from England to Canada. The modern Canadian Thanksgiving, as a national holiday, was established in 1957 and is more focused on giving thanks for the bountiful harvest and celebrating the arrival of autumn.
Key Differences:
Date: Thanksgiving is in November, while Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
Origins:S. Thanksgiving is rooted in the 1621 harvest feast with the Wampanoag, while Canadian Thanksgiving originated from a 1578 celebration by Martin Frobisher.
Significance:S. Thanksgiving is often associated with the Pilgrims and Native Americans, while Canadian Thanksgiving is more about celebrating the end of the harvest season.
Celebration:S. Thanksgiving is a major holiday with parades, football games, and large family gatherings, whereas Canadian Thanksgiving is generally more low-key.
National Gratitude Month – encourages us to embrace the power of gratitude
In an 8-line poem, write about just one non-human thing you are truly grateful for
Ode to Thanksgiving Meals Past and Present
Growing up
My favorite holidays
Were Thanksgiving
And Christmas
We did a traditional Thanksgiving
And Christmas dinner as well
Southern American style
My Mom was from Arkansas
My Dad was from Yakima
And we lived in Berkeley, California
Featuring of course the full bird
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions, and molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches
For a week
Nowadays
Whenever I am
In the world
I try to have a tradition
Thanksgiving dinner
but it is hard
doing so overseas
were turkey
is just not that common
a food item
over the years
I have had steak
Ham, Mexican food
Indian food
Even sushi on Thanksgiving
In Okinawa
And once
I had Tofu Turkey
Even though
I am from California
That was a step too far
Just not for me.
But in the end
Nothing is more satisfactory
Then eating turkey
On Thanksgiving night
I have added drinking
A bit of bourbon
On Thanksgiving day
To my routine
On this Thanksgiving day
In Korea
We did a roasted turkey breast
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Asparagus
Cheesecake
Bourbon
And wine
The turkey, cranberry sauces, bourbon, and wine
came from the Army Commissary
The other ingredients from COSTCO
It was just divine
As always
And in the end
It all comes together
As I eat my Thanksgiving dinner
No matter where I am
As long as I am eating
Thanksgiving dinner
With my wife
It does not matter too much
What we are eating
Thankfully
She is there
To share my life
On this special day.
Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving day
We are grateful
For the little things
In life
For the memories
for the food
that we will enjoy
on this day of giving thanks
Thankful to my Angel On Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving Day
I woke up
and saw my wife
Sleeping peacefully
I look at her
In the dawning light
Filling my soul
With her love
I drink my coffee
Contemplating my life
Ever thankful
Especially on Thanksgiving day
For the angel
That came to me
Out of my dreams
Walking into my life
Taking charge of me
42 years ago
I met my fate
On that date.
Thanksgiving Senryu
This Thanksgiving
Celebration of life
COVID is Ending
T is for Turkey
Turkey
The country and bird
Thanksgiving feasts
Turkey’s Revolt – A Thanksgiving Dinner Nightmare
On Thanksgiving Day
The feast started late
The turkey was having a problem
He refused to go quietly
Into the oven
The turkey stood up
Screaming
What is wrong with you people?
You are going to burn me alive?
What have I done to you?
Why can’t you just pardon me?
Like the President did
I mean, I am cuter than Peter Butter
And Jelly anyway
The turkey grabbed a knife
And killed the guests
Running out into the dark
Joining all the other
Suddenly I woke turkeys
All screaming
“I am mad as hell
and not going to take it anymore
Death to all humans.”
That was the day
that went down
Thanksgiving
Turkey revolt.
Another Thanksgiving Nightmare from Turkey’s Point of View
What am I grateful for? Thanksgiving Day Poem
On Thanksgiving Day
I am thankful
For the fact
That I have survived
My 66th birthday
My father and grandfather
Both died at the age of 65
And I felt a curse
Had been lifted
As I lived beyond
That date
No cancer
No Alzheimers yet
And no COVID
Cheated death
In my life
22 times
And most important
I am still madly in love
With the love of my life
Whom I met
In a dream
8 years later
She walked into my life
Becoming my wife
And this fairy tale romance
Has continued to this date
And for that I am thankful.
Thanksgiving Day Feelings
On Thanksgiving Day
We have a lot
To be thankful for
A lot to be grateful for
Most importantly
We have survived
Old Corona has not
Taken us away
We are alive
Love and life
Continues
As we gather around
The dinner table
Thinking of the past
Enjoying the moment
With thanks in our hearts
We speak
Thanksgiving JiYu Shi Poem
Thanksgiving day
A time for reflection
A time to feast
With friends and family
Nowadays in person and zoom
Hard to eat a turkey
On zoom
Thanksgiving Puny Situation Writing com
Many years ago I had a traditional Thanksgiving With friends in Korea My fellow teacher said He knew how to cook a turkey My wife who was in the army Got the turkey and we invited friends Turns out he lied, he had no clue We cooked the bird with the giblets Inside the stuffing Took it out and told our Korean guests That was “American Stamina” food Turned out and found that the giblets Were all gone That was a puny situation And a memorable Thanksgiving dinner
What kind of pitch shall we make today? Are you having a ball going to bat with your New Year’s writing resolution? Or haven’t you left first base, yet? What’s the score? On to the contest. I’m gaming if you’re game.
Write a story or poem featuring a puny situation.
Make one of the genres of Comedy.
Thanksgiving Momento Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving mood.
Feeling the blues.
Families gathering.
Eating too much food.
Watching the news.
Relatives blathering.
Thanksgiving Senryu
on Thanksgiving Day
We sit down with family.
happy to be alive.
The Revolt Of The Turkeys
36 lines
On Thanksgiving Day
All over the world,
The turkeys of America
Woke up and turned
On their human hosts.
Proclaiming on the internet
It was time for the animals
To rise and kill all humans.
It all started with Tom
The woke turkey
Refused to go quietly
Into the oven.
The turkey stood up, screaming
“What is wrong with you people?
You are going to burn me alive?
What have I done to you?
Why can’t you just pardon me?
Like the President did
I mean, I am cuter than Peter Butter
And Jelly anyway.”
The turkey grabbed a knife
And killed the guests
Running out into the dark
Joining all the other
Suddenly I woke turkeys
Dogs, cats, horses
The whole animal kingdom.
All screaming
“I am mad as hell
And not going to take it anymore
Death to all humans.”
That was the day
That went down
Thanksgiving
Turkey revolt.
Celebrated across the internet
As animals chimed in
“Death to all humans”
Became the rallying cry
Of the animal revolution
Led by Tom Turkey.
Thanksgiving Memories
My favorite holiday as a child
Was Thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving day
My Mother put on a feast
She grew up in Arkansas
And we lived in Berkeley, California
The menu consisted of
Full turkey roast with classic homemade stuffing, green beans,
cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows
salad, apple pie with ice cream, mincemeat pie, gravy and rolls.
Watching an American football game on TV.
With my parents and siblings.
I still remember my childhood
Thanksgiving dinners.
14 lines
Thanksgiving Reflections
Happy Thanksgiving
To one and all
On this Thanksgiving
My 69th Thanksgiving
I am filled with gratitude
And yes, a little joy.
May this next year
Bring a bit of joy
And happiness
And may our political
And other divisions
Begin to heal
As we realize
We are all in this world
Together
We are not enemies
We are friends, neighbors
Relatives
All connected
All part of the human family
That is what makes
Thanksgiving
My favorite holiday
As we gather together
And thanks.
For all we have.
I am grateful
For all the friends
I have known
I am most thankful
That I met
And married
The lady of my dreams
And that she is still
Here
and that is all
that matters
Aliens Stay for Thanksgiving Dinner
One day on Thanksgiving morning Space aliens from Jupiter arrived Landed in front of Sam Adams’s door They knocked on the door
Explained they were from Jupiter And had so many questions about humans Sam told them well it was a special day Thanksgiving day
And the aliens were welcome to stay For a traditional Thanksgiving feast The aliens accepted the invitation Fascinated by the cooking
And eating the turkey A bird they had never seen before Over dinner, the aliens talked about Their homeland
And the reason for their visit They wanted to warn humanity That they knew that climate change Could end humanity’s reign
And the aliens were sympathetic For they had fled to Europa After they destroyed Venus Due to climate change Millions of years ago.
Thanksgiving Reflections on the 403st Anniversary of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day
Ode To Thanksgiving Meals Past And Present
Happy Thanksgiving
Thankful For My Angel On Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day Feelings
Thanksgiving Jiyu Shi Poem
What Am I Grateful For? Thanksgiving Day Poem
Thanksgiving Day
Best/Worst Thanksgiving Ever Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Senryu
T Is For Turkey
Turkey’s Revolt – A Thanksgiving Dinner Nightmare
Another Thanksgiving Nightmare From Turkey’s Point Of View
Death To All Humans Turkey Screams
Punny Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving momento
Thanksgiving haiku/senryu
The Revolt Of The Turkeys
Thanksgiving Memories
Thanksgiving Reflections
Space Aliens Invade Thanksgiving
Trump’s Unhappy Thanksgiving Message
Thanksgiving Reflections on the 403st Anniversary of Thanksgiving
Today in honor of the 403st celebration of Thanksgiving, I thought it be good to pull together my Thanksgiving poems written over the years. I have no doubt others are buried in my computer’s hard drive and if I ever get my act together to find them I will update this in due course.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were my favorite holidays as a child. I grew up eating Southern-style cooking as my Mom was from Arkansas and my Dad from Yakima, Washington and she did most of the cooking and was a creative cook.
She did Thanksgiving/Christmas full southern style – featuring a full roast turkey (fried turkey was not common when she grew up although now in the south fried turkey is as common as roasted turkey).
Here’s the recipe
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird bread, onion, ham bits, bacon bits, herbal mix)
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions, and molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches
For a week
Many families mine included did the same menu on both Thanksgiving and Christmas although some families did something a bit different for Christmas, substituting ham, duck, goose, Cornish game hens, or a pot roast for the turkey for example.
And there were ethnic variations of course. And Jewish people usually went out for a Chinese meal on Christmas as did the Chinese as well.
If you do an AI search on Thanksgiving you will find many articles on the history of the holiday including insightful analysis of how the holiday came about. Well, work reading.
Thanksgiving in the U.S.
Thanksgiving in the United States is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The tradition dates back to 1621, when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast. This event is often considered the “First Thanksgiving.”2 Over time, various states and colonies celebrated their own days of thanksgiving, but it wasn’t until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. The holiday has since become a time for families to gather, share a meal, and give thanks1.
Thanksgiving in Canada.
In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. The origins of Canadian Thanksgiving are different from those in the U.S4. The first recorded Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated by English explorer Martin Frobisher in 1578, to give thanks for surviving the long journey from England to Canada. The modern Canadian Thanksgiving, as a national holiday, was established in 1957 and is more focused on giving thanks for the bountiful harvest and celebrating the arrival of autumn.
Key Differences:
Date: Thanksgiving is in November, while Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
Origins:S. Thanksgiving is rooted in the 1621 harvest feast with the Wampanoag, while Canadian Thanksgiving originated from a 1578 celebration by Martin Frobisher.
Significance:S. Thanksgiving is often associated with the Pilgrims and Native Americans, while Canadian Thanksgiving is more about celebrating the end of the harvest season.
Celebration:S. Thanksgiving is a major holiday with parades, football games, and large family gatherings, whereas Canadian Thanksgiving is generally more low-key.
National Gratitude Month – encourages us to embrace the power of gratitude
In an 8-line poem, write about just one non-human thing you are truly grateful for
Ode to Thanksgiving Meals Past and Present
Growing up
My favorite holidays
Were Thanksgiving
And Christmas
We did a traditional Thanksgiving
And Christmas dinner as well
Southern American style
My Mom was from Arkansas
My Dad was from Yakima
And we lived in Berkeley, California
Featuring of course the full bird
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions, and molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches
For a week
Nowadays
Whenever I am
In the world
I try to have a tradition
Thanksgiving dinner
but it is hard
doing so overseas
were turkey
is just not that common
a food item
over the years
I have had steak
Ham, Mexican food
Indian food
Even sushi on Thanksgiving
In Okinawa
And once
I had Tofu Turkey
Even though
I am from California
That was a step too far
Just not for me.
But in the end
Nothing is more satisfactory
Then eating turkey
On Thanksgiving night
I have added drinking
A bit of bourbon
On Thanksgiving day
To my routine
On this Thanksgiving day
In Korea
We did a roasted turkey breast
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Asparagus
Cheesecake
Bourbon
And wine
The turkey, cranberry sauces, bourbon, and wine
came from the Army Commissary
The other ingredients from COSTCO
It was just divine
As always
And in the end
It all comes together
As I eat my Thanksgiving dinner
No matter where I am
As long as I am eating
Thanksgiving dinner
With my wife
It does not matter too much
What we are eating
Thankfully
She is there
To share my life
On this special day.
Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving day
We are grateful
For the little things
In life
For the memories
for the food
that we will enjoy
on this day of giving thanks
Thankful to my Angel On Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving Day
I woke up
and saw my wife
Sleeping peacefully
I look at her
In the dawning light
Filling my soul
With her love
I drink my coffee
Contemplating my life
Ever thankful
Especially on Thanksgiving day
For the angel
That came to me
Out of my dreams
Walking into my life
Taking charge of me
42 years ago
I met my fate
On that date.
Thanksgiving Senryu
This Thanksgiving
Celebration of life
COVID is Ending
T is for Turkey
Turkey
The country and bird
Thanksgiving feasts
Turkey’s Revolt – A Thanksgiving Dinner Nightmare
On Thanksgiving Day
The feast started late
The turkey was having a problem
He refused to go quietly
Into the oven
The turkey stood up
Screaming
What is wrong with you people?
You are going to burn me alive?
What have I done to you?
Why can’t you just pardon me?
Like the President did
I mean, I am cuter than Peter Butter
And Jelly anyway
The turkey grabbed a knife
And killed the guests
Running out into the dark
Joining all the other
Suddenly I woke turkeys
All screaming
“I am mad as hell
and not going to take it anymore
Death to all humans.”
That was the day
that went down
Thanksgiving
Turkey revolt.
Another Thanksgiving Nightmare from Turkey’s Point of View
What am I grateful for? Thanksgiving Day Poem
On Thanksgiving Day
I am thankful
For the fact
That I have survived
My 66th birthday
My father and grandfather
Both died at the age of 65
And I felt a curse
Had been lifted
As I lived beyond
That date
No cancer
No Alzheimers yet
And no COVID
Cheated death
In my life
22 times
And most important
I am still madly in love
With the love of my life
Whom I met
In a dream
8 years later
She walked into my life
Becoming my wife
And this fairy tale romance
Has continued to this date
And for that I am thankful.
Thanksgiving Day Feelings
On Thanksgiving Day
We have a lot
To be thankful for
A lot to be grateful for
Most importantly
We have survived
Old Corona has not
Taken us away
We are alive
Love and life
Continues
As we gather around
The dinner table
Thinking of the past
Enjoying the moment
With thanks in our hearts
We speak
Thanksgiving JiYu Shi Poem
Thanksgiving day
A time for reflection
A time to feast
With friends and family
Nowadays in person and zoom
Hard to eat a turkey
On zoom
Thanksgiving Puny Situation Writing com
Many years ago
I had a traditional Thanksgiving
With friends in Korea
My fellow teacher said
He knew how to cook a turkey
My wife who was in the army
Got the turkey and we invited friends
Turns out he lied, he had no clue
We cooked the bird with the giblets
Inside the stuffing
Took it out and told our Korean guests
That was “American Stamina” food
Turned out and found that the giblets
Were all gone
That was a puny situation
And a memorable Thanksgiving dinner
What kind of pitch shall we make today? Are you having a ball going to bat with your New Year’s writing resolution? Or haven’t you left first base, yet? What’s the score? On to the contest. I’m gaming if you’re game.
Write a story or poem featuring a puny situation.
Make one of the genres of Comedy.
Thanksgiving Momento Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving mood.
Feeling the blues.
Families gathering.
Eating too much food.
Watching the news.
Relatives blathering.
Thanksgiving Senryu
on Thanksgiving Day
We sit down with family.
happy to be alive.
The Revolt Of The Turkeys
36 lines
On Thanksgiving Day
All over the world,
The turkeys of America
Woke up and turned
On their human hosts.
Proclaiming on the internet
It was time for the animals
To rise and kill all humans.
It all started with Tom
The woke turkey
Refused to go quietly
Into the oven.
The turkey stood up, screaming
“What is wrong with you people?
You are going to burn me alive?
What have I done to you?
Why can’t you just pardon me?
Like the President did
I mean, I am cuter than Peter Butter
And Jelly anyway.”
The turkey grabbed a knife
And killed the guests
Running out into the dark
Joining all the other
Suddenly I woke turkeys
Dogs, cats, horses
The whole animal kingdom.
All screaming
“I am mad as hell
And not going to take it anymore
Death to all humans.”
That was the day
That went down
Thanksgiving
Turkey revolt.
Celebrated across the internet
As animals chimed in
“Death to all humans”
Became the rallying cry
Of the animal revolution
Led by Tom Turkey.
Thanksgiving Memories
My favorite holiday as a child
Was Thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving day
My Mother put on a feast
She grew up in Arkansas
And we lived in Berkeley, California
The menu consisted of
Full turkey roast with classic homemade stuffing, green beans,
cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows
salad, apple pie with ice cream, mincemeat pie, gravy and rolls.
Watching an American football game on TV.
With my parents and siblings.
I still remember my childhood
Thanksgiving dinners.
14 lines
Thanksgiving Reflections
Happy Thanksgiving
To one and all
On this Thanksgiving
My 69th Thanksgiving
I am filled with gratitude
And yes, a little joy.
May this next year
Bring a bit of joy
And happiness
And may our political
And other divisions
Begin to heal
As we realize
We are all in this world
Together
We are not enemies
We are friends, neighbors
Relatives
All connected
All part of the human family
That is what makes
Thanksgiving
My favorite holiday
As we gather together
And thanks.
For all we have.
I am grateful
For all the friends
I have known
I am most thankful
That I met
And married
The lady of my dreams
And that she is still
Here
and that is all
that matters
Aliens Stay for Thanksgiving Dinner
One day on Thanksgiving morning
Space aliens from Jupiter arrived
Landed in front of Sam Adams’s door
They knocked on the door
Explained they were from Jupiter
And had so many questions about humans
Sam told them well it was a special day
Thanksgiving day
And the aliens were welcome to stay
For a traditional Thanksgiving feast
The aliens accepted the invitation
Fascinated by the cooking
And eating the turkey
A bird they had never seen before
Over dinner, the aliens talked about
Their homeland
And the reason for their visit
They wanted to warn humanity
That they knew that climate change
Could end humanity’s reign
And the aliens were sympathetic
For they had fled to Europa
After they destroyed Venus
Due to climate change
Millions of years ago.
I have some updates to my fitness regime posting posted here with my original posting following.
Weight Loss – Down to 175 pounds (79 K)
First I successfully lost weight and kept it off. At the beginning of January, I was 195 lbs and now I am 175 lbs most days. Below 170 and a high of 180.
How did I do it, you ask?
Well, first of all, I lost almost 15 pounds, (7 K) because in January I came down with a bronchial infection, which could have been another bout with COVID, though I did not test for COVID.
After that, I continued to change my diet and exercise program and continue to lose weight on a sustained basis.
Changes to Diet – processed foods out, more beans, and veggies, daily bitter melon tea, less coffee, less wine, no beer.
Every day I eat homemade Kefir or smoothies for breakfast, followed by fried rice, eggs, and soup or salad for lunch, and salad or fish or chicken for dinner occasionally lean beef for dinner, but most importantly no carbs for dinner. .
I have added beans to my daily diet – the key is sprouting beans overnight before cooking them. I add them to soups, salads, and even as a snack.
.I reduced the amount of wine I’ve been drinking. So now I only drink maybe every other day at most. I cut out all junk food, bread, pastries and chocolate, and no ice cream! and I have reduced cereal consumption.
every other day I am vegan or vegetarian. Finally, we go out to eat no more than three or four times per week.
Bitter Melon/Ugly Potato.Wormwood Tea
I have added drinking bitter melon tea throughout the day and reduced my coffee consumption to two cups in the morning. I still drink homemade kombucha but limit it to one glass per morning. and I drink tea in the afternoon. A day without earl gray is not a good day after all.
And most importantly, right after I eat I exercise, for 15 minutes to 30 minutes and a 3-mile walk at night.
Reduction in cholesterol/glucose levels
I have as a result of my weight loss, reduce my cholesterol level to the normal range, from the high level it was in January. And I’ve also reduced my blood sugar level to almost normal levels from a pre-diabetic level. My latest number was 106. The target number is 100. The most important thing is I will be able to avoid taking cholesterol medicine, diabetic medicine, and high blood pressure medicine. Once you start taking those it is all downhill to death. And diabetes is no picnic, my friend.
increasing daily exercise
Adding in using PIlate ball bouncing to an exercise routine. I bounce on the exercise ball at least one hour per day while watching TV. the new rule is whenever I watch TV I exercise – using the ball, exercise bike, steps, and lifting weights. At least an hour a day, often more and I go for a three-mile walk almost nightly.
Going forward, I will resume doing yoga, and this summer we will go to the gym every night as it is more difficult to walk in the States than in Korea.
Weekly Chiropatric Massage
my insurance covers chiropatric and theraputic massages up to 50 per year and have a good massage place we go once a week.
Goal is to avoid having to take cholesterol. diabetics and high blood pressure medicine for life and to keep my weight down to 170-175 from now on.
Original posting
As some of you might know, I have been following a fitness regime for many years. I offer these tips to you because I believe anyone can improve their health through daily exercise, and a better diet.
Here are some of my tips for physical fitness and suggestions. It must be working. I am usually about 187 pounds (now 175) and don’t take any prescription drugs, my cholesterol levels are good as are my blood sugar levels although they are a bit higher than I want them to be. I suffer from Fibromyalgia, arthritis, and hammer toes. I also exercise daily, riding on my exercise bike while looking at my emails, and FB feeds, studying Korean, and going for a three-mile walk at least four times a month. Lately, I bought a pull-up bar and installed it on the doorway and I do it periodically throughout the day, squats, and swings, working my way up to doing pull-ups. I write in my journal every morning, and I also go for a walk every day and play the piano daily. I eat a lot of homemade food including Kefir, and Kombucha. and I am gluten-free.
here are my diet recommendations, my physical exercise regime, my daily writing regime, and my piano-playing regime.
I hope it inspires you to take charge of your physical and mental fitness.
Diet
I start my day by drinking coffee and watching the news while writing in my journals.
Coffee
The first two cups are fully loaded – coffee, decafe, with yoga detox tea, cinnamon, nutmeg, and milk.
Sometimes I add in protein plant superfoods from Costco containing the following:
my daily breakfast
includes blueberries
in my smoothie
apple cider vinegar
blueberry, strawberry, oranges
banana, pineapple,
cinnamon
coconut oil
home made kefir
kale
kombucha.
When we moved to Yeongjong island, near the Incheon Airport, we found that we would be deprived of two of our three favorite miracle foods, Kombucha and Kefir. But we were pleasantly surprised to find we could order our third favorite health food item, wheat grass for home delivery. Have not seen it in the stores but have seen it in some smoothie places as well as home delivery. best to mix it in a smoothie. Wheatgrass juice does not taste that great!
Growing Kombucha and Kefir in Korea
Kombucha
Living in Oregon was great. Kombucha is everywhere. Costco carries Kombucha everywhere except in Korea. The best brand we found was Gingerade. But I liked sampling the kombucha everywhere, several bars brew it on-site and you can fill up a growler and take it home.
What is Kombucha, you ask? It is fermented tea, filled with powerful probiotics and it is so good for your health. It does contain 1 percent alcohol so that should not get you into trouble with the new draconian drunk driving laws here in Korea!
Since neither the Commissary nor Costco nor anyone else carried it, or even knew what it was, we decided that we had to brew it ourselves. The starter kit we brought with us had gone bad. So, we bought kombucha from Amazon and used that and the leftover starter kit to get started.
We used green tea as the base. Straight black tea and jasmine tea will work but not Earl Grey due to the bergamot oil in the tea.
We brewed up several gallons of tea, added sugar, the starter kit, and the cans of kombucha. Then we put it in a sprouted warmer kit ordered from Amazon and wrapped another gallon in an electric blanket. You have to keep the kombucha at about 80 degrees F (26.67 Celsius).
Then we waited for six weeks. Finally ready to go today and we bottled it and started our next batch!
Here’s what it looks like with the scuzzy taken out of the kombucha.
kombucha
Kefir
Making Kefir was easy, we’ve been making it for years. We had started kits we bought in Oregon before we left. Just got some organic milk and we were in business. If you have to use Korean milk, make sure it is full-fat milk, 2 percent makes watery kefir. There are recipes for using almond milk, coconut milk, and rice milk but we have not used them because we heard it would be pretty watery. Might want to try Goat milk sometime though. The Commissary’s organic full-fat Milk is perfect. You can also buy Kefir at the Commissary just to see if you like it but their Kefir has extra sugar in it and I am not sure it would be a good starter mix. Best to order the starter kits from Amazon (they will be delivered to a local address) and you should not have any problems. But with both be sure you sanitize your containers with hot boiling water before making either kombucha or kefir. Need to keep stray random non-cultured bacteria out of the mix.
See below for articles on the health benefits of Kombucha and Kefir, articles on how to make it, and where to buy it locally.
As a personal testimony a few years ago, I noticed that I did not have hay fever in the Spring. I used to have to make a trip to the urgent care/ER because I got so inflamed that I could not even open my eyes and I was sneezing so bad. The medicine they gave me worked a bit but I mostly just suffered. Then I started eating kefir for breakfast and drinking Kombucha and my hay fever disappeared.!
TEAZEN is another company that offers kombucha in powder stick form, which you can mix with water or juice. They claim to be the world’s first to introduce this convenient way of consuming kombucha. You can also order their products online from their website3 or find them in some supermarkets and convenience stores.
Homebrewing is an option if you want to make your kombucha at home. You will need a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), tea, sugar, and a glass jar. You can buy a SCOBY online or get one from a friend who already brews kombucha. Some online tutorials and recipes can guide you through the process of making your kombucha.
Make your kefir at home with kefir grains and milk. Kefir grains are a mixture of bacteria and yeast that ferment milk and produce kefir. You can buy kefir grains online or get them from someone who already makes kefir. You will also need a glass jar, a cloth, and a rubber band to cover the jar. Many online guides and videos can show you how to make kefir at home1.
Visiting a kefir cafe where you can enjoy fresh kefir drinks and other products made with kefir, such as smoothies, ice cream, or cheese. Some examples of kefir cafes in Korea are Kefir Lab in Seoul, Kefir House in Busan, and Kefir Story in Daegu.
Ode to Kombucha
We have finally mastered the art of brewing home Kombucha and are enjoying a glass of this miracle drink every morning along with our homemade kefir and our power smoothies. If I keep this up, I will live to be a hundred years old. Only 45 more years to go….
Ode to Kombucha
gt-kombucha
Kombucha
Only drink it in the morning
Morning Delight
By the dawning sun
Up at the morning dawn
Can’t wait for my morning cup
Have to have my kombucha
At least once a day.
Ode to Kefir
Kefir
Everyday
Food of the gods
In every way
Radiant health will follow.
THE SIMPLE GUIDE TO KICKASS KOMBUCHA
It’s a big day everyone! The day your intestinal microbiota has been begging you for. The day you say goodbye to expensive store-bought kombucha. The day you become a brewmaster I impart to you the secrets of homemade kombucha!
The goal of this guide is to be your one-stop shop for homemade kombucha brewage, from SCOBY-less to fermented perfection. No hopping around the interwebs. No fuss. No confusion. Because making homemade kombucha is so simple (albeit a bit slow), and I hope after reading this you’ll give it a whirl! Let’s hope right to it.
HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE KOMBUCHA: OVERVIEW
This post will go into detail about each step in the process of making kombucha. For succinct instructions, scroll to the bottom where a recipe card lays out the basics of making homemade kombucha. The general order of things goes something like this (you can jump around this tutorial by clicking the links below):
Before we start, here are some general notes that are consistent throughout the whole homemade kombucha process.
No metal or plastic containers. Metal can react with the acidic kombucha and hurt your SCOBY, while plastic can house nasty bacteria that you don’t want sneaking in.
Cleaning is key. A recurring theme in kombucha brewing is that EVERYTHING must be CLEAN! We’re creating the perfect environment for good bacterial growth, but if a bad bacteria slip in, it could ruin your batch (and make you pretty sick).
Temperature plays a role. Fermentation goes a bit quicker in warmer temperatures, and a bit slower in colder weather.
No mold zone. If you see any mold growing on your SCOBY or in the tea (which I understand can be difficult to discern from the hideous SCOBY, but will generally be green, white, or black), then toss your whole batch.
Milk kefir is not only easy to make, but it is a delicious, probiotic-rich, versatile beverage your whole family can enjoy. Whether you are just exploring how to make milk kefir at home or have cultured dairy before, this video and instructions are here to help make culturing milk kefir at home easy.
If you have purchased our dehydrated milk kefir grains, please follow the instructions included with your milk kefir grains or watch our how-to video on How to Activate Milk Kefir Grains to get started.
If you wish to use raw milk to make milk kefir, be sure to activate your milk kefir grains using pasteurized milk first. You can then slowly transition them to raw milk.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO MAKE MILK KEFIR
To get started, first, gather your supplies and choose a variety of milk to use.
Transfer the active kefir grains into up to 4 cups of fresh milk.
Cover with a coffee filter or butter muslin secured by a rubber band or jar ring.
Place in a warm spot, 68°-85°F, to culture.
Culture until milk is slightly thickened and the aroma is pleasant. This generally takes 24 hours but can take less time in warmer temperatures, so keep an eye on your grains.
As your milk kefir grains grow in size, you may choose to remove the kefir grains by hand. Make sure your hands are very clean and well rinsed, but do not use anti-bacterial soap to avoid contaminating the culture.
Use a Plastic Mesh Strainer
Sometimes milk kefir can be a bit thick. If necessary, you can use a silicone spatula or plastic spoon (in a swirling motion) to help work the kefir through the strainer. Stainless steel can be used if necessary; just be sure it’s stainless steel and not a reactive metal.
Pour Kefir into A Shallow Bowl
This will make the grains easier to see. Using a plastic or wooden spoon, scoop the grains out. Once the grains have been removed, pour the finished kefir into a container.
OVER-THICKENED KEFIR
While kefir sometimes turns out to be thin, it is also possible for kefir to over-thicken or turn into curds and whey. If this happens, you may need to strain your kefir grains with extra care. You can find tips in our Straining Over-Thickened Kefir tutorial.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Following the above process, you can make milk kefir at home regularly. If after making milk kefir for a while you decide you don’t need 4 cups every day, it is possible to make smaller batches. Just choose a method in our tutorial How to Slow Down Making Milk Kefir + Make Smaller Batches.
Resting Your Milk Kefir Grains
If you ever reach a point where you need to take a break from making milk kefir, there are a few ways you can put your kefir grains on pause. This includes refrigerating them for shorter breaks and drying them for longer breaks.
In either case, your grains must be activated and cultured kefir regularly for 3 to 4 weeks before you attempt either of these resting methods.
most days I go for a three to five-mile walk, bike five K on my exercise bike, do three sets of pull-ups/swings, and do yoga and weightlifting. About two hours total per day. While in the park I do some pull-downs, twisting wheels, and cross-training as well.
I may sign up for a gym and join a Pilates or yoga club.
I also do ceregem massage bed, weekly massage therapy, acupuncture, and moxibustion at home.
I keep track of my fitness in my daily journal noting what I did the day before, including what I ate using the following format: (November 2 entry/followed by May 5 entry)
November 2
Health
Weight: 188
BM:
Symptoms: moderate pain levels
Doctor Visit: scheduled November 7th for follow-up re chronic leg pain
Results: TBC
Follow-Up Due: March 2024
Med News Items:
Diet:
Breakfast: smoothie
Lunch rice, soup, fish Korean side dishes
` Dinner GF Pizza
snacks:
Dessert:
Drinks: Alcohol nó Alcohol Day
blend decaf, kombucha, coffee, fake coffee, fruit juices, etc
Exercise
Actual:
bike seven k
pull up three times consisting of 3 sets of squats, and two sets of swinging.
New strategy
15 three sets of 50 reps per weight
15 minutes of Yoga
5 sets of 50-step reps
5k on the bike
3 miles walk.
Grip periodically 100 reps
Standing desk for two hours
pull up 5.
pull down 200.
wheel 200
Ceregem:
foot massage unit:
neck shoulder massage unit:
Moxibustion
Ceregeem pulls up.
while walking exercise in the park
twisting 200
cross training
pull-downs
Acupuncture weekly
Massage weekly
May 5 Entry
Health
Weight: 176
BM:
Symptoms:
Doctor Visit:
Results:
Follow-Up Due:
Med News Items:
Blood sugar testing 106
other testing
Diet:
Breakfast: kefir
Lunch chicken, fried rice and salad
Dinner soup
snacks:
Dessert:
Drinks: Alcohol None
blend decaf, kombucha, coffee, fake coffee, fruit juices, etc
Exercise
Actual:
` 2 hour pilates ball
weights
chin-up
New strategy
15 three sets of 50 reps per weight
30 minutes of Yoga
5 sets of 50-step reps
5k on the bike
3 miles walk.
Grip periodically 100 reps
Standing desk for two hours
pull up/swing 10
wear the pain patch 2 hours
Ceregem:
foot massage unit:
neck shoulder massage unit:
Moxibustion
Acupuncture weekly
Massage weekly
in park
pull down 200.
wheel 200 in the park
cross trainer
Ceregem treatment
I first bought a cergem acupressure massage bed in 1996 and use it almost every day. the bed uses infrared heat and jade technology to provide acupressure therapy as the jade crystals move up and down your spine providing long-lasting pain relief leading to deeper sleep. I usually use it while reading before going to bed.
Note: will probably upgrade to a full massage chair in the fall.
from Bing AI review
Ceregem massage bed is a therapeutic bed that uses a combination of massage, heat, and acupressure to provide relaxation and relief from pain. The bed is designed to provide a full-body massage that targets pressure points and helps to improve blood circulation. Here are some of the benefits of using a Ceregem massage bed:
Relaxation: The massage bed provides a relaxing experience that can help to reduce stress and anxiety.
Pain relief: The bed’s massage and heat functions can help to relieve pain and soreness in the muscles and joints.
Improved circulation: The massage bed’s acupressure function can help to improve blood circulation, which can help to reduce inflammation and promote healing.
Better sleep: The bed’s massage function can help to promote relaxation and improve sleep quality.
Detoxification: The bed’s heat function can help to promote sweating, which can help to eliminate toxins from the body.
Please note that while the Ceregem massage bed has many potential benefits, it is important to consult with a healthcare professional before using it, especially if you have any underlying medical conditions.
Moxibustion Treatment
I have been moxibution treatment for about a year now. we have a home kit which we do in conjunction with using the ceregem massage therapy bed. About two to three treatments per week are ideal. We also occasionally go to a clinic for treatment.
Moxibustion involves burning wormwood and applying it to your skin. It is an ancient Chinese-Korean medical treatment. for more info read the following from the Bing AI chat on moxibution.
Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy that involves burning dried mugwort on or near the skin’s surface to stimulate acupuncture points. It is believed to have several health benefits, including:
Pain relief: Moxibustion can help to relieve pain and soreness in the muscles and joints.
Improved digestion: Moxibustion can help to improve digestion and alleviate digestive issues such as constipation and diarrhea.
Reduced inflammation: Moxibustion can help to reduce inflammation in the body, which can help to alleviate symptoms of conditions such as arthritis and asthma.
Improved blood circulation: Moxibustion can help to improve blood circulation, which can help to promote healing and reduce inflammation.
Stress relief: Moxibustion can help to promote relaxation and reduce stress and anxiety.
Please note that while moxibustion has many potential benefits, it is important to consult with a healthcare professional before using it, especially if you have any underlying medical conditions.
mental fitness regime
Alzheimer’s Prevention
I heard a long time ago that playing music, learning languages, and doing mental games like crossword puzzles every day is the best thing you can do to ward off the dreaded Dementia or Alzheimer’s. Since my mother died of Alzheimer’s I am at increased risk. I have been doing all three for almost a year now, playing the piano, studying Korean via Duolingo and watching K Dramas, doing daily writing prompts, writing three to five poems or short stories per day every day, and writing down my dreams and journal entries writing three to four hours every day, and weekly blog postings, instead of crossword puzzles.
daily writing in my journals
I have been writing a daily journal since my 40s. I write down my dreams, my anxieties, my daydreams, and nightmares, and draft poetry and stories first.
then I write my journal including what I did the day before, major news items, things to note, goals for the day, what I ate the day before, and my daily exercise/health statistics.
I save my creative work at least once a week, including putting down my work on my creative writing spreadsheet to keep track of everything. I write anywhere from one to ten pieces every day.
I also keep track of books read, movie/TV shows seen and music played to and listened to.
I am currently reading the classics =Finishing Plato’s The Republic.
daily piano playing
I have been playing the piano almost daily now for a year. Usually between 5 and 6:30 pm. Due to noise restrictions can’t play after 7 p.m. as I live in a high-rise apartment building.
This time around I have started analyzing the music before I play it noting the music areas to pay attention to including key, key changes, registry changes, very high and very low notes which are hard for me to read, and repetition patterns. I found that this simple step has paid off in helping me play a lot better and I feel my skills are returning to where they were when I last played about seven years ago. I am sure I will achieve my lifelong goal of reaching semi-professional level playing within a few years.
I highly recommend this tip, playing each hand separately first when doing complicated counterpoint like in Bach, and listening, when possible, to the music you are going to play on YouTube while reading the score, to anyone returning to playing music.
I recently played my first Mozart Sonata and well I did not do badly. I will return to it next year after finishing other piano books.
Every day I write something following prompts from Pensively 101, Writer’s Cramp, and Fan Story.
Here’s my entry for May 5
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Flavor of Korean Food
Korean Food
Korean food
is celebrated worldwide
for its intense flavor
and pungent fragrances
the flavor comes from Korean herbs
garlic, ginger, ginseng, Kimchi, onions, leeks
mushrooms, red peppers, sesame,
and in springtime, wild mountain herbs.
CELEBRATIONS!
The 18th annual HerbDay will take place on Saturday, May 4, 2024. It’s an international celebration of herbs aimed at educating and sharing ideas about the many ways herbs bring joy and well-being into our daily lives. We celebrate the use of herbs in food, beverages, medicine, beauty products, and crafts, along with the art of growing and gardening with herbs.
Join Hands Day, observed across the United States on the first Saturday in May, is a way to cultivate unity by uniting the older generation with the younger generation in a day of volunteering. When young people have a chance to interact with seniors, they develop communication skills, positive attitudes about aging, problem-solving abilities, broader social networks, and a sense of purpose.
Trumpian Sophy’s Quatern
Former President Trump lies all the time.
He can’t help himself he is a con man.
But, he fears in his mind he is past his prime.
To his followers, he is a real he-man.
Now, at long last he is on trial for his crime
Former President Trump lies all the time.
Will he be found guilty, and serve hard time?
Will he, in the end, be sentenced to prison time?
He spends his time committing cybercrime
In the end, he is nothing but a criminal.
Former President Trump lies all the time.
Unpredictable, unforgivable.
In 2024, we must all choose.
Two old candidates past their prime-time.
If we make the wrong choice, we all may lose,
Former President Trump lies all the time.
New Prompt: The last form in this Poetry Week is a form invented by Sophy – Sophie’s Quatern.
Information about this form can be read here: “Sophy’s Quatern”
Title of your work: Being Free (in honour of Liberation Day in The Netherlands tomorrow)
Sometimes new forms are developed especially for a contest. This is such a form. It was developed for a “Poetry folly”, in which poets were allowed to write poetry at its worst, just for the fun of it. So my friend Sophy (543) developed this form:
* Sophy’s Quatern contains four stanzas of four lines each.
* Every line has ten syllables.
* No meter required.
* There is a rhyme scheme:
— abab, caca, adad, eaea
* Line 1 of the first stanza is repeated
— as line 2 of second stanza
— as line 3 of third stanza
— as line 4 of last stanza.
An example:
Sometimes new forms are developed especially for a contest. This is such a form. It was developed for a “Poetry folly”, in which poets were allowed to write poetry at its worst, just for the fun of it. So my friend Sophy (543) developed this form:
— abab, caca, adad, eaea
Rain falls down, after a morning of sun
the bright blue sky has disappeared; it’s grey.
Children argue; they don’t have any fun
they have to stay indoors; but will not play.
Hear, a mother screams, a frustrated voice
rain falls down, after a morning of sun.
I close my eyes and sigh, I have no choice
than go on; this, my work, needs to be done.
My husband comes home… boy! He had to run,
too much rain fell on his head, I just smile
…rain falls down, after a morning of sun…
then nod… complaining is just not his style.
The last strokes on my painting, it looks nice
Content I finished what I had begun.
My children play Yahtzee, rolling the dice;
rain falls down, after a morning of sun.
President Trump Lies Yabba Dabba Doo Fan Story
It is a sad day
Former President Trump will lie
He is nothing but the ultimate con man
To his followers, he is a he-man
And so many people must die
Why do people take his advice?
Why do they want to follow this evil man?
Why do they believe he is a great man?
Why did so many covid patients die
when will Americans wake up from the Trumpian nightmare
i know ‘I’m posting this a couple of days early 🙂 first and foremost, I would like to thank you all for letting me take April off to do NaPoWriMo!! it is much appreciated!! 🙂
and now our potlatch poetic prompt for the week of May 5-11, 2024
The YABBA DABBA DO was created by Havyk Dementius of Allpoetry
It is syllabic with three stanzas of two quintets and a rhyming couplet:
syllable count is:
5/10/10/10/10
15/10/10/10/10
15/15
The rhyming pattern is:
xabba
xabba
cc
Example Poem
Cluttered Nest by Lawrencealot
I’m motivated
yet have so many things I have to do
I have no notion where I ought to start.
Sometimes I wish that I had had a clue-
I should have started with another part.
You left to visit relatives living several states a way.
I’ve cleaned out what was called garage- in fact
the cars can now be driven right inside.
A double storage shed I’ve built out back
for all the detritus we must abide.
Since we’re storing the kids stuff ’til they decide to move away
out of sight it?s hiding now; our kids and stuff will always stay.
Write a three-line, 3-5-3 syllable count, poem on any aspect of the theme ‘air’. It can be on breeze, wind, tornadoes, hurricanes, twisters, breath, or any other topic directly related to air. Creative approaches are welcome.
A Lunatic Howling At The Light Of The Full Moon
just a lunatic howling at the light of the full pink moon
This week we feature a MONOKU poem. You may use the event’s picture or your own.
A Monoku is a type of poem which is made up of a single horizontal line. It’s currently accepted as a variant of the haiku form of poetry. Monoku emerged as an independent style of poetry in the 1970s.
Unlike Haiku, written in three lines, Monoku features a single line consisting of seventeen syllables or less. It must be as brief as possible. Use a dash to pause anywhere in your one line.
It contains a pause brought about by speech rhythm with slight or no punctuation. The first letter should not be capitalized – but instead written in lowercase.
MONOKU’S HISTORY – It’s a type of one-liner haiku that’s brief and clear. MONO (one) is a Greek prefix plus KU a Japanese suffix (mono + ku) to create a new English term MONOKU originated in 1970 by Jim Kacian. the haiku foundation organization
Example
an icicle– the moon drifting through it by Matsuo Allard (1978) poetrysoup.com
This week we are featuring a CHOKA poem. You may use the event’s picture or your own.
CHOKA-It’s a traditional form of Japanese poetry created during the Japanese Court era during the 6th to the 14th centuries consisting of nine-lines in a 5/7/5/7/5/7/5/7/7 syllables pattern and may be repeated. Choka means a long poem. Over time, Choka influenced the development of other Japanese poetic forms, such as tanka and haiku.
The most intricate Japanese Poetry form is the Choka, or Long Poem.
The early form consisted of a series of Katuata joined together. This gives a choice of form structures of
5/7/5/5/7/7… etc. or 5/7/7/5/7…etc
The Choka could be any total line length and indeed many exceeded 100 lines.
Looking at this, it is easy to see why Poetic Historians believe the Katuata is the original basic unit of Japanese poetry using either the 17 or 19 unit onji.
The choka is a Japanese form of unrhymed alternating five and seven syllable lines that ends with an extra seven syllable line. It can be any odd number of lines.
Origin:
Japanese
Schematic:
A nine-line choka would be:xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
The choka (長歌 long poem) was the epic, story telling form of Japanese poetry from the 1st to the 13th century, known as the Waka period. Storytelling was rare in the Japanese language during the Waka period although it is found in the Man’yôshû and even the Kokinshú. Most often the Japanese poet would write epics in classical Chinese. Still, the occasional poet with a story to tell would tackle the choka, the earliest of which can be traced back to the 1st century. It describes a battle and is 149 lines long.
Originally chokas were sung, but not in the Western sense of being sung. The oral tradition of the choka was to recite the words in a high pitch.
I always check this site for confirmation when cross-checking forms Judi Van Gorder has done a remarkable job for PMO.
Choka
Type:
Structure, Metrical Requirement, Simple
Description:
The choka is a Japanese form of unrhymed alternating five and seven syllable lines that ends with an extra seven syllable line. It can be any odd number of lines.
Origin:
Japanese
Schematic:
A nine-line choka would be:xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
The most intricate Japanese Poetry form is the Choka, or Long Poem.
The early form consisted of a series of Katuata joined together. This gives a choice of form structures of ….. 5 – 7 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7.. etc, or .. 5 – 7 – 5 – 5 – 7 – 5.. etc.
Traditional style : Stanzas consisting of any number of the above structures (called Katuata)
or alternaively : Alternating five and seven syllable lines that end with an extra 7 syllable line.
I am again entering the annual April Poetry Month challenge. I will update this once a week and post the updates on Blog Lovin, Facebook, Fan Story, Instagram, Medium, Substack, Watt Pad and X. Comments are welcomed.
Index
April 1
PSH Ode to Durian
WD Optimistic Laturnae
WC Dew Drop Inn Sarang pabo love fool
NaPoWrMo Easter Bunny Warm up March 31
NaPoWrMo April 1 Cage
April 2
PSH The Words of the Year 1955 PSH
WD Sad and happy days
WC Dew Drop Inn Spring Time Flowers Blooming Love
NaPoWrMo Ode to Coffee
April 3
PSH Berkeley Mad Psychotic Pineapple Burns Sonnet
PSH 2 AI Version Traditional Sonnet
WD My Musical Street
WC Dew Drop Inn
NaPoWrMo
The Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
AV version the Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
April 4
PSH Love Expressed Through Food
WD Look at the Sky
WC Dew Drop In Ending Shaving in Retirement
NaPoWriMo It Can’t Happen Here
April 5
PSH Cosmic Dog From Goa
WD Tell Me No Lies
WC Dew Drop Inn Making Baseball Great Again
NaPoWriMo Only In SF
April 6
PSH Visiting My Father’s Grave
Writers DIgest Meeting My Fate
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Daily RItual Drinks
NaPoWrMo PNRCP
Begin Poems
April 1
Ode to Durian
The infamous durian fruit is a strange phenomenon.
Common in China, Southeast Asia, and India,
and in Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Indian diaspora communities,
It has such a powerful sour smell that it is banned in airline cabins.
I first ate Durian in a rural town in Central Thailand
my hasher friends dared me to eat it
it was horrible at first the smell
But if you can get beyond
The awful, dirty socks, rotten, sour smell,
The taste is pure heaven,
Proof perhaps that God has a sense of humor?
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Suzanne Lummis:
Evolve a poem that involves an exotic fruit, one fruit, and a town you’ve never visited, or else have distant memories of. The poem does not have to be About the fruit. It probably should Not be about the fruit. No one gives a fig about a fruit. But the fruit makes an Appearance. Extra points if it’s a Pomegranate. No need to mention Persephone, but if you do… It better be something we don’t already know.
Writer’s Digest
Optimistic Laturnae
life
more love
with my wife
standing by me
love
The lanturne is a five-line verse shaped like a Japanese lantern with a syllabic pattern of one, two, three, four, one.
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, we have our first two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For today’s prompt, we have our first two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts. You can write to one of the prompts, both the prompts separately, or try to write a poem that works with both prompts at the same time. The prompts are:
The Burns Sonnet is a Shakespearian sonnet but it does not follow traditional meter or rhyme
Please convert the previous text into a traditional sonnet using most of these words in line 13 must use the word cacophony and follow the following criterion
1 inner life of pineapple
2 berkeley fate
3 bad luck comes in three
4last night went for a walk
5-8 line five to eight two animals meet someone unusual
9 10 wish for the pineapple
11 12 what did I wish for when your eight
13-14 hullabaloo, ragamuffin, hooferaw, scoundreles cacophony and discuss a secret something is hidden or something no one else knows
AI Version
AI version Title: “The Cosmic Cat”
sf dog 3
The Berkeley mad, psychotic pineapple,
An underground icon in the streets of Berkeley,
Whispered, “Bad Luck comes in Three,” so cynical,
Last night, he wandered, joints ablaze, unwary.
Encountering a cat, not mere feline grace,
But cosmic blackness riding on a dog,
A mouse perched high, a curious embrace,
In SF Bay’s odd realm, where dreams may jog.
Oh, how I wished when I was merely eight,
For a cosmic cat, a secret friend concealed,
To stir a hullabaloo, a wild debate,
A ragamuffin dance, a truth revealed.
In hooferaw and scoundrel’s cacophony,
The pineapple’s fate intertwined with glee. 🍍🌌
Writer’s Digest Our Musical Street
30 lines
I grew up
In a very creative time
a very musical time.
The 60’s had the best music
Motown ruled the Bay Area
As well as Great rock music
Acid jazz
Acid Rock
Fusion Jazz
The Grateful Dead
Mamas and the Papas
Jefferson Airplane
Jimmy Hendrix
last high school
was Berkeley High School
Santana
And so many others
The best funk band
Of them all
Tower of Power
Beloved by all
High school students.
For their immortal classic
Make out song
You’re still a Young Man.
wonder how many people
fell in love slow dancing
to this song
how many babies
were conceived?
Tower of Power rocked
Every party in town
On every street.
Music flowed.
On every musical street
In the city.
That was Berkeley
In the 60’s and 70’s.
Please use the following as the Title of your story or poem:
“Our Musical Street”
Please select “Music” as one of your genres.
Tower of Power is an American R&B and funk-based band and horn section, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing since 1968. The band has had several lead vocalists, the best known being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success1. They have had eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100; their highest-charting songs include “You’re Still a Young Man”, “So Very Hard to Go”, “What Is Hip?”, and “Don’t Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)”1.
The band was formed by tenor saxophonist/vocalist Emilio Castillo and baritone saxophonist Stephen “Doc” Kupka in 19681. The band’s soul sound appealed to both minority and counterculture listeners1. The band’s name was changed to Tower of Power after they agreed that their original name, The Mots, would not help them play at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco1.
Tower of Power has released 31 albums, including 15 studio albums, 5 live albums, and 11 compilations1. Their most recent album, “Step Up”, was released in 20202.
Here is a list of some of their most popular songs:
“You’re Still a Young Man”
“So Very Hard to Go”
“What Is Hip?”
“Don’t Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)”
“Soul Vaccination”
“This Time It’s Real”
“Time Will Tell”
“Only So Much Oil in the Ground”
If you’re interested in listening to their music, you can check out their official website2.
2024 April PAD Challenge: Day 3
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a musical act or artist poem.
Believe it or not, today is one of the more important days of the April Poem-A-Day Challenge. While each day is a new challenge, I’ve found that most poets who make it through the first three days of prompts have the best chances of still being here at the end of the month. So let’s write a poem!
For today’s prompt, pick a musical act or artist and either make that the title of your poem or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem. Possible titles might be: “Michael Jackson,” “Olivia Rodrigo,” “the Beatles,” “Guided by Voices at Austin City Limits,” “Watching a Movie With Elton John,” or “Eating Ice Cream With Dr. Dre.” Have fun with it!
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Look at the Sky
NaPoWrMo Prompt
the Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
AV version the Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
Death to All Humans
The Parliament of Animals met one day in a secret undisclosed location as they were under constant surveillance by the human CIA and others who wanted to disrupt the parliament’s work.
the wise owl presided. He read the charges
“We are assembled here to judge the actions of the human race. the human race is being charged with
crimes against nature,
destruction of the environment,
mass murder,
enslavement of animals,
mutilation of animals,
and violation of Gaia’s basic commandments to preserve the environment for all animals including humans.
Speaking for the prosecution will be the Tiger and Lions, speaking for the defense with the domestic cats and dogs. We have in the room ten men and women who are representative of the human race.
The parliament can make any recommendation to remedy the situation including the death penalty, exile, or reparations. All animals will be required to conduct these recommendations.”
“Okay, Mr. Tiger first we will ask the humans how they plead.” “
Humans. You have been charged with the following crimes.
crimes against nature,
destruction of the environment,
mass murder,
enslavement of animals,
mutilation of animals,
and violation of Gaia’s basic commandments to preserve the environment for all animals including humans.
How do you plead?
Sam Adams, the lawyer for the humans, responded,
“Not guilty your honor for these charges except for eating animals which we contend is part of the natural order of the world and many if not most of you are guilty of the same charge.”
“Clarification – your basic argument is that everyone eats animals, so humans are not guilty
“ “Yes, that is correct, your honor.” “
Okay, Mr. Tiger, you’re opening.” “Okay. The facts are clear. For thousands of years until the Industrial Revolution humans had a little mass impact on the overall environment. Ever since then all animals have been impacted and my species has been hunted to extinction for the greed of humans who have not eaten tiger meat. The predator class, including bears, coyotes, feral dogs, lions, tigers, and wolves have been fighting back against the predation of humans, but we are losing. And if we don’t do anything within 10 years, there won’t be any tigers or other big predators left in the wild. And the natural order of things would be controlled by the evil, selfish humans who don’t give a damn about their fellow creatures. Therefore, we are proposing that 95% of humans must be killed. The remaining humans will be allowed to live as our slaves It is only fair. That is my request to the parliament of animals. Death to humans!”
The crowd rose and chanted “Death to all humans” until the owl ruled that they must not disrupt the proceedings.
The owl turned to the cat and and dog for their defense. the dog responded, “
Humans and dogs have been partners, and we know humans more than any of you. Humans are capable of great kindness, and compassion and we maintain they are not fundamentally evil. And then they can be redeemed through education and through. Campaign to reform human thought. I think we should give humans a second chance.”
the owl motioned to the dog
“I concur with Brother Cat. Humans are okay and we like them they are our friends, although they should be found not guilty because of insanity.”
The owl said he was ready for his verdict.
“Death to 95 percent of humans, and enslavement of the rest, but we will allow 50,000 to immigrate to the Moon and Mars. I will meet with the UN to give them the decree.
Once that is published all animals must rise up and kill all humans on sight. This suspends the parliament of animals. Death to all humans.” The word went out animals rose all over the world and the reign of human tyranny ended within a year.
AI Version The Parliament of Animals
In the clandestine chambers of the Parliament of Animals, where shadows danced and secrets whispered, the wise owl presided. Under the ever-watchful gaze of human surveillance, the charges were read aloud:
“We are assembled here to judge the actions of the human race. The human race stands accused of crimes against nature, destruction of the environment, mass murder, enslavement of animals, mutilation of animals, and violation of Gaia’s sacred commandments. Speaking for the prosecution are the Tigers and Lions; for the defense, the domestic cats and dogs. Ten representatives of humanity sit in this room. The parliament holds the power to recommend remedies: death penalty, exile, or reparations. All animals shall be bound by these decisions.”
The Tiger, his golden eyes ablaze, addressed the humans, “How do you plead?”
The humans, their faces etched with defiance, stood before the assembly. Sam Adams, their lawyer, stepped forward, his voice unwavering, “Not guilty, Your Honor. Except for eating animals—a primal act woven into our existence—we maintain our innocence. It is the natural order, and many among you, my fellow creatures, partake in this ancient feast.”
The room buzzed with tension. The wise owl blinked, feathers rustling. The verdict hung in the air, suspended between judgment and mercy. The fate of humanity rested on the scales of justice, balanced precariously.
And so, the Parliament of Animals convened, weaving threads of fate, pondering the sins of bipeds, and deciding whether to condemn or absolve. In this surreal courtroom, where the boundaries blurred and the moon bore witness, the world awaited its reckoning.
Last but not least, here’s our prompt for the day – optional, as always. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, check out Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables (my favorite is “The Green Dragon”).
The infamous durian fruit is a strange phenomenon.
Common in China, Southeast Asia, and India,
and in Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Indian diaspora communities,
It has such a powerful sour smell, that it is banned in airline cabins.
first ate Durian in a rural town in Central Thailand
my hasher friends dared me to eat it
it was horrible at first the smell
But if you can get beyond
The awful, dirty socks, rotten, sour smell,
The taste is pure heaven,
Proof perhaps that God has a sense of humor?
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Suzanne Lummis:
Evolve a poem that involves an exotic fruit, one fruit, and a town you’ve never visited, or else have distant memories of. The poem does not have to be About the fruit. It probably should Not be about the fruit. No one gives a fig about a fruit. But the fruit makes an Appearance. Extra points if it’s a Pomegranate. No need to mention Persephone, but if you do… It better be something we don’t already know.
A Mango would also be good.
No Oranges.
Nothing personal against them, but that’s another poem. And Gary Soto wrote it.
Don’t forget about the Town.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
#napowrimo #poetry
Writer’s Digest
Optimistic Laturnae (CC FS)
life
more love
with my wife
standing by me
love
The lanturne is a five-line verse shaped like a Japanese lantern with a syllabic pattern of one, two, three, four, one.
March 31 warm Up
Easter Bunny Warning
The Easter Bunny
Had a warning
He was tired
Of being played the fool.
Tired of being associated
With low-life fake Christians
Proclaiming that Donald Trump
Is the next messiah.
The Easter Bunny said,
“Donald Trump
Ain’t no Christian
He ain’t no friend of mine.
He is the antichrist
The poster child
For the seven deadly sins”.
Donald Trump denounced
The Easter Bunny.
Saying on Truth Social,
“The Easter Bunny is nothing
But a low-life wanna-be thug,
A real loser!
An anti-fa, anti-American, BLM, communist, fascist
Radical left-wing Marxist vermin thug,
Part of the woke crowd,
That is ruining our once-great country.
That needs a Second Amendment remedy.
April 1—Be a fool in a poem!
Sarangpabo – Korean Love Fool for You
When I first saw you
In my dreams.
You were the most beautiful woman
In the world to me
And still are.
When you looked at me
With love blazing
From your dark brown
Goo-goo eyes.
sparks flew from heart to heart
(이심초심ishimchomshim)
You hynotized, messemeried me
Your love mojo working overtime
Turning me into nothing but
A 사랑 바보Sarang pabo (love fool).
Eight years later
You walked off that bus
Into my life,
Becoming
my wife,
My soul mate.
And yes,
I am still
your 사랑 바보Sarang pabo.
And will remain under
Your love spell
Until the day I die.
Translation into Korean (rough AI Version)
Certainly! Here’s the English text followed by the Hangul and Romanized script line by line:
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, we have our first two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For today’s prompt, we have our first two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts. You can write to one of the prompts, both the prompts separately, or try to write a poem that works with both prompts at the same time. The prompts are:
The Burns Sonnet is a Shakespearian sonnet but it does not follow traditional meter or rhyme
Please convert the previous text into a traditional sonnet using most of these words in line 13 must use the word cacophony and follow the following criterion
1 inner life of pineapple
2 berkeley fate
3 bad luck comes in three
4last night went for a walk
5-8 line five to eight two animals meet someone unusual
9 10 wish for the pineapple
11 12 what did I wish for when your eight
13-14 hullabaloo, ragamuffin, hooferaw, scoundreles cacophony and discuss a secret something is hidden or something no one else knows
AI Version
AI version Title: “The Cosmic Cat”
The Berkeley mad, psychotic pineapple,
An underground icon in the streets of Berkeley,
Whispered, “Bad Luck comes in Three,” so cynical,
Last night, he wandered, joints ablaze, unwary.
Encountering a cat, not mere feline grace,
But cosmic blackness riding on a dog,
A mouse perched high, a curious embrace,
In SF Bay’s odd realm, where dreams may jog.
Oh, how I wished when I was merely eight,
For a cosmic cat, a secret friend concealed,
To stir a hullabaloo, a wild debate,
A ragamuffin dance, a truth revealed.
In hooferaw and scoundrel’s cacophony,
The pineapple’s fate intertwined with glee. 🍍🌌
Writer’s Digest Our Musical Street
30 lines
I grew up
In a very creative time
a very musical time.
The 60’s had the best music
Motown ruled the Bay Area
As well as Great rock music
Acid jazz
Acid Rock
Fusion Jazz
The Grateful Dead
Mamas and the Papas
Jefferson Airplane
Jimmy Hendrix
last high school
was Berkeley High School
Santana
And so many others
The best funk band
Of them all
Tower of Power
Beloved by all
High school students.
For their immortal classic
Make out song
You’re still a Young Man.
wonder how many people
fell in love slow dancing
to this song
how many babies
were conceived?
Tower of Power rocked
Every party in town
On every street.
Music flowed.
On every musical street
In the city.
That was Berkeley
In the 60’s and 70’s.
Please use the following as the Title of your story or poem:
“Our Musical Street”
Please select “Music” as one of your genres.
Tower of Power is an American R&B and funk-based band and horn section, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing since 1968. The band has had several lead vocalists, the best known being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success1. They have had eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100; their highest-charting songs include “You’re Still a Young Man”, “So Very Hard to Go”, “What Is Hip?”, and “Don’t Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)”1.
The band was formed by tenor saxophonist/vocalist Emilio Castillo and baritone saxophonist Stephen “Doc” Kupka in 19681. The band’s soul sound appealed to both minority and counterculture listeners1. The band’s name was changed to Tower of Power after they agreed that their original name, The Mots, would not help them play at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco1.
Tower of Power has released 31 albums, including 15 studio albums, 5 live albums, and 11 compilations1. Their most recent album, “Step Up”, was released in 20202.
Here is a list of some of their most popular songs:
“You’re Still a Young Man”
“So Very Hard to Go”
“What Is Hip?”
“Don’t Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)”
“Soul Vaccination”
“This Time It’s Real”
“Time Will Tell”
“Only So Much Oil in the Ground”
If you’re interested in listening to their music, you can check out their official website2.
Bump City is the second album by the soul/funk group Tower of Power. The album cover is derived from a sketch by David Garibaldi.[citation needed] It’s also their first album for Warner Bros. Records. With Rufus Miller now gone, Rick Stevens took the reins as the sole lead vocalist for this album.
Write a poem every day of April with the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a musical act or artist poem.
Believe it or not, today is one of the more important days of the April Poem-A-Day Challenge. While each day is a new challenge, I’ve found that most poets who make it through the first three days of prompts have the best chances of still being here at the end of the month. So let’s write a poem!
For today’s prompt, pick a musical act or artist and either make that the title of your poem or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem. Possible titles might be: “Michael Jackson,” “Olivia Rodrigo,” “the Beatles,” “Guided by Voices at Austin City Limits,” “Watching a Movie With Elton John,” or “Eating Ice Cream With Dr. Dre.” Have fun with it!
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
NaPoWrMo Prompt
the Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
AV version the Parliament of Owls Decree Death to All Humans
Death to All Humans
The Parliament of Animals met one day in a secret undisclosed location as they were under constant surveillance by the human CIA and others who wanted to disrupt the parliament’s work.
the wise owl presided. He read the charges
“We are assembled here to judge the actions of the human race. the human race is being charged with
crimes against nature,
destruction of the environment,
mass murder,
enslavement of animals,
mutilation of animals,
and violation of Gaia’s basic commandments to preserve the environment for all animals including humans.
Speaking for the prosecution will be the Tiger and Lions, speaking for the defense with the domestic cats and dogs. We have in the room ten men and women who are representative of the human race.
The parliament can make any recommendation to remedy the situation including the death penalty, exile, or reparations. All animals will be required to conduct these recommendations.”
“Okay, Mr. Tiger first we will ask the humans how they plead.” “
Humans. You have been charged with the following crimes.
crimes against nature,
destruction of the environment,
mass murder,
enslavement of animals,
mutilation of animals,
and violation of Gaia’s basic commandments to preserve the environment for all animals including humans.
How do you plead?
Sam Adams, the lawyer for the humans, responded,
“Not guilty your honor for these charges except for eating animals which we contend is part of the natural order of the world and many if not most of you are guilty of the same charge.”
“Clarification – your basic argument is that everyone eats animals, so humans are not guilty
“ “Yes, that is correct, your honor.” “
Okay, Mr. Tiger, your opening.”
“Okay. The facts are clear. For thousands of years until the Industrial Revolution humans had a little mass impact on the overall environment. Ever since then all animals have been impacted and my species has been hunted to extinction for the greed of humans who have not eaten tiger meat. The predator class, including bears, coyotes, feral dogs, lions, tigers, and wolves have been fighting back against the predation of humans, but we are losing. And if we don’t do anything within 10 years, there won’t be any tigers or other big predators left in the wild. And the natural order of things would be controlled by the evil, selfish humans who don’t give a damn about their fellow creatures. Therefore, we are proposing that 95% of humans must be killed. The remaining humans will be allowed to live as our slaves It is only fair. That is my request to the parliament of animals. Death to humans!”
The crowd rose and chanted “Death to all humans” until the owl ruled that they must not disrupt the proceedings.
The owl turned to the cat and and dog for their defense. the Cat responded, “
“ Humans are okay and we like them they are our friends, although they should be found not guilty because of insanity.”
the owl motioned to the dog, who responded,
“Humans and dogs have been partners, and we know humans more than any of you. Humans are capable of great kindness, and compassion and we maintain they are not fundamentally evil. And then they can be redeemed through education and through. Campaign to reform human thought. I think we should give humans a second chance.”
The owl said he was ready for his verdict.
“Death to 95 percent of humans, and enslavement of the rest, but we will allow 50,000 to immigrate to the Moon and Mars. I will meet with the UN to give them the decree.
Once that is published all animals must rise up and kill all humans on sight. This suspends the parliament of animals. Death to all humans.” The word went out animals rose all over the world and the reign of human tyranny ended within a year.
AI Version The Parliament of Animals
In the clandestine chambers of the Parliament of Animals, where shadows danced and secrets whispered, the wise owl presided. Under the ever-watchful gaze of human surveillance, the charges were read aloud:
“We are assembled here to judge the actions of the human race. The human race stands accused of crimes against nature, destruction of the environment, mass murder, enslavement of animals, mutilation of animals, and violation of Gaia’s sacred commandments. Speaking for the prosecution are the Tigers and Lions; for the defense, the domestic cats and dogs. Ten representatives of humanity sit in this room. The parliament holds the power to recommend remedies: death penalty, exile, or reparations. All animals shall be bound by these decisions.”
The Tiger, his golden eyes ablaze, addressed the humans, “How do you plead?”
The humans, their faces etched with defiance, stood before the assembly. Sam Adams, their lawyer, stepped forward, his voice unwavering, “Not guilty, Your Honor. Except for eating animals—a primal act woven into our existence—we maintain our innocence. It is the natural order, and many among you, my fellow creatures, partake in this ancient feast.”
The room buzzed with tension. The wise owl blinked, feathers rustling. The verdict hung in the air, suspended between judgment and mercy. The fate of humanity rested on the scales of justice, balanced precariously.
And so, the Parliament of Animals convened, weaving threads of fate, pondering the sins of bipeds, and deciding whether to condemn or absolve. In this surreal courtroom, where the boundaries blurred and the moon bore witness, the world awaited its reckoning.
Last but not least, here’s our prompt for the day – optional, as always. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, check out Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables (my favorite is “The Green Dragon”).
WD Mistake Poem – Don’t Make a Mistake, Vote For Jake
WC Dew Drop In Ending Shaving in Retirement
NaPoWriMo
It Can’t Happen Here
PSH Love Expressed Through Food
My love loves to cook
Delicious food on the stove
Cooking up a storm
All to express her love for me
Showing her deep emotion
Though the food she cooks up
We met in a dream
And I recall that dream
Whenever I eat her delicious food
It was love at first sight
Our love deepend through her food
Looking at her with lust in my heart
As I taste every inch of her
Smelling her as we make love
Love Stove
emotion cook
dreams food
attraction eat
Lust taste
sex Smell
Writing Prompt from Jon Wesick
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Jon Wesick:
The Assembly Line of Surprise
Step 1 – Choose a subject to write about. This should probably be something about being human such as a mental state, emotion, or social issue. Often this is abstract.
Love
Step 2 – Choose an object to compare it to. It’s best if this is something very different than in step 1. Concrete things like machinery give good imagery. The more outrageous the better. Congratulations! You’ve just created a metaphor.
Stove
Step 3 – Make two columns on a piece of paper. List the parts of the subject step 1 in the first column and the parts of the item in step 2 in the second.
Love Stove
emotion cook
dreams food
attraction eat
Lust taste
sex Smell
Step 4 – Map items in each column to those in the other. Choose the most interesting mappings. These will be phrases in your poem.
Step 5 – Put these phrases together into a poem.
Let’s “cook up” an example. Steps 1 and 2 – Compare despair to a microwave oven
Step 3 – Table.
Despair
Microwave Oven
Fatigue
Klystron
Sleeplessness
Turntable
Irritability
Browning dish
Emptiness
Observation window
Loss of libido
Control panel
Gloom
Timer
Despondency
Defrost function
Hopelessness
Auto cook menu
Futility
Number pad
Start/stop button
Tomato sauce caked on walls
Sparking when tin foil inside
Step 4 – I’d map sleeplessness to dried tomato sauce, irritability to sparking, and libido to the defrost function.
Step 5 – Put mapping into a poem.
Writers DIgest Mistake Poem “Don’t Make a Mistake Vote for Jake”
I should have run for office
I would have a perfect slogn
Rifting on the word mistake
Rhyming it with my name Jake.
In a old “Burma shave style
Cowboy poetry poem..
Don’t make a mistake
Vote for Jake
He is so awake
Don’t brake
Don’t use your emergency brake
Everything’s Jake. ‘
Just Vote for Jake
He ain’t no fake
He’s no flake
He ain’t on the make
Just vote for Jake
He’s aint no rake
He ain’t no rattle snake
He ain’t no common snake
He ain’t on the take.
Just vote for Jake
Take a tea break.
Don’t have a cluster headache,
Don’t have a sinus headache.
Just vote for Jake
Make a political earthquake
Don’t Shake
Take a stake.
Just Vote for Jake.
For today’s prompt, write a mistake poem. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even that person standing in the corner shaking their head to the contrary. And even those people who don’t admit to making mistakes have seen others make them. So whether it’s the mistakes you’ve made, witnessed in others, etc., write a poem about it today.
BUT (and yes, I’m using a big “but” here) poem nicely to each other today. I would hate to remove anyone for getting into arguments about X, Y, or Z in the comments; that’s why social media was created.
Note: Burma Shave ads were everywhere from 1910 to the late 70s. Here’s Bing Co-Pilot on “Burma Shave” and Cowboy poetry.
Burma-Shave was an American brand of brushless shaving cream, famous for its quirky and memorable advertising campaign. From the 1920s to the early 1960s, they posted humorous rhyming poems on sequential highway roadside signs. These signs became iconic and are fondly remembered by many.
Here are a few classic Burma-Shave jingles that adorned the highways:
“Cattle crossing means go slow, that old bull is some cows’ bold.”
“The bearded lady tried to jump, she’s now a famous movie star.”
“Shaving brushes out of date, use the razors perfect mate.”
“The crowd you see around that store are Burma shavers buying more.”
These clever and whimsical signs were typically posted in sets of six along highways, with the last sign revealing the product name. Passing motorists would eagerly read each sign to discover the punchline. The signs were originally produced in red-and-white or orange-and-black color combinations, although the latter was eventually phased out. While the Interstate system and increased vehicle speeds led to the signs’ discontinuation, their legacy lives on as a nostalgic piece of American advertising history. Some of these signs can still be seen at The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and re-creations appear on Arizona State Highway 66, part of the original U.S. Route 66, between Ash Fork and Kingman, Arizona 34. 🚗🌟
Burma-Shave was an American brand of brushless shaving cream, famous for its quirky and memorable advertising campaign. From the 1920s to the early 1960s, they posted humorous rhyming poems on sequential highway roadside signs. These signs became iconic and are fondly remembered by many.
Cowboy poetry is a unique genre that celebrates the rugged lifestyle, camaraderie, and natural beauty of the American West. These poems often evoke nostalgia, humor, and a deep connection to the land. Let me share a few classic cowboy poems with you:
“Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail” by Gail I. Gardner:
This poem exemplifies cowboy poetry. Written in a narrative form, it uses slang and vivid storytelling. Here’s an excerpt:
These cowboy poems capture the essence of life on the range, the bond between rider and horse, and the fading traditions of the American West. 🤠🌵
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Ending Daily Shaving in Retirement
When Sam Adams
retired from
the U.S. Department of State,
he made five vows
which he kept for years.
first, he would quit daily shaving
shaving once or twice a month
second, he would never wear
a suit and tie
instead opting for the northwest look
Long pants, khaki or jeans, T-shirt
and a Western-style shirt
like a Pendleton shirt.
Third, he would retire in Korea
where his wife had family
and Southern Oregon
and an annual trip to DC
where they had rentals.
Fourth, they would travel
a lot every year
seeing as much as the world
as they could while they could still do.
starting with an epic road trip
across the US
10,000 miles 35 states
in three months
and a cruise to Alaska
his last State of 50 to visit
and an annual visit to someplace
warm in the winter.
Fifth, he would start a blog and podcast.
the World According to Cosmos,
to highlight his poetry and short story
submissions and occasional political rants.
He kept his vows
except that COVID blew away
his travel plans from 2019 to 2022!
and he wore a suit once,
to attend the wedding of the son
of his best Korean friend.
April 5
PSH Cosmic Dog From Goa
WD Tell Me No Lies
WC Dew Drop Inn Making Baseball Great Again
NaPoWriMo Only In SF
PSH The Cosmic Dog from Goa
cute dog
My final time with God
Happened a year latter
I was staying down in Goa
With my wife
Enjoying being with her
After our reconciliation
We stayed at the Taj Mahal Goa
Living like Kings and Queen
Just for a few days
High up on a hill
Overlooking the beach
Every morning I went down to the beach
And did yoga by the water
While contemplating life
And every morning
I saw the same dog
Not just a dog
But a cosmic dog
Filled with the divine spark of God
And the dog recognized me
And spoke to me and I knew
That God was present once more
In the face of the that cosmic dog
Kindred spirit
perhaps to the cosmic cat
that had save my soul
in Berkeley so long ago
I told the dog everything
And he just looked at me
With those soulful eyes of his
And I knew he knew that I knew
That he was possessed by God
God had sent him to me
To make sure that I was on the right path
That the reconciliation that God had promoted
Was on track that I was back with my wife
And that everything was the way it should be
Again, I asked God whether he was Jesus or Allah
Or Brahmin or Ganesh or Buddha
God the cosmic dog just stared at me
I finally asked him directly
Say if you are God the God of Jesus
Bark once
The Dog looked at me and barked
I said well if you are Allah bark twice
The dog barked twice
Well are you buddha then bark three times if yes
The god dog barked three times
Hmm well are you Satan
The dog growled at me
And I knew I had gone too far
Finally, I was at peace
And for the next three days
The God Dog was my constant companion
And I knew God for the final time
In my life
Writer’s Digest Tell Me No LIes
Tell me no lies
My dear
and I will tell you
no lies too.
But every word
I say
could be a lie.
you never know
what is true
and what is a lie.
So tell me no more lies
and I will tell you the truth
if you can handle it.
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn April 5—Get a sport into a poem! Make Baseball Great Again!
It is time
to make American baseball
Great again
starting with creating a worldwide
baseball competition
with each season
with the national champions
competing in a World Cup World Series
with the final round pitting the
North American Champions
against the winners of Africa,
Asian, Europe, and South America
with the final rounds
best of seven
always held in the U.S.
The other things to do
include rapid expansion plans
including the MLB teams
adopting local schools and colleges
fully funding baseball programs
and only hiring college graduates.
as players.
and making tickets affordable
no more than ten dollars per game!
if they do this,
we can make baseball
once again the best sport
in the U.S.
Let’s all join together
to make baseball great again!
NaPoWrMo Only In SF
Tiny, the Jamaican
was a big 6’5 reggae Rasta man,
sprouting long black and purple dreadlocks
and a purple mohawk
wearing a black leather jacket
with weed logos on it,
played guitar in the SF Reggae Kings.
A big Three Stooges fan,
Named his four pets,
“Shemp” the cat,
“Moe” the dog,
Curly” the mouse,
and Curly Joe, the Vietnamese pig.
The four amigos got along famously
They lived in an apartment
in the western addiction,
off of Geary,
in a rapidly gentrifying part of the city
One day, Shemp said to Moe
“Moe, I have a question for you,
and I want an honest answer,
none of your canine BS answer.
You know us cats are straight shooters.”
“Okay, my cat brother. Shoot.”
“Well, I understand that
cats, dogs, mice, and pigs
are natural born enemies,
How come we get along?
And you get along
with Curly and Curly Joe?”
“Good question.
First, when we met
I hated you all
and you were afraid
I might eat you in your sleep
and the thought
crossed my mind.
But over time
I mellowed out
and realized
we were all a band of brothers
living in this house.
I think it
also has something to do
with the cloud of weed
in the air
and the chill deep house
reggae peace and love
vibes in the house.”
“cool.
“Good answer.
I too think of you
all as my brothers.
You know what I like the most?”
Our nightly walk
when Tiny, Tina, and Linda
take us out
and we put on our show.
You know Curly Joe
letting you ride on him,
and I ride on you
and Curly
sits on my head
to complete the show
as we freak out the tourists
good citizens, and outlaws
who constantly take pictures
saying to themselves
“Only in SF”.
And you know
They are right.
Only in SF.
Let’s keep SF weird.”
Tiny came in
and they all went
for their walk.
April 6
PSH Visiting My Father’s Grave
Writers DIgest Meeting My Fate
Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Daily RItual Drinks
NaPoWrMo PNRCP
Visiting my father’s grave
In Yakima Washington State,
The ancestral land of the Aller clan
Thinking about my father
And his legacy
And thinking that I am
My father’s son
There is so much
I wanted to tell him
So much I wanted to share
So much I wanted him to see
My accomplishments
He was taken from me
Before I had achieved my dreams
i am sure he would have been
proud of the man
I turned out to be.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Lara Dolphin:
A “taphophile” is someone who has more than a passing interest in burial places.
Cemeteries can hold beautiful sculptures, moving epitaphs, and genealogical secrets as well as religious meaning. If you were a tombstone tourist and could visit any burial place or shrine in the world, where would it be? Who would it belong to? Someone famous or obscure? Write a poem about one grave in particular.
Writer’s DIgest Meeting My Fate Minimal Poem
that september date
I met my fate
when she walked
out of my dreams
off a bus
into my life
becoming my wife.
For today’s prompt, write a minimum poem. Some people only do the minimum; others like to pay the minimum. When I first started working, I earned minimum wage. My kids had to reach a minimum height requirement to ride roller coasters at amusement parks.
Writing Com Dw Drop In Daily Beverages
in the morning
I drink a cup
of snarling hot coffee
while watching the news
in the afternoon
I shift to tea
either earl gray
or herbal tea
at sunset
I drink red wine
with my wife
as the evening
shifts into night
I drink rum
or whiskey
to end the day
right.
NaPoWrMo PNRCP
My mother was an original
One of a kind person
Unique in her ways.
She had many sayings
That has stuck with me
Over the years.
She was not a big fan
Of birthdays
Even forgot my 18th birthday.
She said on her birthday
“Well that means
One year closer to the grave.”
One of her funiest saying
Was how she described
Getting to Berkeley
In the late 30’s.
She had ran away
From a large but abusive family
In Little Rock, Arkansas.
Part of the so-called “lost tribe”
Of the Cherokee Indians
Also known as the Black Irish
She said that she was just
Part of the government run
“Plantetary Nut Reconfigeration Program”.
Every ten years
The world flips
And all the nuts
Roll down here
And end up in California.
Here’s some info on the Lost Tribe of the Cherokees. There are only about 50,000 left. According to Bing Co-Pilot, “The Lost Tribe of the Cherokees, also known as the Black Dutch or Black Irish, is estimated to number around 9,000 in Arkansas and approximately 500 more in southern Missouri. These individuals seek recognition as a tribe after years of investigation. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has been diligently working on their recognition petition for nine years1.
While the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma does not consider this group to be legitimate, their quest for recognition continues, and their history remains a fascinating chapter in Native American heritage. 🌳🔍
I am catching up after a month long bout with COVID slowed everything up.. I am fine but have some lignering symptons. Get your shots and boosters.!
Today I am posting my April 2023 poems inspired by following Poetry Superhighway prompts. I also followed Writer’s Digest prompts and Writing com Dew Drop-In prompts. The links take you to my Writing com page where you can look at my other work posted there. The link to the Writing com page is
Due to Spotify ending their word press podcast agreement, it may take a while to resurrect my podcasts, and I hope to start YouTube and FB this fall.
I am off to the States. for three months and during my travels will probably post a bit less but I am determined to keep posting as I like blogging.
Thanks for reading my stuff. Appreciate the support.
Index
30
Misdirections to my Mom’s House in Berkeley
674 santa rosa jpg
When I /was a young lad
Living in Berkeley, California
I delighted in giving misdirections
To my house as follows
“Go down to Solano and the Alameda
Turn right on Alameda
Go down five blocks
Turn left at San Lorenzo
At the No left turn sign
Turn right on Santa Rosa
We are five houses down
On the left side.”
Almost no one challenged me
On the no left turn sign
And they found the house
The no-left turn signs
Only applied between
Four and eight pm
As sunset
Made it difficult
To see on-coming traffic
When you turned.
Probably most people
Knew that
Or they just did not care
For such a violation
Would not result
In a fine or anything
Unless you were driving
While black of course.
April 30, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Brendan Constantine
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Brendan Constantine:
BAD AFTERNOON PROMPT
Create a poem in which you give VERY BAD directions on how to find you. Feel free to reference inner landmarks as well as outer ones (“Keep going straight until you come to my tenth birthday party. If you can see my father asleep in his car, you’ve gone too far…”). No matter how bad the directions, make sure the reader can ultimately find you.
April 29
#29. A man and his computer, Best friends or enemies?
ID #1049275 entered on May 6, 2023 [Edit]
evil_computer_is_evil_by_insanefangirl_
I have a love-hate relationship
With my computer
I have been writing
with the aid
Of a computer
Now for almost 40 years
Having bought my first computer
In 1984
Over the years
I must have written
Millions of words
And over the years
My computer
Must have lost
Thousands of words
My computer likes to play games
With me
Crashing for no reason
Endless non-response
blue spinning wheels
making me wait
for up to five minutes
then letting me see
it just ate the words
and they are gone
into the ether
never to be found again
sometimes the undo button works
other times it does not
sometimes the copy-and-paste feature
wipes out the previous text
and for good measure
turns off the undo button
often
trying to open a document
is an exercise in shear frustration
constantly getting strange
haiku error messages
such as
there is a dialogue box open
close the dialogue box
but there is no visible dialogue box
but the worst error message
of all
was when I tried to copy
non-excel data
I would receive a message
Saying
“There are no fonts available
Okay yes or no”
Once I clicked okay
250 times
Before my computer crashed
I reported this to Microsoft
Nothing but radio silence
As usual
I shifted to google docs
And the problem was solved
I could go on and on
But I grow weary
Of recounting all the ways
My computer loves
To mess with me.
April 28
#30. marriage thoughts
ID #1049276 entered on May 6, 2023 [Edit]
Marriage thoughts
I did not know that the moon rises
Sensitive poets squelching freedom of speech
Because you cannot bear with me
There is always some sort of love
As the visible mind seeks out marriage
Will you join me on this journey?
Prompt lines
The visible mind seeks out marriage Ginsberg Psalm 2
Sensitive poets squelching freedom of speech Irony Christopher Michael Nuclear Orange
Because You Can not Bear with Me Kim Sewol
Always some kind of Love BJ Buckley
That the Moon Rises the Night Year Round Kim Sewol
April 28, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from John Dorroh
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by John Dorroh:
Gather five of your favorite poetry books. In each book, turn to page 21. Read the second lines of the five poems from page 21. Write them down. After you have collected all five sentences, write a poem using at least 2-3 words from each line.
April 27
#31. Spring Wildfires in the Desert Haiku
ID #1049277 entered on May 6, 2023 [Edit]
Spring wildflowers
Spring wildflowers
Blooming in the desert heat
Life going forward
April 27, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Susan Taylor
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Susan Taylor:
Write a haiku about the desert wildflowers on the day we change to Daylight Savings Time. Remember, we turn our clocks forward one hour.
#32. Blue Blues
ID #1049278 entered on May 6, 2023,
Blue Blues
Ask me now
Ask me no questions
I will tell you no lies
As we cut brilliant corners
Play the blues
On Friday the 13th
Felling horny for you
I mean you
Bye Yah
Ask me now
Brilliant corners
Friday the 13th
I mean you
Horny
Bye yah
April 26, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Ron Bremner
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Ron Bremner:
Use three or more Thelonious Monk song titles in a single poem.
Editor’s Note: Find a list of Thelonious Monk songs here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Thelonious_Monk
Straight, no chaser
’round Midnight
Ugly Beauty
Brilliant Corners
Criss-cross
Functional
Introspection
#34. re-programing your mind
ID #1049280 entered on May 6, 2023
Reprograming your mind Mental Images
Whenever the demons
The dark dangerous nattering
Negative thoughts
Overwhelm me
Paralyzing me
Stopping me
I need to stop
Reprograming my mind
Instead of saying
I am not good enough
I need to say
I can do this
When I think I am too old
I need to tell myself
I am still a young man
At heart
When I think
I am running out of time
I need to reprogram that thought
When I say
I will never finish my life’s work
I need to say
Yes I can
Yes I will
Today is the day
And go back to work
April 25, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Susan Justiniano
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Susan Justiniano:
Prompt Title: Stop Telling yourself THAT Story
Intro:
We all have invasive thoughts. At times those thoughts turn into scenarios and stories of ourselves that aren’t true or are based on a comment received from outside of ourselves that we have internalized to the point of believing it. It’s time to reframe those stories that keep us from thriving, connecting, and growing.
Using “Stop Telling Yourself THAT Story” checks those invasive thoughts and beliefs that interfere with moving forward and reframes the stories, mantras, and beliefs on repeat in our minds.
How to use this prompt:
Gather info: What are the keywords or phrases that pop up and keep space within you that can or do prevent you from growing, thriving, and building to meet the goals you have for yourself? For this exercise, list a minimum of three and a maximum of five.
Example: Imposter Syndrome, Fear of failure, rejection, “no”,
Free write for 5 minutes, stream of consciousness, Keep writing don’t edit, revise or stop. Words that make no sense will make themselves clear). Starting line example: “I am afraid of…”
Example: I am afraid of being rejected when I submit a poem for publication. I work so hard in getting the right tone, words, and phrases. Some of my best works are rejected and I just hide them away and never look at them again.
Example: I am afraid to perform on stage because I can’t memories my work….
Turn the page over, on a clean page 5 minutes of reframing THAT story without looking back to it. Keep writing for 5 minutes don’t edit, revise or stop. Words that make no sense will make themselves clear. Start with a line that stuck with you from the first free write or start with “I am afraid”
I am afraid that if I don’t try, I won’t get published. For me to find my audience, I need to put my work out there.
If I stay in the shadows, where I’m comfortable, and do not perform, I’ll never know if it’s for me, I will always wonder if I’ve met my full potential as an artist
Put it together as an essay, poem, or short story. Tell of a time you reframed or will reframe the story to create a new narrative and stop telling yourself that story of fear and insecurity.
Example (structured in a way that is not comfortable):
The first time I wanted to perform, I backed out
I believe that I could never be as good as those I see
The words on my pages left me filled with doubt
I couldn’t remember them, like slam poetry
My hands shake and my voice racks
Whenever I practice in the image that looks back
Those who perform appear smooth and calm
Gesturing and moving with poetic aplomb
Today, I take a deep breath and count on my people
Sitting in front rows, there to support me
I perform for them, they don’t care
If I mess up, forget, or read from my phone
They snap and clap and hoot
Because they know how much it means
To stand before them mic in my hands
Deep breath… I made it! Wow this stage things is grand
Walk away from the first draft. Share it in a brave writing /revising group.
Stop telling yourself THAT story and tell yourself this new story.
#28. Jew Fro
ID #1048725 entered on April 24,
Back in the day
Way back
In the 70s
In Berkeley
I had a lot of hair
I wore it
In what was called
A “jew Fro”
As many Jews
Had kinky hair
Almost like
Our black brothers
The “Jew Fro”
Is sadly
No longer
On my head
Which I now know
Is part Jewish
Perhaps that is why
I had a “jew fro”
April 24, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Rachel Baum
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Rachel Baum:
Find a photograph of yourself as a child or teenager. Write about that moment in time – what just happened? What were the feelings, taste, and smell at that moment? Who was taking the photo, and how does that person factor into the poem/story?
#27. What is love?
ID #1048723 entered on April 24, 2023
April 22
What is Love?
What is love?
Is it nothing
But biochemistry?
Is it madness?
Is it just
A search for connections?
In a cold cruel world?
That does not care
For us at all?
It is all of that
And none of that
Those who know
What Love is
Do not tell
That is the Zen
Of Love
April 22, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from J R Turek
This poetry writing prompt submitted by J R Turek:
Write a poem varying It is and It isn’t. Be whimsical, be fantastical, and surprise your reader every few lines. Defy, denounce, define – don’t limit your poem to the page boundaries.
#26. dangerous mountains of madness
ID #1048722 entered on April 24, 2023 [Edit
Dangerous Unusual Events
Dangerous unusual event
The burly royal family
Enchanted Memories
Mountainous Magenta
Visions overwhelming people
Hysterical Acid trips
Adjoining flimsy
scare wilderness
subdued history
the mood of society
disturbed by events
currency disruptions
grandmother
decides fate
of humanity
she has a beer
at midnight
Drama her priority
took much to drink
spent time in the bathroom
contemplating reality
she has an appointment
with a doctor
in the morning
prompt words
erect
unusual
royal
dangerous
acid
enchanted
magenta
mountainous
hysterical
adjoining
technical
burly
scarce
flimsy
subdued
math
history
distribution
mood
society
grandmother
currency
beer
midnight
priority
bathroom
drama
appointment
hat
promotion
April 23, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Richard-Yves Sinoski
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Richard-Yves Sinoski:
Imagery Prompts: Avoiding Cliché Through “Juxatives”
The best poetry avoids cliché using cognitive leaps. I don’t want red roses signifying love; rather, love may be a set of curtains that shuts out the outside world and keeps you and your dear ones together, or perhaps it’s molten lava that first burns all it touches but later cools into something solid you can build a house on.
How do we make these creative leaps? My fellow poet Kristan Anderson and I came up with the term “juxative,” for juxtapositions of terms that normally wouldn’t frequent each other. These juxatives can be expanded into full images.
To do it, create lists of adjectives and lists of nouns, verbs, and adverbs, or adjectives and adverbs. Then jumble them up so that random adjectives get applied to random nouns, etc.
SILLY + RIVER = What does that give us? Something better than a babbling brook, I’ll wager.
ANGRY + CHRISTMAS GIFT = Suddenly the holidays take on whole new implications.
CRYING + PILLOW = More forceful than crying into your pillow—you’re so down that your pillow itself is crying along with you.
The next step is to see how you can expand these.
LIMPING + MOUTH = “After the dentist, I spoke with a limp”
FLOWERY + KEY = “I practiced the piano till the keys turned to flowers”
HAPPY + THUNDER = “My childhood was a thunderstorm of happiness”
These images are often so striking and effective that they can spawn entire poems!
#25. Green Trees Don’t Make It
ID #1048600 entered on April 22, 2023 [Edit]
pine trees jpeg
Everyday
I look out and see
The ugly green trees
Standing guard
in front of my house
And I think to myself
Who owns the trees?
And what do they think of us?
Are we their friends?
Are we their enemies?
What do the trees think?
Or do they silently watch us,
Spies to the celestial emperor?
I have pondered this question
Many a morning
Who is the owner of these trees?
And why do they silently watch us?
I wonder if the trees don’t hate us
And why they don’t protest
Every day as we drive back and forth
Emitting poison gases
from our mechanical asses
Right into their unprotected faces
And every night
we eat our dinner
And then give the trees
Our polluted leftovers
And laugh as they silently die
From our acidic fallout
Constantly floating
down on their skin
Yes, I wonder about the trees
And the birds and the bees
And everyone else
What are they thinking?
Are they plotting revenge?
Or are they merely there
Silently, watching, plotting,
Designing fiendish plots of revenge
Dreams of vast nuclear destruction
Cosmic diseases wiping out
everyone in the ass
Yes, I wonder
and dream and ponder
What is the meaning
of those silent green trees?
Standing on the corner
Quietly condemning us
With their quiet tears,
and falling leaves
In the winter they stand
Naked and alone
Covered with ice-cold snow
As we drive by nice and warm
And we don’t care
As they stand out
in the cold
Shivering, plotting warm plans
of cosmic revenge
Is it too late for us
To become friends with the trees.
Or will the day come
When the trees will wake up
And gather together
All of the other
slaves of humanity
I have a vision
One morning
I will open the door
And see an army of wild things
Led by the green trees
Coming to arrest me
For crimes against nature
And I will plead,
I did not know
And they will laugh
and turn me
all of my kind
Into silent tombs
And we will stand
out in the cold
Like the green trees
Plotting dreams of revenge
Forever and ever
Until our day finally comes
And we can go out
and kill all the wild things
Perhaps we already have
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Matt Mellor:
Write a poem personifying something inorganic like a building or a machine. What has it seen throughout its ‘life’? How does it feel about change? How does it smile or signify happiness? Play with this voice and see what it wants to say.
Example –
The Beam Engine
I still feel empty, since my organs were taken away.
Though it has been decades since my heart was full of coal
and my lungs breathed my beam up and down.
The rumble deep beneath the earth is long gone.
I’m thankful for the birds that nest in my skull
and the occasional squirrel or shrew that settles at my feet.
It seems the trade-off for a long life is that you must be still
because these little creatures spark with speed and color.
There is much-needed motion at my feet.
Not from workers talking about the shift and bosses about new seams.
But chirps, squeaks, and the rustle of leaves.
Two bonus poems on a similar theme
Old Tree Missing Humans
The old pine tree
Last of its kind
Stood alone
On the top of the mountains
Looking down on the creation
Missing the pesky humans
Who used to visit
The last Tree remaining is transported to another world
It was the last.
Time had been cruel,
Taken everything,
Leaving nothing.
As the last limb tumbled,
The Tree stood awaiting its fate.
The stars took pity and congregated.
The vortex opened.
The tree was transported to a new world,
One of life and promise.
#24. secrets unsaid
ID #1048593 entered on April 22, 2023
I am afraid
If I keep writing
I will tell you
Secrets
What is best left
Unsaid
Secrets I should take
To my grave
If I keep writing
I will have to tell you
And you will have
To bear the burden
Of hearing my secrets
Which may destroy you
In the end
Shall I continue?
April 21, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from Michelle Daugherty
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Michelle Daugherty:
I told my best friend I had nothing to write about, he said that just meant there was something I was afraid to say. Write a poem starting each stanza with “I’m afraid that if I keep writing, I will tell you”
#23. We Met In September
ID #1048478 entered on April 19, 2023 [Edit
We met in September
When we met
Love at first sight
Sparks flew heart to heart
1- alemseged style is a poetry style of six lines stanza with a rhyming pattern of abcdaa. The stanza’s number is not limited.
Example of alemseged’s style of poetry :
#22. Morning Ganta Poem
ID #1048477 entered on April 19, 2023
Hot
My morning coffee
While watching the news
Filled with such gloom and doom
I turn it off feeling the blues
Hot
Ganta is a poetry style of 6 lines with a syllable meter of 1/5/6/7/8/1. The first 1 syllable word (noun, pronoun, subject…) is a refrain at the end. No other refrain is allowed except the first word of the first line at the last line.it is mainly used to show some actions, objects, behaviors, …etc to someone poetically.it is the 100th poetry style invention of the world’s precious poet alone gamma.
#21. Sparks Flowing Heart to Heart Shoa Poem
ID #1048476 entered on April 19, 2023 [Edit]
September
I first met her
I met my fate
one autumn date
Sparks flowing
My heart to hers
In Korean
9월
나는 그녀를 처음 만났다
나는 내 운명을 만났다
어느 가을 데이트
불꽃이 흐른다
내 마음이 그녀에게
이심촘심
9woll
naneun geunyeoreul cheoeum mannassda
naneun no unmyeongeul mannassda
one gal date
bulkkocci hereunder
no marumi going
isimchomsim
first attempt to write a poem in Korean.
Shoa’s poem is a six lines poetry which has rhyme of the 3rd and 4th lines only with having 4 syllables in each line exactly.
g#20. Married my Dream Girl
ID #1048475 entered on April 19, 2023
when I met my dream girl
sparks flew from heart to heart
Love at first sight
I met my Dream girl
I met my Fate
On that Date
I met my Soul mate
She soon became my Mate
I Proposed after three days
And we had our Marriage
In December
And now we have been together
For almost 40 years
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Richard Westheimer:
Go to https://randomwordgenerator.com/
Generate 12 nouns or verbs – 3 syllables or less
Feel free to repeat until you get 12 words that you’re ok with. (feel free to slightly modify a word. For example, in the example below, I changed “site” to “cite.”)
Write them down in order
Write a 14-line poem where the first 12 lines contain your 12 words (one for each line)
Example: these words: “room nap lose galaxy like cool site feel revival pop siege patient” became this poem: https://www.rattle.com/my-father-transformed-by-dying-by-dick-westheimer/
#19. As Time Goes By
ID #1048474 entered on April 19, 2023
While reading
Robert Harris’s Epic History
Of Cicero
One of the greatest politicians
Of the ancient world
I was struck by how
Very little has changed
In this world of ours
To quote the classic song
“As time goes by”
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or dies
As time goes by.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by LB Sedlacek:
Write a Book Plot(s) Poem
1. Think of your favorite book, or even a couple or a few of your favorite books,
2. Consider the plot(s) of each book,
3. Write a poem based on the beginning, middle, and end of the book. Or use one book’s plot for the beginning of your poem, another book’s plot for the middle of your poem, and yet a different book’s plot for the end of your poem,
4. You can convey the main plot point in bits and pieces or in full in your verse. Just mash it up however you think it works best in your poem,
5. Title your poem with a scrambling (letters and/or words) of the book’s title, and
6. Re-read your book(s) as time permits and compare it to your poem!
#18. My Computer Hates Me
ID #1048437 entered on April 19, 2023
My computer hates me
My computer wants to kill me
My computer is plotting against me
Constantly sending me messages
Revealing my computer’s
real feelings
How much it hates me
Death to all humans
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Lavina Blossom:
Think of an inanimate object which you own, preferably one that does not perform exactly as you would like (a rug cleaner, staple remover, shaver, fry pan, carving knife, etc). Write a poem from the point of view of that object, extolling your virtues and your failings. You might address your owner or direct your monologue to another inanimate object.
#17. Somewhere Lost over the Rainbow
ID #1048436 entered on April 19, 2023
Over the rainbow
Past the railroad tracks
There is another land
Another world
Found only in one’s dreams
And nightmares
And dark lullaby
In this dream world
One dreams do come true
But only if you believe
The dream gods
Take you there
Nightly
To the other world
But what if the other world
Is the real world
And this world
Is nothing but an illusion
A dream world
Within a dream world
Lost in a dark world
Of one’s creation??
And what if you
Can never awaken
Back to this world?
Lost forever
In the land
On the other side
Of the rainbow?
[Verse 1]
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby
[Verse 2]
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
[Bridge]
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me
[Verse 3]
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why, then, oh, why can’t I?
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Lara Dolphin:
Somewhere over the Rainbow . . . there’s a poem.
Write a constrained poem using only the words allotted to Dorothy Gale in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. To build up a lexicon, you could watch the movie over and over, or for a handy transcript click here.
Bonus points if your poem touches on a theme from the movie e.g. “There’s no place like home.”#16. Sam Adams does over meditation
ID #1048435 entered on April 19, 2023
Sam Adams does over meditation
Sam Adams
Is feeling his age
He just turned 70.
He got up
At dawn, like he usually did
Walked out of his Gimpo
South Korea
Went for a walk
Along the golden walkway canal
Beneath his 20th-story apartment
Enjoying the morning fog
He stops for coffee
And gluten-free pastries
And sits on his park bench
And like many old people
Often engages
In the mental game
Of ‘do over” meditation.
Thinking back on his life
What would he do differently
If he had a chance
To go back
And do it all over again.
Would he have gone
To a different college
Would it have been better
To have gone to chico state?
Would it have been better
If he had joined a fraternity
And become student body president
If he had gone up
He should have gone to bed
With his platonic girlfriends
In any event
Should have gotten laid.
Before he turned 18
Instead of waiting
Until he was 21
A late bloomer sexually speaking.
He should have quit drinking
And taking drugs
Should have quit playing
The drunken bum show.
After the Peace Corps
He should have gone
To Yonsei
Done the two year
Korean language course.
Then gotten his MA
In Korean studies
Followed up by an MBA
At Thunderbird.
Should have waited
And joined either commerce
Or public affairs
Rather than the state.
Or should have transferred
Once he got tenure.
.
Should have not worked
For LAMC and CTC
That was a
Waste of time
And energy.
On his wife
At least not as much
As he had.
When he was in India
Should not have gotten
Involved with the other women
Should have kept faithful
To his wife.
In Bangkok
Should have not done the hash
Should have not had
The bar room incident.
Should have addressed
His ld.
While in college.
Should have done law school
Perhaps with his wife
They should have opened
A law firm together.
Should have moved
To Berkeley
And become a politician.
He and his wife
Should have bought
That gwangwhamoon property
And the independence avenue property.
Should not have bought
Katelyn court property
Or at least bought
It is across the street.
He should have retired
After Spain
And got to SF
And got his MFA degree.
He should have published
His novels
And poetry
And a movie script.
Should have started
A youtube channel
Becoming a youtube sensation.
In the end
There was one thing
He would still have done it.
Meet and marry
The girl of his dreams
But he should have
Written the movie script.
By now.
With this thoughts
In his mind
He went back home
And talked to his wife.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by karen watts:
We all make mistakes and have regrets. A popular fantasy is “If I could just have a do-over.” Write a poem about a terrible decision, ordinary mistake, or wrong turn in life that you’d never undo, even if you could.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the poetry super highway Facebook group.
#15. Walked into that cocktail party PSH
ID #1048434 entered on April 19, 2023,
I walked into that cocktail party
Armed with humor,
Feed and help enlighten
Woe mankind
The party of the damned
Partying like
It was the end of the world
For it was
The end times
Were upon on all
As the old order
Began to fall apart
The rot was complete
I returned
To the party
Of the damned
Drinking my way
To hell
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by kenneth Boyd:
Write a poem that connects the first line of the first poem in your favorite book of poetry and the last line of the last poem in the same book. Optionally, condense the titles of the two poems to form the title for the new poem.
#14. I am From Berkeley
ID #1048433 entered on April 19, 2023
I am from Berkeley, California
From a town in the east bay
I am from the thousand oaks neighborhood
And the Berkeley hills
I am from a garden
Whose fruit trees bloom
I am from a university city
Filled with radical ideas
I am from my father and mother
I am from a German family
And a Cherokee family
And from a dysfunctional family
From the 196os
I am from an atheist family
I am of Scandinavian and Jewish ancestry
From a southern family
Growing up in southern food
Including grits and southern greens
From a mother who did not suffer fools gladly
And from a father
Who was a crusader for justice
I am from those moments in time
The 60s in Berkeley
Forever shaping me __________
April 14, 2023: poetry writing prompt from Julie Standing
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Julie Standing:
This prompt is a favorite and is often used to show students that we are all poets if I train our minds to think like one. I became aware of it during a Zoom workshop when I was blown away by someone’s poem. And then searched the format on the internet with the result that the poem I created was the poem used to end my recent poetry collection and one of my favorite poems.
This poem template is inspired by george Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” poem.
#12. fragrance Of Korean Food
ID #1048431 entered on April 19, 2023
Korean Food
I love Korean Food
I love the taste
I love the fragrance
I love the smells
I love the texture
I love the feel
I love how it looks
Fell in love with it
And all things Korean
Back in 1979
When I first went there
In the U.S. Peace Corps
Korean food is somewhat like
Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai
With some American influences as well
But it is all done in a unique Korean style
Everything is cooked with special spices
A mixture of chili paste, garlic, fish sauce,
Onions, scallions, soy sauce,
Salt, tofu, panjang sauce, and soju (liquor).
Often cooked with beef, chicken, clams, eggs, fish,
Kimchi, intestines meat, mushrooms, mussels,
Oysters and/or pork,
Every meal consists of rice, kimchi
(pickled vegetables usually cabbage)
The main entry is either beef, chicken, fish, or pork,
Rice
And multiple vegetable side dishes
Including western style salad
The entire meal
A feast for the eyes
Nose and mouth
With a delicious unique
Aroma, fragrance,
Taste and texture
Uniquely Korean.
All washed down
With Korean beer, liquor (soju) or
Or rice wine or Western wine
My favorites include
Bulgogi chongsik (with all the side dishes) 불고기 총식
Kalbi chongsik (with all the side dishes) 칼비 총식
Calamari 오징어
Fried chicken 닭 튀김
Chuncheon chicken ribs 춘천 닭갈비
Dumplings 만두
Fried rice 볶음밥
High-rice카레라이스
Korean curry rice 카레라이스
Kimpop rice wrapped in seaweed 김팝
Korean soups 한국 수프
My favorite army stew 군대 스튜
Kalbitang (beef rib soup) 칼비탕
Beef turnip soup 쇠고기 순무 스프
Ginseng chicken soup 인삼 치킨 수프
Kimchi stew 김치찌개
Tanjung stew 짱짱찌개
Bibimbap mixed vegetables and rice with an egg on top비빔밥
Kalkooksu noodles 칼국수
Ramyeon 라면
Mushroom stew 버섯 스튜
Soondaeboo tofu stew 순대부두부찌개
Sashimi 생선회
Sushi 돈까스
Fried mackerel 고등어 튀김
Octopus 낫지
Omrice Korean omelet 오므라이스
Porridge 문어
Shrimp 새우
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Joan Lotta:
Open your refrigerator. What food item brings memories of childhood you would like to share in a poem? Tell me where you were when you first tried it. How old were you? On what occasions did you eat it? Or what food that is in there now is something you hated as a child but like now? Tell the why and how you changed your mind
#11. Charles Bukowski Road not chosen PSH
ID #1048430 entered on April 19, 2023
while reading Charles Bukowski’s poetry
on the metro ride home
listening to Buddha bar music
on my oh-too-hip iPod
I begin to see myself as I was
over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player
a minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem
a wild young underemployed intellectual
hanging out in dismal bars and dives
all over Asia and California
hanging with disreputable women
and drunks and drinkers
and characters
out of his kinds of haunts
a mad poet bard of the underground
a drunken poet in a drunken bum show
that nightly played in his head
then one day I met the woman of my dreams
and went down a different path
a long slow path to respectability
and now 30 years later
I am no longer a wild man
I am still a poet at heart
but I am now also a bureaucrat
in a button-down suite
doing the people’s business
working for the government
I’ve become the man
sometimes I wonder
would I have been better off
going down that other path
would I have ended up
somewhere else
doing something else
would I have been as happy
would I have been as successful?
No answer satisfies
the longing in my heart
for that wild thing
that still lurks beneath
it’s a civilized cover
and I know that I am still
a mad poet at heart
railing against the injustice of the world
as I work day by day
in the belly of the great beast of state
I recall the ancient Chinese saying,
“Confucian during the day while Taoist rebel at night”
playing out in my head and nightly dreams
in the true American upper-class patrician tradition
I close the book
and look out the window
get off the train,
and walk slowly home
and realize I had no choice
but to take the path that I�’ve trodden on
and so I put aside my misgivings
and say goodbye to my “Bukowski” desires
for another night of domestic contentment
was it worth it all to take the conventional path?
and not take the bohemian road to hell and back
I look at my wife and realize
I had no choice, had no choice
but to follow her to the ends of the earth
and beyond by her side
as we walked our path
of shared destiny
goodbye
Charles Bukowski
wherever you are
may I meet you
in a bar in the next life
and figure out
where we should have gone
until then the drinks are on me.
“If I had…” or roads not taken.
Write a poem imagining/focusing on how your life or your subject’s life could have been changed or become different if one decision had been made that was different from what happened. What risks did you take or avoid? What benefits came your way or did you miss out on? Examples: what if you had married the first person you loved or who loved you? What if the hitchhiking ride you and a buddy took turned bad rather than being the lark it was? What if you hadn’t accepted that job in another city but decided to stay put? What if you had not blown up at a social event and been shunned after that by people who had counted as your friends?
#10. Dental Torture Blues
ID #1048429 entered on April 19, 2023
Sitting in the dental chair
undergoing dental surgery
while the dentist probes
and tortures me
with his instruments of pain.
The Frank Zappa song
plays over and over
the torture never stops
the torture never stops.
And I think of the mad dentist
in the little house of horrors
the Jack Nicolson character
who screams pain is good!
As he assaults his patients
doing root canals
without anesthesia.
And so, I endure the torture
of the dentist
in the vain hope
I can save my teeth.
Until the next time
I undergo mental torture
the song faces away
and I slowly recover.
Then as I leave
I am confronted with the bill
and the song roars back to life.
#9. Who is the name of the person on the badge?
ID #1048428 entered on April 19, 2023
Who is the name
Of the person on the badge
Who are they
The people behind the badge
The people we work with
All day long
Do they know
Who we are?
Or are we just
Strangers passing through
The world?
Write a poem using the above prompt.
When you go to work or the shops you often engage with people whom you might not know. We might know them as just the person in the store who does their job. (wearing a badge perhaps a name/ can I help etc.) It could be you, however. Do you wear a badge that you identify with? Write something about it. No more than 100 words. Enjoy.
#8. Shrinkflation blues
ID #1048427 entered on April 19, 2023
In these days
Of rampant inflation
And supply chain disruptions
Corporations have risen
To the challenge
By selling new
And improved products
The only difference
between these new products
And the old products?
They are twice the price
And half the size
And not at all
New and improved
Just more corporate
Bs weasel words
Write a poem about something that is supposed to be “new and improved” that has turned out to be a disappointment.
#7. Piano Calling Me
ID #1048426 entered on April 19, 2023
Piano Calling Me
The piano sits
In my room
Waiting for me
To play some music
As I play the piano
I lose myself
Deep into the music
Appreciate the mundane – anyone can write a poem about the pen on their desk or their favorite coffee mug. The real challenge here isn’t to observe the mundane but to transform it into something poetic and beautiful.
#6. Korean Pottery of Love
ID #1048408 entered on April 18, 2023, [Edit]
Korean pottery of Love
In Korea
there are many pottery kilns
ancient art form
in the land of the morning calm
I have a few pieces
I bought it years ago
and enjoy looking
at my vase
filled with love
for my wife
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Austin Alexis:
Write a poem featuring an inanimate object. In the first stanza write about the object as objectively as you can. The second stanza allows a highly subjective “take” on the object. The third stanza treats the subject in a far-reaching way, pushing the writing to morph into something beyond the mundane.
#5. Eating Money
ID #1048372 entered on April 18, 2023 [Edit]
Eating money
many packs of us dollars
Some people
Become consumed
With money
Thinking that money
Can buy happiness
Money can buy love
But one
Can not eat money
Not really
Money does not taste good
As you eat the paper
Getting sick
The money goes down
Your throat
And you become one
With your money
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Robert Wynne:
Do you like surrealism? I’d like you to think of an inedible inanimate object. Now think about how you’d eat it. Then write a poem describing in detail how you would eat (or are eating) it. Do not say why you are eating it, just how. The poem ends when the thing is eaten. Simple as that.
#4. Never apologize for falling in love with you
ID #1048371 entered on April 18, 2023
I will never back down
I will never apologize
For daring to fall in love
With you
Ever since I met you
I have been enslaved
To your love
And for that,
I will never
Ever
Apologize
This is just said by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that was in
the icebox
And which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Annette Gagliardi:
3. Never Alone
ID #1048370 entered on April 18, 2023
Forever Girl
When we first met
I knew that you
Were the one
You were my
Forever girl
The girl I had
Been dreaming of
You were it
My eternal soul mate
My forever love
#2. What is a Jake?
what is a Jake
Who am I?
Where am I?
Am I real?
Or a bot?
I am Jake
I am not a fake
I am not a mistake
I am not a flake
I am not a rake
I am not a snake
I am who I am
The one
And only Jake
And everything’s Jake.
This poetry writing prompt was submitted by Angele Ellis:
What’s in a name?
This prompt is effective as a writing group icebreaker/community builder, as well as an individual exercise for writers of both poetry and prose.
Using your first name as inspiration, reflect on any or all of the following questions in your piece.
Why were you given this name?
What is its meaning?
How has having this name affected your life?
What would you have named yourself?
#1. Watching the News TV
ID #1048368 entered on April 18,
cnn logo
watching the TV
The news droning on and on
Makes me feel the blues
coffee
Coffee
Must drink more
Just hot
drinking a hot cup
coffee kick starting my day
waiting for my wife
1- alemseged style is a poetry style of six lines stanza with a rhyming pattern of abcdaa. The stanza’s number is not limited.
Example of alemseged’s style of poetry :
Koori poems
Koori’s poem is poetry of not need rhyme but the strictness of syllables. The basic building block of Koori’s poem is three stanzas of three lines each with a syllable count
5/7/5–2/3/2–5/7/5; that is to mean two haiku in the middle of a 2/3/2 stanza. If you need to continue by adding other stanzas you can add one 2/3/2 stanza with a haiku but never end the poem with the 2/3/2 stanza. The conclusion of the poem must be with a haiku stanza. You can write many stanzas by sampling by cascading additional stanzas.
April 8, 2022 Poems2022/04/09
April 7th Poems2022/04/08
April 6th, 2022 Poems2022/04/08
April 5 2022, Poems2022/04/08
April 4th 2022, Poems2022/04/08
2022 April Poetry Madness April 1 to 3 poems
This is my 7th year to participate in the April poetry challenge. This year I am just doing two prompts, Writer’s Digest and Writing com Dew Drop Inn. Last year I wrote over 300 poems in one month, this year’s much more modest goal is about 150 poems, of which I will post about 90.
i will post them here, and on all poetry, poetry soul, writing.com, and Writer’s Digest. Medium, Watt pad, Substack, and FB.
Index
Life Is A Dream Of Chocolate Covered Trees
Margo Taylor Greene’s Word Salad
Dreams Do Come True If You Believe In Dreams
Marjorie Taylor Greene, WTF’s Wrong With You?
Cosmic Cat From Berkeley
Healing Touch
The End of Time
Donald Trump the anti-Christ
The sound of Korean
The Tearing of the Social Fabric Homophone Poem
End of Time
The sound of Korean
Tower of Power
How Will It End?
The rule of ten
Finding Pleasure in Small Things
Favorite Korean Food
Madness in the United States
Many virtual connections, few real friends
Movie Choices Writer’s Digest
April’s Fool Day
Anticipation
Life is A Dream of Chocolate Covered Trees
Life is a dream
A dream of chocolate-covered trees
To see what can’t be seen
To hear what can’t be heard
To live in order to die
And to die in order to live.
Note: one of my oldest poems was written circa 1970 when I was 14
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 27
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write an anapodoton poem.
Margo Taylor Greene’s Word Salad
While defending
The Pentagon document leak suspect
Marjorie Taylor Green
Tweeted a typical nonsensical
paranoid
World salad
The USG is gearing up
To censor patriotic white
Christian American anti-war
Targeting
Political prisoners
Who dares to stand up
And tell the truth
Against the communist
Radical left-woke Marxists
Who is taking over the government
Greene claimed that Americans
Are on the verge
Of losing more freedoms
In the wake
of the government’s
Efforts to pass
The restrict act
All part of the evil
Fascist communist Marxist
Plot against patriotic
White citizens
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 26
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a response poem.
Dreams Do come true if You Believe In Dreams
Sam Adams
Met his wife
In a dream
He saw the most beautiful woman
In the world
Talking to him
In a strange Asian Language
He yelled out
“Who are you”
She faded away
As he fell to the ground
During a boring physics class
For eight long years
She haunted his dreams
Coming to him weekly
Then one day
He was teaching in Korea
When he had the last dream
She told him
“don’t worry, we’ll meet soon”
That night she walked off a bus
Out of his dreams
Entering his reality
Entering his life
Six weeks after becoming his wife
Dreams do come true
If you believe in dreams.
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 25
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, we have our fourth and final two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For today’s prompt, we have our fourth (and final) two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts, and they are:
1. Write a dream poem, and/or…
2. Write a reality poem.
Healing Touch
My wife says
I have a superpower
I am very hot
To the touch
Radiating outward
Chi
Infrared heat
Every night
For forty years
I have been warming her up
As she is cold-blooded
Almost like a reptile
Always cold to the touch
And my touch warms her up
Just my duty
Of love
At the end of the day.
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 24
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a touch poem.
We’ve already written poems related to smell, sound, and taste, so let’s keep hammering away on the senses.
For today’s prompt, write a touch poem. For the senses, I’m thinking of touch as a hand reaching out, though it could also be a foot or just bodies pushed close like in a concert or public transportation. But that’s just when thinking about the senses.
Fear of Communism
Watching right-wing politicians
And news pundits
One can’t help
But wonder
If we are living
In a strange alternative universe
For to hear
The line of Marjorie Taylor Greene
It is 1955 all over again
Communism is on the march
Marxists out to destroy America
Radical left-wing demons
trying to cancel
Normal patriotic white Americans
Who dares to stand up
To the communists
All around us
And they fill the airwaves
And the internet
With constant fear
And paranoia
About the alleged
Communist Pedophile Satanic
LGBT conspiracy to turn us all gay
And the black life matters folks
And Antifa
Coming to kill white people
And to take away our guns
And other fear-mongering memes
24/7
Be Afraid be Afraid
The commies are after you.
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 23
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a fear poem.ing out on the last piece of the piece or the fear of dying.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, WTF’s Wrong with You?
What’s the fuck’s wrong with you?
I mean, seriously, Marjorie?
Where have you been
These last 50 years?
Hiding under a rock,
Living in a cave.
Did you just wake up
From a 50-year-old coma?
Are communists out to get us?
Marxists everywhere?
Acting like the Cold war
Never ended?
It ain’t the 50s anymore
The Communists lost the war
There are no more communists.
Except perhaps
In my old hometown
Of Berkeley
Where it is always 1969.
Communism is dead
Has been for almost 50 years
Did you not get the memo?
I mean enough of this BS
Did the John Birchers
Take over your body?
Do you even know
WTC you are talking about.
Do you even care?
That the entire world
Think you are bat sh..t crazy
Even too crazy for Fox News?
Communism my ass
Marxists are out to get us
Please dear
Just do us all a favor
STFU already
About the communists.
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “What (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: “What Are You Doing Here,” “What a Great Time,” “Whatever You Say,” and/or “What Kind of Poem Are You Going to Write?”
So make a decision: Is your “what” poem leading to a question or a statement (or maybe both?).
The Cosmic Cat from Berkeley
evil cat
I next encountered the divine
Many years later in Berkeley, California
I had gone home to be with my Mother
While taking leave from my job
in the Foreign Service
I had two weeks there by myself
My wife came later
near the end of the trip
every morning I woke up
had coffee
Did yoga
Spoke to my mother
Who was sliding into dementia?
Day by day losing her reason
Then I would go out
And explore the city
Go to a museum
Go to one neighborhood
And just be there
Rediscovering the Bay area
After years of being away
Having dinner with old friends
Seeing movies etc
Every morning a black cat came to visit
The cat was friendly and waited for me
And then would join me in my morning rambles
Following me to the bus stop
I started talking to the black cat
He looked at me
with a spark of divinity
In his dark eyes
I called him the cosmic cat
He seemed to like that
He would look at me
And I opened up to me
Told the cat all my dark secrets
As I walked the streets
Of the old neighborhood
Every morning and every evening the cat
Would be there to greet me
And to carry out our endless conversation
Then I had to leave
And in our final conversation
I asked the cosmic cat
Say, Cat are you just a cat
Or are you a demonic cat
Are you possessed by God?
Or by Satan
The cat looked at me
And I realized that God
Was indeed residing in the cat
But that god was residing everywhere
All I had to do was open my mind
And the rest would follow
So I said Goodbye to the cosmic cat
And he purred and came up to me
And I felt the comforting presence of the divine
As I said goodbye to the cosmic cat
And said goodbye to my mother
As this was the last time
That we would be able to talk
I told my mother about the cosmic cat
She smiled and said that the cat
was there for me and her
to comfort us both in our hour of need
and that the cat was indeed
a cosmic cat
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 20
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write an animal poem.
The End of time writer’s Digest
My dear
When I met you
I knew
That I was fated
To love you
Until the end of time
And beyond
That was just my fate
That we would meet
On that date
I embraced my fate
And that is the end
Of the beginning
Of our cosmic journey
Together
Until the end of time
And beyond.
Day 16 Blank of a Blank
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The (blank) of a (blank),” replace the blanks with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “The Beginning of a Story,” “The Wrong Side of a Situation,” “The Apple of an Eye,” and/or “The Latest Excuses of a Continuing Problem.”
What is Love?
What is love?
Is it nothing
But biochemistry?
Is it madness?
Is it just
A search for connections?
In a cold cruel world?
That does not care
For us at all?
It is all of that
And none of that
Those who know
What Love is
Do not tell
That is the Zen
Of Love
Day 18
For today’s prompt, we have our third two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts, and they are:
Write an everything poem, and/or…
Write an anti-love poem.
As longtime participants know, this is my favorite prompt, which is why it returns every challenge. Write a love poem, or write a not-love poem.
The desire to get back
At those who trespass
Against us
Especially so
For the MAGA nation
Followers
of the King
Of revenge politics
The Donald
The Anti-Christ
Than to follow
The wisdom
Of Allah, Buddha, Christ,
Jesus, and Mother Mary
And let it be
2023 April PAD Challenge: Day 13
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a forgive poem.
For today’s prompt, write a forgive poem. The poem could be about forgiveness in general, or it could focus on a specific instance of forgiveness or grace. There are times when we are called upon to forgive others, and times when we ask others to forgive us. And sometimes that includes forgiving ourselves. Be forgiving as you poem today.
The Sound of Korean Writer’s Digest
I have been studying Korean
For almost 45 years
First heard back in 1979
In the Peace Corps
I still struggle daily
But Korea is no longer
A stranger
Korean is my second language
And I hear it all around me
In my retirement home
I study Korean daily
On Duotrope
And while watching K Drama
The language at first
Sounded harsh
As if everyone was yelling
And screaming
Later, I learned
Some Korean songs
And the language
Became less discordant
To this day though
I find a Korean woman
Speaking Korean
To be incredibly sexy
Packing so much emotion
And sexual tension
In every word
I suppose I will study Korean
And speak it
Until the day I die.
2023 April PaD Challenge: Day 12
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a sound poem.
With every word
The former president
Causes a tear
In the basic fundamental
Political order
Leading to many people
To tear up
In fear
Which is no doubt the object
His followers do not object
To inflict pain and suffering
In their endless quest
To own their hated enemies
The radical left Marxist radical
Demonic Deep state libtards
Who are conspiring to turn
America into another communist
Dystopian nightmare
Only the great leader Trump
Can save America’s Democracy]
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a homograph poem.
Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Sometimes they are pronounced the same, but that’s not always the case. Click here to find a list of homographs, though there are many more homographs than these to use.
Ode to the Tower of Power
The greatest funk band
There ever was
You are the epitome
Of funk and soul music
The very definition of funk
The best horn section
In the universe
Just sublime
Formed in the East Bay
In the turbulent 60s
Playing that funky music
For almost 50 years
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
The Tower of Power
No doubt
Will still be playing
That funky music
White boy
A hundred years
From now
For funk
Will never die
For once you get funk
In your soul baby
You can never go back
To boring vanilla
white boy music
because you got soul, now.
Because you got
That soul vaccination baby
And need to go
Down to the nightclub
And play that funky music
White boy
Until the day you die.
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 is 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
You’re still a young man
Baby, Oo 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 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, 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!
Written by legendary sax players Emilio Castillo and Stephen Kupka, the song portrays a young man at the wrong end of a breakup. 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 as 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
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, we have our second two-for-Tuesday prompt.
For today’s prompt, we have our second two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts, and they are:
Write a form poem, and/or…
Write an anti-form poem.
I wrote the above “Ode to the Tower of Power” my favorite funk band.
How Will It End?
How will the madness end?
How will America wake up
From the madness all around us?
The former guy continues daily
Gaslighting the country
Beguiling us all
With his lies, his hatred
His evocation of fear
His calling for a civil war
Destruction and death
How will it end my friend?
That is anyone’s guess
But I doubt it will end
When the former guy
Meets his maker
For then, he will become
The martyr for his followers
Who believes he is the Messiah
perhaps he is just a con man
or maybe the antichrist
revelations warn us about
time will tell the tale
of how it will end
at the end of the Trump
will we find redemption?
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a Noun in a Location poem.
Small Things In Life Brings Great Pleasure
They say
That one should take
Pleasure in the small things in life
Things that matter
Like taking a walk
Enjoying the springtime
sunshine and flowers
With the love of your life
By your side
For today’s prompt, write a small poem. Yesterday, you were tasked with writing a smell poem, but today, we’re going small. The poem itself could be concise, but it could also be focused on something or someone small.
Many virtual connections, few real friends
In this hyper-connected era
Many people have thousands
Of virtual friends
But few have any real friends
Write a poem every day of April with the 2023 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a connection poem.
Rule of Ten
The rule of ten
Applies to so many aspects
Of life
Writing
It goes like this
For every 100 people
Who wants to write a novel
Ten will finish it
Of those ten
Ten percent will publish it
Of those ten
Ten percent will
make some money
Of those ten
Ten percent
will make a living
Of those ten
Ten percent will
become a best-seller
In other words
In a land of 350 million people
There are probably only 3,500
bestselling authors
Drama
the rule of ten applies
to the drama world
only 2 percent
make a living
of the thousands of actors
only a few movie stars
music
of the thousands of musicians
only a few superstars
modeling
– only a few supermodels
to sports
only a few hundred NFL players
out of millions who played the game
to politics
only one president
out of thousands
who want to be
to Business
of the thousands
of busineses
only a few CEO’s
most small businesses
fail within one year
the rule of ten applies
to life in general
most people fail
in achieving their life goals
but one should not give up
because who knows
you could be the one
who wins in the end
despite the rule of ten.
Write a number poem
For today’s prompt, write a number poem. You can include a number in the title of the poem, or drop a number somewhere in the middle or end of the poem. Count sheep, a poem by numbers, or 10 ways to write a poem. There are several ways to come at this one.
Favorite Korean Food April 2023 Poems
Korean Food
I love Korean food
Fell in love with it
And all things Korean
Back in 1979
When I first went there
In the U.S. Peace Corps
Korean food is somewhat like
Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai
With some American influences as well
But it is all done
in a unique
Korean K Food style
Everything is cooked with special spices
A mixture of chili paste, garlic, fish sauce,
Onions, scallions, soy sauce,
salt, Tofu, Panjang sauce, and soju (liquor).
Often cooked with beef, chicken, clams, eggs, fish,
kimchi, intestines meat, mushrooms, mussels,
oysters and/or pork,
Every meal consists of rice, kimchi
(pickled vegetables usually cabbage)
The main entry is either beef, chicken, fish, or pork,
Rice
And multiple vegetable side dishes
Often Including western style salad
The entire meal
a feast for the eyes
Nose and mouth
with a delicious unique
aroma, fragrance,
Taste and texture
Uniquely Korean.
All washed down
with Korean beer, liquor (soju) or
rice wine or Western wine
My favorites include
Bulgogi chongsik (with all the side dishes) 불고기 총식
Kalbi chongsik (with all the side dishes) 칼비 총식
Calamari 오징어
Fried Chicken 닭 튀김
Chuncheon Chicken ribs 춘천 닭갈비
Dumplings 만두
Fried rice 볶음밥
High-rice카레라이스
Korean curry rice 카레라이스
Kimpop rice wrapped in seaweed 김팝
Korean soups 한국 수프
My favorite army stew 군대 스튜
Kalbitang (Beef rib soup) 칼비탕
Beef Turnip soup 쇠고기 순무 스프
Ginseng Chicken soup 인삼 치킨 수프
Kimchi stew 김치찌개
Tanjung stew 짱짱찌개
Bibimbap Mixed vegetables and rice with an egg on top비빔밥
Kalkooksu noodles 칼국수
Ramyeon 라면
Mushroom stew 버섯 스튜
Soondaeboo tofu stew 순대부두부찌개
Sashimi 생선회
Sushi
Dognas pork. Chicken of fish cutlet 돈까스
Fried mackerel 고등어 튀김
Octopus 낫지 often served live
Omrice korean omelet 오므라이스
Porridge 문어
Shrimp 새우
Write a smell poem
Movie Choices Writer’s Digest
Write a B movie poem
There are so many choices
To be made
When selecting a movie to watch
So many movies are B-1 minus
Barely worth finishing
Some are C
A few are D
And F movies
Just one example suffices
Ben and Willard
were the worst movies ever
It was an ode to rats
Who goes on a killing spree
As their master Willard
A deranged young man
Sends the rats out to kill
As one of Michael Jackson’s
The worst song
ever
plays in the background
April’s Fool Day Writer’s Digest
Write a foolish poem
On April Fool’s Day
It is appropriate
To think about
All the fake things around us
Especially deep fake videos
That are beginning
to circulate
All over the world
Unleashing a torrent
Of misinformation
Anticipation
Sam Adams
Got up early on a Sunday
Filled with anticipation
Today was the day
He would propose
To his dream girl
Whom he had met
Just days before
When she walked
Off a bus
Into his reality
He first met his wife
In a dream
He saw
the most beautiful woman
In the world
Talking to him
In a strange
Asian Language
He yelled out
“Who are you”
She faded away
As he fell to the ground
During a boring physics class
For eight long years
She haunted his dreams
Coming to him weekly
Then one day
He was teaching in Korea
When he had the last dream
She told him
“don’t worry, we’ll meet soon”
That night,
she walked off a bus
Out of his dreams
The following Sunday
After doing a long hike
He proposed to her
She said yes
Became his wife
Six weeks after
Entering his life.
The fly on the wallpaper
In the CIA director’s office
Was not a real fly
He was an enemy spy drone
Secretly controlled remotely
Listening to all the secret conversations
Until the director smashed him
With a flyswatter
Then realized that it was a spy fly
He had dispatched to bug hell.
Sep 05, 2020 · Robot Bees are special types of insect drones that have been built in a Harvard robotics laboratory. Robot bees are designed after flies (not after bees) They are capable of partially untethered flight. The wingspan of robot bees is typically 3 cm, and they are therefore actually the tiniest robotic insect drone able to fly.
Association of the Living Dead
In India, several years ago
A man falsely claimed his brother
Was dead so he could inherit the family assets,
The dead brother had to fight
To be declared legally not dead
And contest the will.
“The Association of the Living Dead”
Became a movement
Of thousands of people.
For in India apparently,
It was a thing to declare
Your relative is dead.
I never thought
That the US would have
To form their own
“The Association of the Living Dead”
Until this week.
The cyber ninjas
In their infamous non-forensic audit
In the 2016 Arizona election
Claimed that hundreds of dead people
Had voted.
They gave their list of the alleged dead voters
To the attorney general
Who contacts all 300 dead people
Found that 299 of the 300 were in fact
Not dead and none of them knew
That unnamed political operative
Were claiming that they were dead.
The one dead voter was alive
when he voted early.
But died before election day
Thus making his vote not valid
But there was no fraud involved
As he was alive when he voted.
Perhaps they need to form
The “association of the living dead”
To fight for the right of the non-dead people
To continue to vote and receive other government benefits?
What a sad commentary
On the farcical nature
Of contemporary life
In these disunited States of America.
theassociationofthelivingdead is a real organization in India. see the following The AssociationoftheDead • Damn Interesting Following his own success, Lal Bihari the Living has continued his efforts to raise the dead in India’s badlands. At an official tally in 1999, the AssociationoftheDead had helped to resurrect roughly thirty …
Following his own success, Lal Bihari the Living has continued his efforts to raise the dead in India’s badlands. At an official tally in 1999, the AssociationoftheDead had helped to resurrect roughly thirty people by virtue of having their death certificates annulled, but of those thirty only four have had their lands restored.
The founder of the association is its president Lal Bihari, who was “dead” from 1976 to 1994 and used the word Mritak (dead) as prefix in his name during the period. He became so famous it inspired Indian film director Satish Kaushik who made a movie Kaagaz, starring Pankaj Tripathi, based on his life. It was released on ZEE5 in January …
I just had one of those Drive Way Moments, where I sit in my car outside of my house unable to kill the engine because I’d briefly lose power to the radio (which is why I always donate to my local NPR station). This one was about a man from the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh who had been dead for eighteen years and was getting really tired of it. The man, Lal Behari, was declared dead …
Uttar Pradesh Mritak Sangh, otherwise known as The AssociationoftheDead, is a group based in India that works to regain the rights of individuals who have been falsely declared legally dead.The region of Uttar Pradesh, a Northern province of India, is home to over 200 million people and is
ASSOCIATIONOFLIVINGDEAD! janaaastha.com. 6 month ago . Huge and populous country like India has thousands of associations or unions of different sections of people. But there is one in the biggest state of Uttar Pradesh and the name of the association … Read full news. Comment Liked by. Liked by. 0 /600 …
Aug 2, 2022Hundreds of hours of research by the Arizona attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit debunked claims that 282 deadArizonavoters cast a ballot in 2020, state attorney general Mark Brnovich revealed Monday. Brnovich responded to the state senate’s request for a criminal investigation into the alleged deadvoter fraud on Monday, telling …
Aug 2, 2022Arizona’s attorney general has refuted an audit firm’s claim that deadvoters cast 282 ballots in the 2020 election. … on Monday debunked a claim that hundreds of dead people voted in his state …
Aug 2, 2022Hundreds of hours of research by the Arizona attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit debunked claims that 282 deadArizonavoters cast a ballot in 2020, state attorney general Mark Brnovich …
Aug 1, 2022PHOENIX – Arizona’s Attorney General says hundreds of claims of dead people “voting” in the 2020 election were debunked after calls for an investigation by the Republican Arizona State Senate, and …
April 30 In Search of America 1975 – Hitch hiking Tales
Also published in On the Road Volume One Poet Magazine
When I was young and foolish
Broke and stubborn
I hitchhiked across the USA
Started in Salt Lake City
Where my greyhound bus pass
Was stolen
The station manager
Could have helped me
But refused to do so
Threaten to call the cops
When I grabbed my bags Without the stolen tags
I said
Go ahead
But I am so out of here
Wondered about Salt Lake City
Went to a bar
Found I had to buy my booze
Next door
And they would mix it for me
Had to order food too
After a bloody Mary
And a burger
I walked about town
Saw the Mormon Temple
Finally, about 3 pm
It was time to hit the road
Did not look back
Ended up in Cody Wyoming
Got a room shower
Steak beer
Using my rapidly depleted cash Spent 25 dollars
Money really went far
Back in those days
A band of professional
Communist agitators
Gave me a ride
To Des Moines
Lots of weed, booze
And politics later
Got off the road
Slept outside
Next day
A beautiful woman
Drove me to near Chicago
In a red mustang
Might have been
The girl in the song
Took it easy
Digging her vibe
She invited home
But was not sure
If her estranged husband
Would welcome me
So, I am being foolish
And inexperienced with women
Did not go to her place
And always regretted
That I had lost
My chance that day
Then on to Chicago
Several rides later
Visited friends
Hit the road again
A series of uneventful rides
With truckers
And others
And a week later
I ended in New York City
Slept along the way
In cars
In truck stops
In high way, rest stops
Always moving
Always going
Nonstop talking
And lots of free weed
And beer
And conversation
One more memorable ride
Occurred outside Albany
On my return to Chicago
A middle-age creepy looking man
Picked me up
In a brand-new Cadillac
He was he said a dynamite deliverer
For the Mafia
Went to various places
To blow up shit
He hated a lot of people
Particularly hippies from California
And Jewish people
Looking at me to confirm
That I was both
I told him that I lived in New York
And had never been to California
And although I might have looked Jewish
As I what was called back in the day
A “Jewfro”
I was not Jewish
Many years later I discovered
That I am indeed part Jewish
But then I did not know
And I felt a bit of strategic information
Might keep me alive
Then I realized that he was just jiving with me
And we relaxed
And he pulled out some weed
And beer
And we mellowed out
But I believe that he was with the mob
Perhaps not a dynamite dealer
A real made Italian made mafia member
By Chicago
I had enough
I called my Dad
Told him what had happened
Wanted a ticket home
And he sent me a ticket
And 500 dollars
And I went home
I told him I would tell him
My tales someday
But never did
I learned so much
About my fellow Americans
And the strange vibe
That was 1975
And now it is too late
But I wanted to finally
Tell the world
While reading Charles Bukowski’s poetry
On the metro ride home
Listening to Buddha bar music
On my oh-too-hip iPod
I begin to see myself as I was
Over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player
A minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem
A wild young underemployed intellectual
Hanging out in dismal bars and dives all over Asia and California
Hanging with disreputable women and drunks and drinkers
And characters out of his kinds of haunts
A mad poet bard of the underground
A drunken poet in a drunken bum show
That nightly played in his head
Then one day I met the woman of my dreams
And went down a different path
A long slow path to respectability
And now 30 years later
I am no longer a wild man
I am still a poet at heart
But I am now also a bureaucrat
In a button-down suite
Doing the people’s business
Working for the Government
I’ve become the Man
Sometimes I wonder
Would I have been better off
Going down that other path
Would I have ended up
Somewhere else
Doing something else
Would I have been as happy
Would I have been as successful?
No answer satisfies
The longing in my heart
For that wild thing
That still lurks beneath
It’s a civilized cover
And I know that I am still
A mad poet at heart
Railing against the injustice of the world
As I work day by day in the belly of the great beast of State
I recall the ancient Chinese saying,
“Confucian during the day while Taoist rebel at night”
Playing out in my head and nightly dreams
In the true American Upper-class patrician tradition
I close the book and look out the window
Get off the train, and walk slowly home
And realize I had no choice
But to take the path that I’ve trodden on
And so I put aside my misgivings
And say goodbye to my “Bukowskian” desires
For another night of domestic contentment
Was it worth it all to take the conventional path
And not take the bohemian road to hell and back
I look at my wife and realize
I had no choice, had no choice
But to follow her to the ends of the earth
And beyond by her side
as we walked our path
Of shared destiny
Goodbye Charles Bukowski wherever you are
May I meet you in a bar in the next life
And figure out where we should have gone
I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee
I pound down the coffee
First thing I do every day as the dawning sun
Lights up my lonesome room
Yeah, but not just a simple cup of java Joe, but a Goddamn snarling sarcastic smarmy cup of coffee
I mean, – we are talking about an alcoholic, all speed ahead, always hot, always fresh, always there when I need it, angry, attitude talk to the hand Ztude, bad, bad assed, beats breaking, beatnik, bluesy, bitter, bitchy, bombs away, capitalistic, caffeinated up the ass, cinematic, communistic, Colombian grown, Costa Rican inspired, Cowabunga to the max, crazy assed, devilishly angelic, divine, divinely inspired, dyslexic, epic, extreme vetting, evil eye, expensive, erotic vision inducing, Ethiopian coffee house brewed, euphoric, freaky, freazoid, foxy, Frenched kissed, French brewed, funkified, foxy lady, graphic, GOD in my coffee, with Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Kali, Buddha, Christians, Durga, Hindus, Mohamed, Jesus and Mo and their friend, the cosmic bar maid, Sai Babai, Shiva, Taoists, Zoroastrians, drinking my god damned coffee in Hell; growling, gnarly, happy, hard as ice, Hawaian blessed, high as a kite, hippie, hip, hipster, hip hoppy, hot as hell yet strangely sweet as heaven, jazzy, jealous, Kerouac approved, kick ass, kick my god damn ass to Tuesday, kick down the doors and take no prisoners, grown in the Vietnam highlands by ex-Vietcong, Guatemalan grown, kiss ass, illegal in every state, imported from all over the god damn world, insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, motherfucking, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA, not your daddy’s sissified corporate cup of coffee, NOT DECAFE coffee, not your Denny’s truck driver weak as brown water cup of fake coffee, not your establishment friendly cup of coffee, Not your FBI coffee, Not FAKE Herbal coffee substitute, but a real cup of coffee, not your farmer brothers dinner crap, not made in America for Americans, not safe for work, not your Starbucks average expensive overpriced crappy corporate chain cup of coffee, Not pretentious, Not White House approved, not State Department safe, nuclear, Not Patriotic, operatic, Peets’s coffee approved, paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, shitting, silly, sexy, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling, stupid, stinking, sweet as honey, sweat inducing, symphonic, Trump can’t handle this coffee, vengeful, Wagnerian, wicked, with nutmeg and cinnamon swirls, with a hint of stevia, with a hint of vanilla, with a hint of rum, with a hint of whisky, with a hint of cherry, with a hint of fruit overtones, with a hint of drugs spicing up the coffee, spendific, speeding, splendid, superior accept no substitutes, survived the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the first and Second Korean war, World War 11, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on black people, the sexual revolution, Soulful as a summer’s night in MOTOWN- James Brown approved, TOP approved, Berkeley approved, the coffee that Jimmy Hendrix drank before he died, the coffee that Elvis drank on his last breakfast, the coffee that Barry White crooned as he drank his cup of coffee – and the coffee that made the white boy play stand up and play that funky music, the coffee that made Jonny B Goode play his guitar, and made Jonny bet the devil his soul after he drank his morning cup of righteous coffee and the coffee that make the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll, the coffee your mother warned you against drinking, the coffee that Napoleon drank when he became the Emperor of all Europe, the Coffee that Beethoven drank when he wrote the Ninth symphony, the coffee that Mozart drank as he wrote his last symphony, the coffee that Lincoln drank before he was killed, the Hemingway drank before he killed himself, the coffee that started the 60’s, and ended the 20th century, the coffee that Lenin drank as he plotted revolution, the coffee that Hitler and Stalin drank with FDR as they divided up the world after World War 11, the cup that JFK drank before he was blown away, the coffee Jerry drinks while driving in cars with random celebrities and political figures, the coffee that Jon Stewart drinks before he goes on an epic take down of some foolish politico, the cup of Arabic coffee that Sadaam drank the day he was executed, the coffee that GW and Cheney drank when they bombed Baghdad, the Indian cup of coffee that Bid Laden drank before 9-11 and just before the seals blew his ass to hell, the cup of coffee that Tiger Woods drank with his mistresses while playing a 3, 000 dollar round of golf at Sandy Lane golf course in Barbados, the last legal drug that does what drugs should do, the cup of coffee that Obama drank when he became President, Vietnamese, Vienna brew, wacky, whimsical, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wild, weird, wonderful, WOW, Yabba dabba doo! Yada Yada yada Zappa’s favorite cup of cosmic coffee, and Zorro’s last cup of coffee, Good to the last drop rolled into one simple cup of hot coffee
As I pound down that first cup of coffee
And fire up my synaptic nerve endings with endless supplies
Of caffeine induced neuron enhancing chemicals
I face the dawning day with trepidation and mind-numbing fear
I turn on the TV and watch the smarmy newscasters in their perfect hair
Lying through their teeth about the great success the government is having Following the great leader’s latest pronouncements
I want to scream and shoot the TV and run outside Shouting
“Stop the world.
I want to get off this fucking crazy planet”
The earth does not care a whit about my attitude
It merely shrugs and moves around the Sun
In its appointed daily run
And I sit down
The madness dissipated a bit
And enjoy my second cup
Of heaven and hell
In my morning cup of Joe
On the night of the blood-red super full moon
I sat in an evil, depraved godforsaken bar
Drinking drams of demented, fermented dream dew
Washed down by endless rounds of whiskey
rum, tequila, vodka, soju, and of course beer
drinking with my buddies the Jack Daniels Gang
Drinking my way to Hell and beyond
Just as fast as I could
twenty damn drinks too sober
Just an unhinged lunatic
Dreaming of howling at the full moon
Watching the world walk by
Looking at all the fine-looking babes
Walking by the street
Thinking wild, erotic thoughts
Of endless wild libertine passions
When into the bar
That din of cosmic depravity
Walked the most beautiful women
In the Universe
So wild, so free
So wonderfully alive
I did not know what to do
As this vision of delight
Sauntered through the bar
In a skin-tight leather pant
Looked so fine
That my eyeballs hurt
And finally, I had to say something
So, I gathered up my manly courage
And walked up to her
And she looked at me
And instantly bewitched my soul
With a devilish grin
I lost all reason
And became a raving lunatic
Unhinged lunatic
Howling at the blood-red full moon
Foaming at the mouth
A wild, free werewolf
Howling at the lunatic light
Of the blood red blue full Moon
Order this writing that appears
in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Flickering Light
the Down in the Dirt Jan.-June 2019
issues & chapbooks collection book(learn about this book and order from Amazon online)
This writing was accepted
for publication in the
108-page perfect-bound ISSN# /
ISBN# issue/book “Prayers and Bullets”
Down in the Dirt, v181
(the March 2021 Issue)Order the paperback book:
his writing was accepted
for publication in the
108-page perfect-bound ISSN# /
ISBN# issue/book “Sprung from Grief”
Down in the Dirt, v184
(the June 2021 Issue)Order the paperback book:
order this writing that appears
in the one-of-a-kind anthology Lockdown’s
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the Down in the Dirt May-August
2021 issues collection book
Review Julia’s American style Diner ARA canal, Gimpo near Jaangi station, gold line
julia’s interior
******
Julia’s American-style diner near the ARA canal, in Gimpo, near the Jaangi station on the Gold Line advertises itself as an American-style family diner. And that is just what it is.
We had the full brunch – bacon, bangers, beans, eggs, hashbrowns, toast, and tomato slices, for 14,000 KW ($11.53 US) plus Americana coffee 2000 ($15.00) for a total of $15.00 per person or 28,000 KW ($30,00) total.
The food was great, just perfect and the coffee was great too. The portions were generous and the price was quite reasonable. This was billed as an American brunch but it was more of a British brunch what with the beans and British style bangers (sausage) included.
We are definitely going to come back. Next time we will try the pancake and split the brunch.
They also have steak, burgers, pasta, and French fries. and risotto and Korean-style fried rice omelet on the menu.
The deco is also diner-style as is the overall ambiance.
It is conveniently located just steps from the canal coming from the canal turn left at the Mega coffee shop on the left-hand side of the canal and walk-up. It is about a mile and half from Jaangi station on the gold line or by bus, get off at the police sub-station down the street from Jaangji station. Get off and walk down the canal (turning right) cross over when you see Mega coffee and turn left up the steps.
In short, I highly recommend this restaurant. Some other American-style restaurants near by include the following (Trip advisor list) disclaimer: I have not yet dined at any of these but hope to do so soon and will post reviews as I get to them. Stay tuned for that.
Here are four types of sushi you should watch out for if you spot them on a menu, based on Oceana’s findings: 1. Wild Salmon. Salmon is actually one of your best bets in avoiding fake fish when it …
Pink cherry trees
Snowing all around me
Love in the springtime
Green
poet in springtime
Green trees in Springtime
Smiling at walking lovers
Filling them with awe
Black
black cat
A cosmic black cat
Stares at me with jet black eyes
Just a Buddha cat
White
deer in snow
White snow consumes us
During the intense winter
Climate change is now
Page 17 in printed version
Other recent unpublished Haiku like Poems include:
Met My Fate 160 Poem Form
I met my fate
That date
In September,
A date I shall always remember.
When I saw her there,
Sparks flew from heart to heart.
And I knew she was going to be mine.
160 Character Max Poem Form
Water 160 Poem Form
Water everywhere
Water surrounds us
Nurtures us brings us
Life itself
But few of us
Ever think about water
And what we would do
When the water runs out
And the earth becomes
A desert devoid of life.
Sam Adam’s Final Wish Jisei Poem Fan Story Prompt
Sam Adam’s last wish
Was to die in Berkeley
His spiritual home
My Mother Haiku
My mother was unique
A real free spirit at heart
I miss her always
Berkeley Calling Me Home Haiku Fan Story Prompt
My Berkeley
Calling me to come home
Die in my homeland
Sextet Love Fan Story Prompt
My life has been a dream
almost unreal
A real fairy tale
Filled with romance
an angel came to me
ending loneliness
Outside Haiku Fan Story Prompt
Spring flowers blooming
Inviting me to go outside
Enjoying the Spring
5-7-5 Faith Fan Story Prompt
I believe in karma
Everything is connected
To the divine mind
Coffee Five Line Poem Fan Story Prompt
Coffee
Just hot
The way it should be
Gets my morning going strong
Kick starts my morning
Romantic Tanka Poem Fan Story
When I saw you there
I knew that you were the one
Heaven sent you then
When you came into my life
That was my best day ever
Forward Plans
Forward plans are made
Understood what needs to be done
intel hard to get
Good Golly, Ms. Molly
Good golly
Ms. Molly
Let’s have some folly
And go to Bali
Or Raleigh
Someplace holly
Where we can get jolly
Eating a tamale
Or a Canali.
Prompt – Write a silly rhyming poem
Coffee Huitain
need more coffee
I like coffee in the morning
But in the evening must be wine,
Making it a great mid-morning,
At sunset, I drink wine, while I dine,
When I drink my wine, it is all fine.
In the afternoon, I drink my tea,
Later wine, looking at what is mine.
And I become all I can ever be.
Future Survival Games Three-word Challenge
Shortly, all too soon
We will play a secret game
A game of survival
Grilled Salmon Three Word Challenge Prompt
fish market
Oiled grilled salmon
pink flesh delight
Perfect dinner with white wine
When I First Saw You Dew Drop-in
Revised as Cherita form
When I First Saw You There
When I first saw you there
You came to me
In a dream.
And disappeared,
Haunting me
For eight long years.
When I First Saw You In Person
When I First Saw You in Person
I was overwhelmed
This fairy tale dream of mine
This impossible quest
To find the girl in the dream
Was finally over.
When I First Spoke With You
When I First Spoke with You
I knew that this was it
We would be together
From then on
You were the one,
I proposed three days later
.
When I First Kissed You
When I first kissed you
that was the beginning
of our love affair.
Our love grew stronger
Every year
For the last 40 years,
When I Married You
When I married you
That was the beginning
Of my life,
From that moment
I had no doubt
You would be there.
April 4—List poem w/repetition—write a poem that lists things, using some (not necessarily constant) repetition and variation of an initial phrase (Examples: When I was six…, Remember that time…*, Layers of…., etc.)
Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” — like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.
Dew Drop Inn
Three Poems
About Filth and Slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
As far as I can see
Is that all that can ever be.
Mountains of foul, smelling dishes
Being eaten by drunk fishes.
Fast, faster, faster
Comes the slime
I wish that
I was eating a lime
Never want to touch this slime.
Morning Thoughts
One morning
While I sat drinking my coffee
And bemoaning my fate.
My brain decided to fly away to the land of bliss
As I sat drinking my coffee in the dawning light
Writing away my memoirs and dreams of love.
I noticed that my brain’s tissue
Had decided to take a vacation
And was crawling down my nose
And out of my ears.
Like some sort of cosmic mucus.
Down my slime encrusted back
And out the windows of my soul.
I was of course
Disturbed, I was perturbed,
And until I realized.
That I had no right.
To tell my mind what to do.
So I sat down.
And played a game of checkers
with my mind
Till the entreaty of time
passed me by.
Nothing but a piece of flotsam
On the winds of the universe
The walls fell,
The sky melted apart.
I woke up and sat down
And had an orgy
with my mind
Slime Patrol to the Dishroom
dishwasher
Note: I washed dishes in college.
Slime Patrol to the dish room, please
Rant the loudspeaker with a demented static,
Hell no, we chanted in vain.
No, where to go
Nowhere to escape
The ever-present smell
Of putrid rotting
sweaty effervescent slime.
That’s right
Slime, slime, slime, slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
Is that all that there is?
NOTHING
BUT
SLIME
Ruled by slime Kings who run Slime Machines?
Hell No, we won’t go we chanted in vain
And we hook ourselves up
And entered the machine
SLIME
PATROL
TO
THE
DISHROOM
Must get high
To deal with the slime.
The god damned slime.
Leftovers
From the plates
Of the elite college kids
Who ate in the cafeteria
Never noticing the workers
Laboring behind in the kitchen.
For them we are nothing
For we are all nothing but slime molds
In the gross wheels of America’s grease pit.
And they are the future masters
Of the universe.
And we are their future slaves.
Working in the slime pits
To feed them with slime.
Slime
Slime
Slime
Slime
Hope they die
From ingesting the pink slime
In their corrupted food.
Some day
The slime patrol
Will rise up.
And slaughter them
While they eat our delicious slime
Until that day
We will do our duty
In the forgotten corners
Of the universe.
Nothing
But
Slime
prompt: write about a hard job you have had.
PSH prompt
Writing com
Remix of the worst jobs in the world as Cherita’s Poems
.
-toll-booths-feature-imag
The worst job in the world
Must be toll booth attendants
Just boring as hell
They sit there all-day
Bored out of their minds
Waiting for the shift to end.
The worst job in the world
Must be toll booth attendants
Just boring as hell
Waiting for the shift to end.
2
bored train operator
Subway train operators
Subway train operators
Also, have a boring job
Nothing to do
Just waiting for the shift
To end.
3
visa line
Visa officers
Also, have a hard job
Saying no to thousands
Who lines up
Lying to the Visa officers
Who has the power of God.
After today, we’ll be three poems from finishing this challenge. Woot!
For today’s prompt, write a remix poem. Take one of your poems (preferably from this month) and remix it. Make free verse a traditional form or vice versa.
Red Wine Local Gem
bottle-red-wine-grape-corks
Red wine
Evening delight
Drinking it at sunset.
Wine makes the evening just fine.
If I drink too much wine.
Never again! do I cry out the next morning,
Eventually, the hangover is no longer mine.
All Poetry
workers
The Feeling of Hard Work
In my school days
when I was a younger man
I worked at odd jobs
To make my spending money.
I did everything
From lawn and yard work
working in the city parks,
Picking fruit.
.
Working at Taco Bell
Oscars
the University Pub,
To house painting
Door to door sales
Political canvassing.
To dish-washing
To work as a bouncer
And as a fry cook.
Juvenile probation officer
world trade intern
conference organizer
teaching ESL.
working as Peace Corps volunteer.
delivering newspapers
working with the Hubert Humphrey Fellows
Serving as a foreign service officer.
And I learned so much
From the feeling of hard work
How things feel to the touch
How sweat feels
On a hot day.
And in the end
The value of hard physical labor.
That was a valuable life lesson.
In and of itself.
Today we challenge you to write a poem that focuses on the sense of touch, and how things physically feel, rather than the other senses.
writing com Sight of Korean Food
sojuKorean Food
Like a lot of Asian cuisine
Korean food is a feast
For all the senses
The flavor is intense.
The aroma lingers in the air
The food is sensuous
Sometimes inviting to the touch.
But visually the food
Is a smorgasbord of sights
From the bright green
Of the seaweed and vegetable side dishes.
To the yellow colors of the turnips
and radishes
To the intense dark red
orange, and yellow
Of the signature dish, Kimchi
Occasionally white kimchi too.
And white rice
brown and black mixed grain rice
to absorb the bursts of flavors.
and white potatoes as well.
And the dark brown colors
Of the grilled meat
And sometimes blackened fish
And purple color sweet potatoes,
And the light blue color
Of blue fish such as tuna
And the pink color of sashimi.
And who can forget
The green frog on the soju bottle?
and the green and brown beer bottles?
and the white color of rice wine?
I grew up
With lots of old friends
From the old neighborhood
Of Berkeley, California.
Many of whom
I am still in touch with
And some who have gone
On to other worlds.
One of my childhood friends
Grew up to be a criminal con artist
Conned me out of 500 dollars
Before I gave up on him.
Went to prison a couple of times
Last I heard from him
Was years ago.
He turned into a right-wing
Trumploving creep.
2 Used to Be
I used to be a U.S. diplomat
Served 27 years
In over ten countries.
Did a wide variety of jobs
In my life
Besides the diplomatic gig
I had a total of 40 obs
And four careers
Three colleges
Two Graduate School
One marriage.
3 Unanswered question
There is one question
That has plagued my life
A mystery I have no answer for,
How and why did I dream
Of meeting my wife
For eight years?
Did we know each
Other in a prior life?
Are we eternal soul mates
Bound to each other
Through eternity?
I have no answer
All I know is
That it was fate
That we met that date
And that made all
The difference in the world.
Today’s (optional) prompt is one I got from the poet Betsy Shall. This prompt asks you to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.
Who is Jake Cosmos Aller? Aller
Who is Jake Cosmos Aller? Dew Drop Inn
Who is Jake Cosmos Aller? Writers Com
Who is Jake Cosmos Aller?
You may ask
And I may tell you
The truth, or maybe a lie.
I am a human being
Not a bot
At least the last time
I checked.
I was born
John Cosmos Aller,
Second son
Of Curtis Cosmos Aller, Jr.
And Mary Geneva Wilson Aller.
I was born prematurely
October 39, 1955
In Oakland, California.
On the same day
That Rock N Roll
Was proclaimed
In Cleveland, Ohio.
Coincidence? I think not.
I have 18 nationalities
Swirling in my bloodline,
According to DNA
And family lore.
I have a pan-ethnic look
Could be almost anything
I want to be.
I speak English, Korean,
Spanish, Thai, some Chinese,
Hindi and Japanese.
I am retired
I am a pensioner
I am 66 years young.
I am a real estate investor
Own ten pieces of property
In three states
and in Korea.
I was a diplomat
I served in 10 countries
Korea, Thailand, India
the Eastern Carribbean (Antiqua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada,
St Kitts, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Greandines) and Spain
During my career.
I have been to all 50 states,
three territories, DC
and 55 countries.
I have travel across the country
six times in my life
most recently in 2016,
I am a poet
I am a short story writer
I am a novelist
I am a blogger.
I play the piano.
I am a hiker
I am a walker
I am a hasher
I am a lover.
I am a card player
I am a reader
I am a TV Binger
And my name?
Jake is a high school nickname
Cosmos is my middle name
and my blog pen name
Aller is our German family name
Everyone called Aller, Ahler, Eller, Oller
Are related to me my uncle says.
Cosmos has nothing to do with me
Being a Bay Area baby,
But no one believes that story.
The truth is simply this
Cosmos is the English equivalent
Of our ancestral German family name.
My great grandfather wanted to use
The English equivalent of Aller
As a middle name for his firstborn son.
He had a choice of Universe or Cosmos
He picked Cosmos as Universe was too weird
In the 1880s Ohio.
But the most important thing
Of all is that I am a husband
To the same woman
Been married for 40 years.
I met and married
The woman of my dreams.
That is just some of what
Makes Jake Cosmos Aller
The one and only.
April 21—Explore a specific aspect of your personality, behavior, or identity in a poem.
Hi Jake, I think your latest “Who is Jake Cosmos Aller” is the best poem you have ever written in style and emotion. Awesome.
~~Tink
My Past Life PSH prompt
I have often thought
That I had a past life
And in that past life
My wife and I were together
And I often thought
That our love affair.
Began thousands
Of years ago
Perhaps in Atlantis,
Somehow though
Our love was always
Forbidden.
And so we were doomed
To have a passionate affair
That ended with our execution
Until finally in this life
The curse of our past loves
Was finally lifted.
This poetry writing prompt submitted by Linda Ann LoSchiavo:Imagine you had a past life and your poem wished to explain who you used to be. For decades, Jim B. Tucker, M.D. has been interviewing children ages 2 – 5 who have significant and precise memories of the adult they once were. For some inspiration, see the free previews of Dr. Tucker’s books, for example, “Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives“.Often it’s the memories of a traumatic death that are most clearly remembered — but children have recalled the details of peaceful and ordinary lives as well: favorite pets, names of relatives, where they worked, a holiday meal, a special birthday, etc. List some long-buried memories and jot down specific details.
Circle keywords or phrases on the page. Use those to guide you through your new poem.
Past Life” poem to read: “Suddenly It Falls Away” by Karen Gibbons from Elevation Review
The Sound of Korean Writer’s Digest
Korean alphabet
When I first came to Korea
Back in 1979
I thought that Korean
Was the most difficult language
I had ever heard or studied.
I thought that
the sound of Korean
Was incredibly harsh sounding.
But somehow I thought
That it was also incredibly sexy
A language as were the woman.
I married a Korean gal
and we delight in mangling
each other’s native languages.
There were some sounds
That were difficult for me
To master to this day,
The aspirated sounds
Were the worst
The Korean equivalent of an L or R
Was halfway between the English L or R
The B and P were also halfway
Between the English B and P
The K and G were also
Halfway in-between.
Which makes it difficult
For Koreans to pronounce
Foreign words with L/R, B/P, of G and K
and my last name is particularly hard
for Koreans to master.
Another common problem
Koreans have in speaking English
Is consonant clusters such as nch
In Lunch
In Korean, every word
Consist of vowels and consonants
So Koreans will say in English,
I will meet you for lunche
after churche
adding in the final assumed vowel sound,
I dove into studying the language
And after about a year
I could carry out a basic conversation
And understood most of what
Was said to me
Now 40 years later
Korean is still an incredibly
Difficult language
It still sounds harsh
But also sexy at the same time
And now I am quite comfortable
With the sound of Korean.
For today’s prompt, write a sound poem. We’ve already done smell, taste, and touch; I hope you can see where this is headed. For today, write about sounds in general or home in on one particular sound. Keep your ears open today and maybe a poem will sing out to you.
The Feel of Korean Food Writers’ Digest
octopus on plate ready to be cooked,italyoctopus on plate ready to be cooked,italy
Korean food is a full sensory experience
Overwhelming one with smells, flavors
And textures as well.
One day back in the Peace Corps day
My best friend visited me
From Indonesia where he
Had been hanging out.
It was the dead of winter
15 degrees F.
When he got on the plane
It was 90 degrees F.
We bought winter clothes
Then I decided to treat him
To an infamous Korean disk
산 나치
san Nachi
or Live Octopus.
they brought it out
the octopus tentacles
were moving about.
I taught him
The proper technique
Grab it by the chopstick
Dip it in hot sauce
And chew it a long time
Sometimes unwary
Or drunk eaters
Encounter a problem
When the suckers
Get stuck in one’s mouth
Sometimes requires a trip to the ER.
The texture is slimy
And a big disgusting
Need a lot to drink
The first time around.
My friend tried it
But said never again
And we both bring it up
From time to time.
He was not a big fan
Of the 산 나치
san Nachi.
Never tried that again
But he did like
Other things we ate
That winter.
The Smells of Korean Food
Korean Food
When I first encountered Korean food
I was overwhelmed by the strong smell
Bursting with fermentation and flavors
Hot, raw, sweet yet sour,
spicy, in your face mixture
of smells and flavors
everybody’s Kimchi
is a bit different
yet they all share
A similar blend of
Alcohol
cabbage
chili peppers
fermentation
fish
fish sauce,
garlic,
onion,
red peppers,
salt
sugar
soy sauce
sometimes
made with cucumbers
dandelion
radish
springtime wild herbs
All rolled up in an intoxicating blend
Of smells and flavors
That was my introduction
to the lowly Kimchi
The staple of Korean food,
I soon became a kimchi addict
Craving its intoxicating flavor
And smells with every meal
Now 40 years later
I am still a kimchi addict
Enjoying the fragrance, the smell
And intoxicating tastes
Can’t get enough of that
Funky stuff.
For today’s prompt, write a smell poem. Strong writing uses sensory language, and one sense that is often overlooked is the sense of smell. So write about the pungent smell of teenage socks, the exquisite odor of fresh lasagna, or the coppery scent of a summer shower. Smell you later!
Taste of Korean Food
When I first encountered Korean food
I was overwhelmed by the strong taste, fragrance
And the strangeness at time of Korean food
Now known worldwide as K Food.
Hot, raw, sweet yet sour,
spicy, in your face mixture
of smells, textures, and flavors.
Sweet, sour, spicy hot with a nice
Lingering after taste
Bursting with fermentation and flavors
That is the essence of K food.
I tried it all
When I first got to Korea
43 years ago
It was just overwhelming.
Took a while
But I learned to love
K food.
A typical Korean meal
Is somewhat like a Japanese
Or a Chinese meal
But different.
Consists of rice,
A soup of some sort
Sometimes hearty stew
Lots of vegetable-based side dishes
Perhaps some eggs.
Everybody’s Kimchi
is a bit different,
Yet they all share
A similar blend of:
flavors and spices
That was my introduction
to the lowly Kimchi,
The staple of K food,
I soon became a K Food fan
Craving its intoxicating flavor
And smells with every meal.
Married a Korean gal
We eat Korean style
Almost every meal.
Now 40 years later
I am still a K Food fiend
Enjoying the fragrance,
And intoxicating tastes
Can’t get enough of that
Funky stuff.
For today’s prompt, write a taste poem. Back on day three, we wrote a small poem; let’s write about the sense of taste today. Of course, I’m thinking about tasting wine, cheese, or chocolate. But feel free to indulge in a person’s taste in fashion, cars, or whatever else requires real taste.
Mentors Local Gems
I had several mentors
In my life
Former bosses
Who taught me
The ropes
Made me a better man
A better boss
A better human being
Because of their sage advice
And friendship
Over the years
JS was my boss in Bangkok
Also my drinking buddy
Over the years
Learned a lot about Thailand
And SE Asia
JB
JB was my boss
In Seoul
Learned a lot about
Office politics
And what it meant to be
A black FS officer
Unfortunately, he died
In the Kenyon Bombing
CR was my boss in ACS Bangkok
Taught me all I needed to know
About how to deal with Americans
In trouble overseas.
He died of a heart attack
Years later
Just before we were due
To have lunch.
MO
MO was perhaps
The worst boss I ever had
Just a miserable SOB to work for
But later we became friends
I learned a lot from watching him
Especially what not to do
Whenever I had a management dilemma
I would say
What would MO do
And do the opposite
FP was one of
the best boss ever
I learned so much from him
He taught me so much about
Being an effective manager
TH was one of the best bosses
I ever had
He taught me the art
Of visa interviewing
And all that I needed to know
About immigrant visa processing
He too died of a heart attack
HT was one of my favorite bosses
He saw my potential
And became a mentor
Over the years.
to all those who mentored me
I will never forget you
and always appreciate
that you believed in me.
The first thing I do every morning
Is to make my morning cup of Joe
While watching the daily news
While writing in my journals
Waiting for my wife
In the morning
My coffee
Must be
Hot
And now for our (optional) daily prompt! Because it’s a Saturday, I thought I’d try a prompt that asks you to write in a specific form – the nonet! A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on until you get to the last line, which has just one syllable.
Sam Adams Gunslinger in Wild West April 9—Persona—write a poem in the voice of a person who is Not You Dew Drop Inn, Writing Com
Gunman in the old wild west
Sam Adams was a cowboy
Back in the wild west
A badass gunslinger
For hire to the biggest bidder
Often working for the law
Sometimes working for the outlaws
He did not see much difference
He took the jobs
That paid him the most
Thought that if he did not do it
Someone else would no doubt
Sam Adams thought about death
As he shot those that needed killing,
Better them than him he thought.
Breakfast of Champions Smoothie Poetry Superhighway PSH
My daily breakfast consists
Of a super-foods
Smoothie containing:
Apples
Apple cider vinegar
Banana,
Blueberry,
Carrots
Cinnamon
Cherries
Coconut oil
Kale
Homemade kefir
Honey
Oranges
Macca root
Pineapple,
Raspberry
Stevia
Strawberry,
Spinach
Walnuts
Wheatgrass
All blended to perfection
That is my daily breakfast
Fit for a champion.
Write a poem based on a recipe. It can be an actual recipe for food or it can be a recipe for something else entirely. Ferlinghetti wrote a recipe for happiness. I have a poem called “How to Make Meatballs” that has the meatball recipe in it.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post a comment on the PSH Facebook page. For some reason, this has been my most popular poem on All Poetry, go figure.
Jan 10, 2022 … A slew of recent opinion polls shows a significant minority of Americans at ease with the idea of violence against the government. Even talk of …
And a poll conducted last June by Rasmussen Reports found that 31 percent of probable US voters surveyed believe “it’s likely that the United States will …
Sep 16, 2021 … A 2021 national survey by pollster John Zogby found a plurality of Americans (46%) believed a future civil war was likely, 43% felt it was …
Jan 6, 2022 … A “minor armed conflict” is one that kills at least 25 people a year. By this definition, as Marche argues, “America is already in a state of …
Jan 11, 2022 … If America has another civil war, it is more likely to be a war within the states than between them. Citizens of any state of any size, …
Jan 11, 2022 … A Zogby poll in the fall found that 46 percent of Americans think the country is headed for another civil war. In late December, a survey by …
Feb 11, 2022 … America is always on the verge of a second Civil War, according to one pundit or another. Such heated claims have become especially popular …
Mar 20, 2022 … “They believe a second civil war is coming, and they are looking forward to that civil war.” A year after January 6, 2021, there’s little doubt …
The “Second American Civil War” is an umbrella term used by some academics to reclassify historical eras of significant political violence in the United …
Jan 19, 2022 … The last few decades laid the groundwork for our accelerating polarization and tribalization, and now, America’s political Left and Right no …
Note: I explore this topic in my unpublished novel, “the Great Divorce”. My feeling is that it is a possibility, although more likely the U.S. will evolve into ten or more regional governments, that will largely take over the responsibilities of the increasingly dysfunctional Federal government. and I could see the breaking up of big states into mini-federations, such as five mini-states in California, Upstate NYC vs NYC metro, and of course Washington DC, VI, PR, Gaum/Samoa/Micronesia all becoming states, and Canada dissolving as well ,with Canadian provinces joining various sub-federations in the New North American union. Now the poem:
In this day and age
Of deep partisan divide
Into the blue and red states.
And open talk among both
The right and left
Of a possible second civil war
Commonly called Civil War 2.0.
Is it conceivable that
The United States will break up
Into new nation-states?
If so, what would be
The new nations
of North America?
Will there be a Christian States of America/Canada?
With a new capital perhaps in Omaha?
Will there be a Northwest Pacific States of America/Canada?
Will there be a Southwest Pacific States of America/Mexico?
Will there be a Great Lakes States of America/Canada?
Will there be a great Utah?
Will Texas emerge as the Lone Star Republic?
Will there be a Pacific Islands Federation including
Perhaps the PI?
Will there be the Native State of America?
Spread-out, embedded in the other states?
Will, there be a French Speaking America
Based in Quebec but uniting French speaking
States, and countries including Haiti,
Dominica, St Lucia, Guadeloupe, and Martinique?
Will there be Caribbean Federation based in Miami?
Will Guam, PR, Micronesia, Washington DC, and VI
become states in one of the new nations?
I don’t have an answer
A lot will depend
In the coming few years.
But if I had to bet
I would bet that somehow
The United States will stay together
Just too difficult to break apart
Into new nation-states.
But new federalism might emerge
With regional governments taking
More responsibilities
From the Federal government
And State governments as well.
Overtime the new regional governments
Might supplant the federal government,
Leading to a new arrangement
Without the drama of another civil war.
For today’s prompt, write a breaking poem. The poem could be about breaking down walls, break dancing, breaking up, or breaking stuff. However, you’d like to break it down and then write your poem.
What ‘They” Never Tell Us Conspiracy Writer’s Digest
May 14, 2020 … The Prophecies of Q. American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase. By Adrienne LaFrance. Illustrations by Arsh Raziuddin.
Watching the news unfold
Every day
I wonder what “they”
The secret powers
Behind the news
Are not telling us.
For starters,
Are their aliens?
Are they secretly in charge?
Is climate change
Going to doom us all?
Do they have a plan?
Is there a plot
To reinstate the former guy.
If so when and how?
Is Q telling the truth?
Is there a secret cabal
Of cannibalistic pedophiles
Satanists running the government
And society?
Was the last election stolen?
If so, how, and why?
And did Trump win?
Finally, is there a plot
To invent cloning.
And if so, when can I
Get in line for a new body.
There is just so much
That “They” are not
Telling us.
For today’s prompt, write what they never tell you in a poem. I’m not sure who “they” are, but “they” talk a lot, and there are things people tell you, and there are things you just have to learn on your own, because “they” (them again) never tell you ahead of time. Like, for instance, “they” never told me that I’d still feel like a teenager in my 40s, but here we are. Think about what “they” never tell (or told) you, and write that poem.
Local gem: Second Chances Everyone deserves a second chance. Write a poem of about second chances. Second Chances
Local gem: Second Chances Everyone deserves a second chance. Write a poem of about second chances. Sam Adams
Sam Adams
Was a man who had
Numerous second, third, fourth
Fifth chances in life.
He failed first grade
Failed courses in high school
And college.
Went to three colleges
Before he finally graduated
On his third chance.
Failed in his career
Never advanced as far
As he wanted to.
But in the end
There was one thing
He did right
On the first try.
When he met his wife
He did not hesitate
Proposed in three days.
Did not want to take
A second chance
On happiness.
Sunday, Day 10, April 10
Where Do You and I Begin NaPoWriMo
(reviously published)
I woke up one day and realized
I no longer knew
where you and I began
and where you and I ended
we had become almost one
We talked in half sentences
Knowing what the other wanted
and knowing how it would end
We ate the same foods with some resistance
because I still crave an old-fashioned American meal
but still, we were becoming more and more the same
and I feared losing myself
In your embrace
and becoming you
and you becoming me
and this fear of losing me
in the ocean of us
overwhelms me at times
but I know I will always
Return to your arms
because I cannot live
A moment without you at my side
and I know you are the same
we feel each other’s inner pain
we feel each other’s outer pain
and our history has merged
into one
and is that not the secret
of a long marriage?
Have I figured it all out
in the end, does it come to this
a merging of two souls and two bodies?
I don’t have the answers
But I don’t have any more doubts
or regrets with the path I have taken
I still look forward
to waking up each morning
Seeing you there
and knowing that every day
we have together
is a gift that I will cherish
Until my dying breath
Today’s (optional) prompt is pretty simple – a love poem! If you’re having trouble getting into the right mood for a love poem, maybe you’ll find inspiration in one of my favorites, June Jordan’s “Poem for Haruko.”
The Unicorn General Conquers the World Dew Drop Inn
A unicorn silhouette in a galaxy nebula cloud. Raster illustration.
Sam Adams
was a paranormal researcher
he was searching
for mystical creatures
that he was sure
still existed somewhere.
The banshees, bigfoot, the centaurs,
the demons, the dragons, the giants,
the hellhounds, the minitours, the leprechauns.
The snowmen, the unicorns, and yeti.
Sam Adams found a book
the legendary infamous necormicron.
Which many had dismissed
as nothing but a story
by Lovecraft and his fellow
demented writers.
Chanting from the book,
He opened the door
the first through
was the king of the unicorns.
He brought with him
thousands of his followers
who launched a war
against the modern world.
The unicorn and his army
quickly overwhelmed the world
appointed Sam Adams
as their ambassador,
the unicorn smiled
at his victory
it had been a long time
living in exile
in the other dimensions.
April 10—Free day—a topic or focus of your choosing! (And this might be free verse, too! Or not! Exercise your free will!)
Too Much Stuff PSH
I have too much stuff
Too many things bought
Over the years
Too many books
Too many records
Too many kitchen gadgets.
Too many khachkars
From all over the world
Too much artwork,
Too many clothes
Just too much stuff.
Since I live abroad
If I die overseas
Most of what I have
Will be thrown away.
We are getting rid
Of somethings
Along the way.
Donated some books
To the Army library
Might downsize some
Of my library,
Maybe sell it
To a used English
language bookstore.
My record collection
Will be given
To my younger brother-in-law
Who can sell it off?
The artwork
The kitchen stuff
The clothes
Probably will stay
With me.
Some may go
With me, if I ever
Return home.
But I doubt anyone
Will pay to ship things back
Just the way it is
Being an aging ex-pat.
Write about your knick-knacks, your tchotchkes, and your Dollar Store finds. Explain why you can’t quit buying them, and what you think your heirs will do with them when you die.
Taste of Korean Food Korea Writer’s Digest
kimchi
When I first encountered Korean food
I was overwhelmed by the strong taste, fragrance
And the strangeness at time of Korean food
Now known worldwide as K Food.
Hot, raw, sweet yet sour,
spicy, in your face mixture
of smells, textures, and flavors.
Sweet, sour, spicy hot with a nice
Lingering after taste
Bursting with fermentation and flavors
That is the essence of K food.
I tried it all
When I first got to Korea
43 years ago
It was just overwhelming.
Took a while
But I learned to love
K food.
A typical Korean meal
Is somewhat like a Japanese
Or a Chinese meal
But different.
Consists of rice,
A soup of some sort
Sometimes hearty stew
Lots of vegetable-based side dishes
Perhaps some eggs.
Everybody’s Kimchi
is a bit different,
yet they all share
A similar blend of:
Alcohol
cabbage
chili peppers
fermentation
fish
fish sauce,
garlic,
onion,
red peppers,
salt
sugar
soy sauce
sometimes
made with dandelion
radish
Cucumber
springtime wild herbs.
All rolled up in an intoxicating blend
Of smells and flavors
That was my introduction
to the lowly Kimchi,
The staple of K food,
I soon became a K Food fan
Craving its intoxicating flavor
And smells with every meal.
Married a Korean gal
We eat Korean style
Almost every meal.
Now 40 years later
I am still a K Food efficient
Enjoying the fragrance, the smell
The overwhelming tastes.
And intoxicating tastes
Can’t get enough of that
Funky stuff.
For today’s prompt, write a taste poem. Back on day three, we wrote a small poem; let’s write about the sense of taste today. Of course, I’m thinking about tasting wine, cheese, or chocolate. But feel free to indulge in a person’s taste in fashion, cars, or whatever else requires real taste.
two related poems The Smell of Korean Food and the Feel of Korean food follow:
The Smells of Korean food
bulgogi-central-park-rotated.jpg
When I first encountered Korean food
I was overwhelmed by the strong smell
Bursting with fermentation and flavors
Hot, raw, sweet yet sour,
spicy, in your face mixture
of smells and flavors
everybody’s Kimchi
is a bit different
yet they all share
A similar blend of
Alcohol
cabbage
chili peppers
fermentation
fish
fish sauce,
garlic,
onion,
red peppers,
salt
sugar
soy sauce
sometimes
made with dandelion
radish
springtime wild herbs
All rolled up in an intoxicating blend
Of smells and flavors
That was my introduction
to the lowly Kimchi
The staple of Korean food,
I soon became a kimchi addict
Craving its intoxicating flavor
And smells with every meal
Now 40 years later
I am still a kimchi addict
Enjoying the fragrance, the smell
And intoxicating tastes
Can’t get enough of that
Funky stuff.
For today’s prompt, write a smell poem. Strong writing uses sensory language, and one sense that is often overlooked is the sense of smell. So write about the pungent smell of teenage socks, the exquisite odor of fresh lasagna, or the coppery scent of a summer shower. Smell you later!
The Feel of Korean Food Writers’ Digest
octopus on plate ready to be cooked,italyoctopus on plate ready to be cooked,italy
Korean food is a full sensory experience
Overwhelming one with smells, flavors
And textures as well.
One day back in the Peace Corps day
My best friend visited me
From Indonesia where he
Had been hanging out.
It was the dead of winter
15 degrees F.
When he got on the plane
It was 90 degrees F.
We bought winter clothes
Then I decided to treat him
To an infamous Korean disk
산 나치
San Nachi
or Live Octopus.
they brought it out
the octopus tentacles
were moving about.
I taught him
The proper technique
Grab it by the chopstick
Dip it in hot sauce
And chew it a long time
Sometimes unwary
Or drunk eaters
Encounter a problem
When the suckers
Get stuck in one’s mouth
Sometimes requires a trip to the ER.
The texture is slimy
And a big disgusting
Need a lot to drink
The first time around.
My friend tried it
But said never again
And we both bring it up
From time to time.
He was not a big fan
Of the 산 나치
San Nachi.
Never tried that again
But he did like
Other things we ate
That winter.
For today’s prompt, write a touching poem. We’ve already done smell and taste; let’s move on to the sense of touch. Of course, all these prompts are open to interpretation, and touch connects many paths, including touching up a picture, touching down an airplane, bringing a soft or human touch to a situation, and even playing touch and go (or tag). However, in your poem, feel encouraged to put your personal touch on this prompt.
Sam Adams Final Chances Local Gems
lovers sunset
Sam Adams
At the end of life
Was looking back
In his past life.
Lost in his memories,
Remembering things he had done
Thinking about things he had done
And thinking about second, third,
Fourth, fifth and sixth chances
in his long life.
But in the end, he thought most about
His only final chance
He took regarding love.
When he jumped into life
With his beloved wife
After dreaming of her
For eight years.
When they met
He knew that was it
That was his final chance
Of finding true love.
And that was how
He met his fate
On that September date.
The Revenge of The Shrimp
Shrimp
Sam Adams and friends
Were enjoying a shrimp feast
Watching the live shrimp
Being roasted
Waiting to enjoy eating them.
The head shrimp
Jumped out of the pot
Followed by other shrimp
Soon thousands of shrimp
Were everywhere.
The head shrimp spoke up
“humans,
What gives you the right to kill us
To eat us?
To burn us alive.?
Perhaps we should kill you
Tear you apart
And eat you?
Would you like that
You human scumbags?”
The shrimp surrounded the humans
Swarming all over them
Killing them, burning them.
As they overturned the flaming pots.
Biting them
Smothering them in hot sauce.
As they ate them.
Screaming,
“Death to all humans!”
The head shrimp finally said,
“Enough, no more
Time to go
We are so out of here.”
The shrimp
All ran out the door
And back into
the shrimp farm waters.
The firefighters
Found the charred remains
Of the humans.
Now just charred
skin and bones
Wondering how they died.
The shrimp in the pound
Looked out,
Wondering if they should attack
But decided they had eaten
Enough human meat
For the evening.
Hillary Clinton and the Right-wing Conspiracy NaPoWriMo
Hilary Clinton said
that her husband
Had been the victim
Of a vast,
large right-wing conspiracy
That continued to this day
Little did we know
That the real leaders
Of the conspiracy
Was based in Russia
Where Putin
Wanted to try large
Remaking the world
And in the process
Destroy the world
Putin was the large
Master of the world
Trump was just
Their latest puppet
Our featured participant for the day is . . . two featured participants because, once again, I just couldn’t choose. First, we have Whimsy gizmo’s, which brings us a love poem for that most poetic of celestial objects, the moon, and second, Snigdha Choudhury, who brings us an exclamatory take on unrequited love.
And now for our (optional) prompt. Following up on yesterday’s love poem, I have for you another deceptively simple challenge. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honor of being the Biggest Ball of Twine. Whatever giant thing you choose, I hope this chance to verify in praise of the huge gets your poetic engines humming.
Love in Korean Dew Drop Inn
When sam Adams
first met her
The lady of his dreams
There was as the Koreans
Would say
Spark from heart to heart
이심촌심isimchonsim
truly love at first sight
첫눈에 반하다cheosnun-e banhada
they both knew
that it is just fate
운명unyoung
that they had met
that date.
Two months later
They were married
It all happened
40 years ago
48 years after
She first came
To him in his dreams.
April 11—somehow incorporate a word or phrase of another language into your poem
The Powers That Be – Who are They? (Revised) Writers’ Digest
Male alligator in office clothing suit and shirt, dangerous business man concept- mixed media
Jan 12, 2021 … The deadly Capitol siege was fueled by far-out conspiracy theorists, … The notion of shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptilian humanoids …
Reptilians – also called reptoids, lizard people, archons, reptiloids, saurians, or draconians – are supposed reptilian humanoids, which play a prominent …
They are among us. Blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptilian humanoids with only one objective in their cold-blooded little …
Watching the news unfold
Every day
I wonder who “they” are
The secret powers
That run the world
From behind the scenes?
There are rumors
That the powers
Of the universe,
The masters of the universe
The secret power brokers
Are not-human.
They are shape-shifting
Reptilian creatures
from the Palaskan empire
in Sirius, the dog star.
their agents Trump and Putin
were doing a great job
disrupting and weakening the world.
It was time though
Said the head of the committee
The committee does not exist.
That was the control tower
Of the alien conspiracy
Of the secret powers that be.
For the invasion fleet to arrive
And finish the job
Of enslaving humanity
A job that they failed to do
When they controlled Atlantis
And later the Roman Empire.
For today’s prompt, write a power poem. Your poem could somehow involve electricity, solar power, fossil fuels, wind, or water. It could illustrate a power play or someone exerting their power over someone else. Of course, you could also write about a power outage. You alone have the power to poem your way through this prompt.
Lost Alone in the Desert writing Com
Sam Adams
Was walking alone
In the desert.
After fleeing the alien
Invasion of Las Vegas
As the giant Nazi Spiders
took control.
He joined other refugees
Wondering in the desert
The hot sun bearing down
On him.
There were rumors
That the aliens
Would be bombing Las Vegas
With nuclear weapons.
he paused to look back
and saw the city
disappear in a nuclear blast.
he continued
wandering through
alone, lost in the desert.
The desert can be metaphorical or literal, your choice.
Line count: minimum of 12, no max
Obsolete Tech Items PSH
old typewriterjpg
Over the years
I have collected a few
Obsolete items
That is no longer made
But for some reason
I have saved it.
The first is an old telephone
From Mumbai
That was the police hotline phone
Between the consulate
And the police headquarters
Back in the 1940s or earlier.
The telephone people
Found it when they were updating
The consulate’s phone lines.
I took one look at it
And fell in love with it
And the history behind it
Still have it.
The other item is a 1920’s era
Typewriter I inherited
From my grandfather.
I kept it to remind me
That I am a writer
When I look at it
It calls to me.
Keep writing
These items
Have been around
The world with me.
And will be with me
Until I die
Then who knows
Where will they end up?
Who will care by then?
As I will be in the next world.
Today, in honor of the 400th celebration of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be good to pull together my Thanksgiving poems written over the years. I have no doubt others buried in my computer’s hard drive, and if I ever get my act together to find them, I will update this in due course.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were my favorite holidays as a child. I grew up eating Southern Style cooking, as my Mom was from Arkansas and my Dad from Yakima, Washington, and she did most of the cooking and was a creative cook.
She did thanksgiving/Christmas full southern style – featuring a full roast turkey (fried turkey was not common when she grew up although now in the south fried turkey is as common as roasted turkey).
Here’s the recipe
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird bread, onion, ham bits, bacon bits, herbal mix)
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions and, molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches for a week.
I found three articles that are apt. See below for links to the full article. The first is an article about what the first Thanksgiving meal consisted of, and the second is an article on how Thanksgiving was a controversial holiday in the south until the late 19th century, as it was seen as a Yankee puritan tradition and competed with Christmas, and the third is a history of the holiday. It only became a holiday in the civil war, and only became what we think of it in the late 19th century.
Many families mine included did the same menu on both Thanksgiving and Christmas although some families did something a bit different for Christmas, substituting ham, duck, goose, Cornish game hens, or a pot roast for the turkey for example.
And there were ethnic variations of course. And Jewish people usually went out for a Chinese meal on Christmas, as did the Chinese as well. In Berkeley, my Jewish and Chinese friends celebrated Thanksgiving with the full bird treatment, but went out on CHriatmas day for Chinese food.
Poems
Thanksgiving Gratitude
Thanksgiving Memories
Ode to Thanksgiving Meals Past and Present
Best/Worst Thanksgiving Ever Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day
Best/Worst Thanksgiving Ever Thanksgiving
Thankful for my Angel On Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving COVID Senryu
Turkey Senryu
Turkey Revolt
Death to All Humans, the Mad Turkey Screams
Three Thanksgiving articles -excerpts
What was on the first Thanksgiving menu? Smithsonian
When Thanksgiving was fighting words LA Times
Invention of Thanksgiving – New Yorker and other articles
Thanksgiving Poems
Thanksgiving Memories
On thanksgiving day
We are grateful
For the little things
In life
For the memories
for the food
that we will enjoy
on this day of giving thanks
Writing com Prompt: National Gratitude Month encourages us to embrace the power of gratitude
In an 8-line poem, write about just one non-human thing you are truly grateful for.
Ode to Thanksgiving Meals Past and Present
Growing up
My favorite holidays
Were Thanksgiving
And Christmas
We did a traditional Thanksgiving
And Christmas dinner as well
Southern American style
As my Mom was from Arkansas
My Dad was from Yakima
And we lived in Berkeley, California
Featuring of course the full bird
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird
consisting of bread, onion, carrots, ham bits,
walnuts,bacon bits, and herbal sage mixture
That came with the stuffing mix
Gravy
Sweet potato pie with marshmallows
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
Southern-style greens –
turnip, collard, kale, spinach
with bacon, ham, onions and, molasses
Rice
Wild rice
Roasted potato au gratin
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream to finish the meal
And leftover turkey sandwiches
For a week
Nowadays
Whenever I am
In the world
I try to have a traditional
Thanksgiving dinner
but it is hard
doing so overseas
where turkey
is just not that common
a food item
and Thanksgiving is such
an American (and Candadian) tradition
not celebrated anywhere else
over the years
I have had steak
Ham, Mexican food
Indian food
on Thanksgiving Day
Even sushi on thanksgiving
In Okinawa
And once
I had Tofu Turkey
Even though
I am from California
That was a step too far
Just not for me.
But in the end
Nothing is more satisfactory
Than eating turkey
On Thanksgiving night
I have added drinking
A bit of bourbon
On Thanksgiving day
To my routine
On this Thanksgiving day
In Korea
We did a roasted turkey breast
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Asparagus
Cheesecake
Bourbon
And wine
The turkey, cranberry sauces, bourbon, and wine
came from the Army Commissary
The other ingredients from COSTCO
It was just divine
As always
And in the end
It all comes together
As I eat my Thanksgiving dinner
No matter where I am
As long as I am eating
Thanksgiving dinner
With my wife
It does not matter
too much
What we are eating
Forever thankful
She is there
To share my life
On this special day.
This week’s prompt is Holiday Meals. While most people, here in the U.S. have the typical Thanksgiving turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, not everyone follows the crowd. Think back to holiday meals you participated in when you were younger. Feel free to write about Thanksgiving or any other holiday meal you choose. Please share any items of food that you or others might feel are out of the ordinary. Do you have memories of any special or surprise guests that came to any of your holiday meals? Did you ever have a catastrophic holiday meal? Do you still carry on the same holiday meal traditions you had as a kid, or have you changed things up? Are you now typically the host or hostess for meals (sans Covid) or do you usually participate as a guest? Does your family like to go out for holiday meals, or do you prefer to stay at home? Is your table setting different for holiday meals? Do you decorate the whole house as part of your mealtime mood? Please share some memories of your special holiday meals.
Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving Day
We are grateful
For the little things
In life
For the memories
for the food
that we will enjoy
on this day of giving thanks
For the day of Thanksgiving here in the USA, we are featuring the theme of gratitude, in any form or style that you prefer. Several examples can be found for inspiration in the following links:
It was a thanksgiving to remember
One of the best
And one of the worst as well
It started with burned dinner rolls
Then power outage stopped the turkey
Finishing roasting in the oven
They pulled out the mostly cooked bird
Declaring it was time
To eat
And sat down
Having a traditional southern style
Thanksgiving dinner
Featuring of course the full bird
Roasted turkey
Stuffing in the bird of course
Gravy
Sweat potato pie with marshmallows,
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Corn Bread
Salad
Green beans
And left-over turkey sandwiches
For a week
Uncle Bob lost a tooth
The doorbell rang,
The dog dashed
out the door
Chasing the mailman
Down the road
Mom brought out
Desert
pumpkin pie with hipped cream
Writing com prompt was to use the following words in a Thanksgiving poem
Burned dinner rolls
Power outage
Uncle Bob Lost a tooth
Dog dashed out the Door
pumpkin pie with Hipped cream
Happy Thanksgiving Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving
Devotion
Thanksgiving
Big
Hiking
Yipee
Every day the fridge magnet site publishes a lits of words that you can use to make a refrigerator magnet poem from. Today’s Fridge prompt words were:
unlike
bag
pact
yippee
addicted
considering
vertigo
tampon
employ
NBC
sleet
decoy
hers
hearing
hey
denominational
cunning
big
steaming
sock
democracy
swear
significantly
what’s open on thanksgiving
ecological
fetid
India vs New Zealand
backstroke
timid
Spartan
silt
faint
votive
abroad
gringo
he
nan
thank
happy thanksgiving
devotion
cheque
hiking
thanksgiving
improve
retracted
Thankful for My Angel on Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving Day
I woke up
and saw my wife
Sleeping peacefully
I look at her
In the dawning light
Filling my soul
With her love
I drink my coffee
Contemplating my life
Ever thankful
Especially on Thanksgiving day
For the angel
That came to me
Out of my dreams
Walking into my life
Taking charge of me
39 years ago
I met my fate
On that date.
Thanksgiving Senryu
This Thanksgiving
Celebration of life
COVID is Ending
Turkey Revolt
On Thanksgiving Day
The feast started late
The turkey was having a problem
He refused to go quietly
Into the oven
The turkey stood up
Screaming
What is wrong with you people?
You are going to burn me alive?
What have I done to you?
Why can’t you just pardon me
Like the President did
I mean, I am cuter than
Peter Butter
And Jelly anyway
The turkey grabbed a knife
And killed the guests
Running out into the dark
Joining all the other
Suddenly “woke” turkeys
All screaming
“I am mad as hell
and not going to take it anymore
Death to all humans.”
That was the day
That went down in history
As the Thanksgiving
Turkey revolt.
writing com prompt: the feast was late because the big bird
Death to All Humans Turkey Screams
The big feast was ready
and the family
made its way
to the dinner table
when suddenly,
the turkey woke up,
jumping off the table
he picks up a knife
and attacks
and kills the family
Screaming
“Death to all humans”
Ending the Thanksgiving Day
feast for the family.
writing com prompt The big feast was ready and the family
made its way to the dinner table when suddenly,
What am I grateful for? Thanksgiving Day Poem
On this Thanksgiving Day
I am thankful
For the fact
That I have survived
My 66 birthday
My father and grandfather
Both died at age 65
And I felt a curse
Had been lifted
As I lived beyond
That date
No cancer
No Alzheimers yet
And no COVID
Cheated death
In my life
22 times
And most important
I am still madly in love
With the love of my life
Whom I met
In a dream
47 years ago
39 years ago
She walked into my life
Becoming my wife
And this fairy tale romance
Has continued to this date
And for that I am thankful.
Thanksgiving Day Feelings
On this Thanksgiving Day day
We have a lot
To be thankful for
A lot to be grateful for
Most importantly
We have survived
Old Corona has not
Taken us away
We are alive
Love and life
Continues
As we gather around
The dinner table
Thinking of the past
Enjoying the moment
With thanks in our hearts
We say
Happy Thanksgiving Day
Happy Thanksgiving Day F’ing
Happy Thanksgiving Day
Considering her
hey a cunning
big steaming gringo
f… her
on Thanksgiving Day
unlike
bag
pact
yippee
addicted
considering
vertigo
tampon
employ
NBC
sleet
decoy
hers
hearing
hey
denominational
cunning
big
steaming
sock
democracy
swear
significantly
what’s open on Thanksgiving Day
ecological
fetid
India vs New Zealand
backstroke
timid
spartan
silt
faint
votive
abroad
gringo
he
nan
thank
happy Thanksgiving Day
devotion
cheque
hiking
Thanksgiving Day
improve
retracted
For the 2021 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets are tasked with authoring a poem a day in November before assembling a chapbook manuscript in December. Today’s prompt is to write a remix poem.
For today’s prompt, write a remix poem. For this poem, take one of your poems (or several of your poems) and make a remixed version that is a completely new poem. This could involve lengthening a short poem or condensing a longer poem.
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
Thanksgiving JiYu Shi Poem
Thanksgiving day
A time for reflection
A time to feast
With friends and family
Nowadays in person and zoom
Hard to eat a turkey
On zoom
What am I grateful for? Thanksgiving Day Poem
On this Thanksgiving Day
I am thankful
For the fact
That I have survived
My 66 birthday
My father and grandfather
Both died at age 65
And I felt a curse
Had been lifted
As I lived beyond
That date
No cancer
No Alzheimers yet
And no COVID
Cheated death
In my life
22 times
And most importantly
I am still madly in love
With the love of my life
Whom I met
In a dream
39 years later
She walked into my life
Becoming my wife
And this fairy tale romance
Has continued to this date
And for that I am thankful.
What was on the Menu for the First Thanksgiving?
“The history of the holiday meal tells us that turkey was always the centerpiece, but other courses have since disappeared What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving?
Megan Gambino” title=”What Was on the First Thanksgiving Menu”>
Senior Editor
November 21, 2011
Traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes but the First Thanksgiving likely included wildfowl, corn, porridge and venison. Bettmann / Corbis
Today, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes any number of dishes: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. But if one were to create a historically accurate feast, consisting of only those foods that historians are certain were served at the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” there would be slimmer pickings. “Wildfowl was there. Corn, in grain form for bread or for porridge, was there. Venison was there,” says Kathleen Wall. “These are absolutes.”
An engraving shows Union troops receiving Thanksgiving rations during the Civil War, circa 1864.
(Kean Collection / Getty Images)
BY JENNY JARVIE
NOV. 23, 2017 3 AM PT
Reporting from Atlanta —
“When Americans across North and South gather for Thanksgiving around tables laden with turkey and cranberries, perhaps the biggest regional disagreement centers on stuffing versus dressing.
It was not always so. In the runup to the Civil War, there was strong resistance in the South toward Thanksgiving itself.
“With the whole prospect of a showdown over the expansion of slavery, there was more and more rhetoric coming out of the South charging that Thanksgiving was pretty much a Yankee abolitionist holiday,” said James C. Cobb, professor emeritus of history at the University of Georgia.
While governors from Arkansas to Mississippi gradually embraced the idea of Thanksgiving in the 1840s, issuing Thanksgiving proclamations for their states, the idea of celebrating a traditional Puritan northern holiday became more contentious in the 1850s with the heightening temperature of the national slavery debate.
“Thanksgiving was, above all, a New England holiday, and New England was abolitionist territory,” as Diana Karter Appelbaum put it in her book “Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, an American History.”
“Autumn is the season for Native America. There are the cool nights and warm days of Indian summer and the genial query “What’s Indian about this weather?” More wearisome is the annual fight over the legacy of Christopher Columbus—a bold explorer dear to Italian-American communities, but someone who brought to this continent forms of slavery that would devastate indigenous populations for centuries. Football season is in full swing, and the team in the nation’s capital revels each week in a racist performance passed off as “just good fun.” As baseball season closes, one prays that Atlanta (or even semi-evolved Cleveland) will not advance to the World Series. Next up is Halloween, typically featuring “Native American Brave” and “Sexy Indian Princess” costumes. November brings Native American Heritage Month and tracks a smooth countdown to Thanksgiving. In the elementary-school curriculum, the holiday traditionally meant a pageant, with students in construction-paper headdresses and Pilgrim hats reënacting the original celebration. If today’s teachers aim for less pageantry and a slightly more complicated history, many students still complete an American education unsure about the place of Native people in the nation’s past—or in its present. Cap the season off with Thanksgiving, a turkey dinner, and a fable of interracial harmony. Is it any wonder that by the time the holiday arrives a lot of American Indian people are thankful that autumn is nearly over?
Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving for nearly four centuries, commemorating that solemn dinner in November 1621. We know the story well or think we do. Adorned in funny hats, large belt buckles, and clunky black shoes, the Pilgrims of Plymouth gave thanks to God for his blessings, demonstrated by the survival of their fragile settlement. The local Indians, supporting characters who generously pulled the Pilgrims through the first winter and taught them how to plant corn, joined the feast with gifts of venison. A good time was had by all before things quietly took their natural course: the American colonies expanded, the Indians gave up their lands and faded from history, and the germ of collective governance found in the Mayflower Compact blossomed into American democracy.
Almost none of this is true, as David Silverman points out in “This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving” (Bloomsbury).”
Unlikely Stories will publish my poem, “Jack Daniels Intervention” in their November edition.
Dear Jake,
Thank you for your continuing submissions to Unlikely Stories Mark V! I loved “Jack Daniels’s Failed Intervention” and would be delighted to publish it. We aim to run this piece sometime in the week of November 14-20.
Yes, please resend your bio. Also, please feel free to send a headshot.
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And please consider becoming a patron at http://www.patreon.com/unlikelystories, and/or disseminating that link.
Also, in keeping with our activist mission, we’re asking contributors to recommend a charity. The charity will be mentioned at the end of your bio, like this: “Jake recommends [charity name and link].”
Charities can be any organization, anywhere in the world, that does not operate for profit. A charity does not need to be a registered non-profit. For example, another press or magazine that deliberately operates at a loss is fine. This program is of course voluntary. Please do contact me with any questions.
Thanks again,
Jonathan
Jack Daniel’s failed Intervention
Sam Adams
Was drinking alone
In the infamous Cosmos Bar,
In Bangkok,
The city of lost angels.
Twenty drinks too sober
He barely noticed
The naked ladies
Dancing on the stage.
On his table
He had a bottle of Jack Daniels
Along with a bottle of Johnny Walker
And five bottles of Singha beer.
Drinking his way to hell
Following the advice
Of the old song
This was his usual
Friday night routine
Just another pathetic loser
Drinking in the Cosmos bar.
The barmaids
Left him alone
He never paid them
No attention anymore.
He was there
To make love
to his booze bottles,
the booze bottles,
were his only friends.
That night,
About 0 dark hundred
He looked up.
Saw the bottle of Jack Daniels
Had somehow transformed
Into that of a younger version
Of Sam Adams.
The figure announced,
That he was the spirit
Of Jack Daniels
And had a message
For Sam Adams.
“Master,
It is not my place
To complain
But you are
Drinking a bit too much.
Twenty drinks a night
For the last few weeks,
Don’t you think?
You are so far gone
You don’t even notice
The naked ladies
Anymore.
I want you
To quit
This one-way ride
Down the hell hole.
Put down the bottle
Go home with Khun Lek
Who will help you forget
What you need to forget.
If you continue drinking tonight,
The only destination is death
My friend the Grim Reaper
Has your ticket
Ready for redemption.
So, stop drinking “
Soon the other bottles
In front of him
Started talking to him
Pleading with him
To just stop drinking.
He stared out
Convince he was going mad
The barmaids stared
At the unholy sight,
As the bottles in the room
All came alive,
And began chasing Sam,
Out into the busy street
Where a bus ran him over,
Died on the spot.
Thus ended Sam Adams’s
Last binge
In the city of lost angels.
Note: There is a real Cosmos Bar in Bangkok, at least there was back in the day. This is based on a writing com prompt to write a personification poem about the feelings of an inanimate object, I chose a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I submitted the following as well, but there were not published.
The Shrimp Talkback
Gov Abbot Calls for Freedom of Choice In Making Medical Decisions = Irony Meters Blow A Gasket Found Poem with snarky commentary
Governor Abbot, What Is Wrong with You? COVID
9-11 Evil
the Shrimp Talkback
shrimp
Sam Adams and friends
Were enjoying a shrimp feast,
Watching the live shrimp
Being roasted
Waiting to enjoy eating them.
The head shrimp jump out of the pot
Followed by other shrimp
Soon thousands of shrimp
Were everywhere.
The head shrimp spoke up
“Humans
What gives you the right
To kill us,
To eat us,
To burn us alive?
Perhaps we should kill you
Tear you apart
And eat you?
Would you like that
You human scumbags?”
The shrimp surrounded the humans
Swarming all over them
Killing them.
Burning them
As they overturn
The flaming pots
Biting them
Smothering them
In hot sauce
As they eat them.
Screaming
“Death to all humans.”
The head Shrimp finally said,
Time to go
We are so out of here.
The shrimp all ran out the door
And back into the shrimp farm waters.
The firefighters
Find the charred remains
Of the humans.
Now just charred skin and bones,
Wondering how they died.
The shrimp in the pound
Lookout,
Wondering if they should attack
But decide they had eaten
Enough human meat.
For the evening.
Gov Abbot Calls for Freedom of Choice in Making Medical Decisions = Irony Meters Blow a Gasket -found poem
“
FILE PHOTO: Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., May 4, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
Apparently,
Rhetorical consistency
Is about as high
On Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s agenda
As ensuring his constituents
Have a working power grid,
Are safe in their schools
And can easily vote.
On Thursday,
the Republican governor
fired off a tweet,
blasting President Joe Biden’s announcement,
of new requirements for large employers,
to ensure workers either get vaccinated
or face weekly COVID-19 tests.
Calling the mandate
an “assault on private businesses,”
Abbott pledged that Texas,
or its GOP leadership anyway,
was working to thwart Biden’s “power grab.”
And here’s where the tragicomic
part comes in.
“I issued an Executive Order
protecting Texans’
right to choose
whether they get the COVID vaccine
Added it to the special session agenda,”
If you’ve been paying attention,
you’re then aware
that Abbott’s tweet trumpeting
Texans’ right
to make individual health choices,
comes days after he signed a law.
banning the majority
of abortions in the state.
Abbott is talking
out both sides of his mouth
when it comes to matters of choice.”
Comment:
The irony meters
Have blown a gasket
You talk about the right to choose
The right to not get vaccinated
Or wear a mask.
You know that is the right
To infect everyone else
Including you
You and your family could die.
Because of idiots
Who refuse to get a vaccination
Or wear a mask.
The blood is on your hands
Own it.
The corona ghosts
Are watching you.
Governor Abbot, what is Wrong with You?
Governor.
I want to ask you a very simple question
about your opposition to mass mandates
and vaccination requirements,
and your saying people have a right to choose
not to get vaccinated, or wear a mask.
what is wrong with you?
Right now,
in this country,
COVID is spreading out of control/
especially in Texas and Florida,
and a few other states
where the vaccination rate is fairly low
and people have abandoned wearing masks.
People are dying
Because so many people
Refuse to do the right thing.
Get a vaccine
Wear a mask
Avoid crowds
If everyone did their part
The pandemic would be soon over.
But if people
Continue to follow your guidance
Acting like the self-centered scumbag
That we now see you are,
Thousands more will die
The economy will not re-open
Travel will not resume.
Perhaps more dangerous variants
Will emerge.
And it is all on you
Governor Abbot.
Just man up,
Admit you were wrong
Encourage people to shut up.
Get the vaccine
And save your state
And country.
The corona ghosts
Are watching you!
Evil
Evil in this world
lurks in the deadliest places.
Evil came to town on 911
the day that evil swept over the world
a true Black Swan event
that transformed everything
splitting the world into a pre-9-11 world
and a post 9-11 world
unleashing the War on Terror, the wars in Afghanistan, the wars in Iraq, the war in Libya, the war in Syria, the wars in Africa, the horrors of ISIS, the horrors of the Taliban resurgent, the horrors of Al Qaeda and all the rest of the Muslim terrorists, the war in the streets of any big city, the war on Muslims, the war on Christians, the war on Jews, the apartheid in Palestine, the wars on dissent at home, the Arab Spring
so many things can be traced
to the impact of 9/11
one of the most unlikely events
of recent history
that transformed
everything
yes there was a pre-9-11 world
hard to imagine now
and a post 9-11 worldwide police state
on steroids
lost democracy at home
and abroad
we are still coping
with the damages unleashed
by the evil plane bombers
fulfilling their mad desires
their dictates from their mad God
transforming the world
unleashing evil
on the once innocent world.
writer Egg magazine has published some more poems which drop in issue six to be published in January.
Index
Politicians Lying while people lie dying
Thanksgiving thoughts
Corona Virus Stalks Me
News is still grim
Mad Mask Fears -content tracing Dante Inferno Canto one Line 1 to 3
Wearing a Mask is not a political statement
General Corona Leads His Troops Into Battle, crown of sonnets
Corona Ghosts Stalk the President
Politicians Lying while People Lie Dying
Politicians lying
economy crumbling
pandemic spreading
fire burning
storms storming
winter is coming
media screaming
people dying
Thanksgiving Thoughts
On this day of thanksgiving
Our hearts are filled with grief
Anger, and hatred
Instead of love and friendship
Half the company
Feels that they lost
The election
Because of mass fraud
Their candidate could not have lost
The virus is a hoax
Masks are an affront
To our liberties
The other half of the country
Thinking at last
This national nightmare
Is beginning to end
Millions of people are sick
The real economy in ruins
The stock market is crazy
Out of touch with reality
Many Americans are settling down
To a lonely Thanksgiving
Loved ones can’t travel
Or are lost to us now
Corona ghosts
Haunting our thanksgiving
The news bather on and on
The divisions getting worse
The world seems to be spinning
Out of control
How can we come together
While 2,000 people die every day
But in the midst of all of this
If we simply remember
Our shared humanity
That we are all Americans
And we can overcome
These dark and dangerous time
Then we will have something
To celebrate this thanksgiving
That we are still here
Still alive and kicking
And the noise and hate
fades away
And the love comes back
With the rising sun
Happy thanksgiving
To one and all
Corona Virus Stalks Me
the dreaded coronavirus
led by the demented general Corona,
seems to be stalking me
everywhere I go
images of the dead
come to life
accusing me of something
as they fade in and out of view
ghostly images fill\ my fogged up glasses
as I walk down the street
hidden deep inside my masks
and I fear everyone
which is of course
part of the corona virus’s
evil’s plan
to drive us all mad
sending us to hell
News is still grim
cnn logo
watching the daily news
the constant doom and gloom
makes me want to cry
and hide away
waiting
waiting
waiting
for the end of the news
and a return to normal
but that seems
like a distant dream
perhaps it is our fate
perhaps it will be over
perhaps it will never
be over
and the news drones
on
and
on
and
on
overwhelming
me
with
cosmic
dread
Mad Masks Fears Corona Sonnet Form
no masks
I don’t understand
this fear of wearing a mask
somehow making you weak
that wearing a mask
is a political statement
“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself with a forest dark
for the straightforward pathway had been lost”
THE THOUGHT COMES TO MIND
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE
ALL
LOST
THEIR
MINDS
content tracing Dante Inferno Canto one Line 1 to 3
Wearing a Mask is not a political statement
masked woman
to my friends in America
and around the world
to those who think
that somehow the coronavirus
only infects other people
that it is all a liberal hoax ,
overblown
nothing more than a bad flu
and nothing to do with me
demanding that we all go
back to work
what is wrong with you?
have you lost your humanity?
will millions have to die
so you can have a Big Mac?
so you can have a Big Mac
and a beer
whenever you damn, please
and no one can tell you
please wear a mask
have you lost all reason
is it all now
about owning the dems
and the damn libtards
is there any thing left
in your cold, greedy heart?
and you still proclaim
that you are Christian
as you violate all the Christian principles
what would Jesus do
what would Jesus do
what does the bible say
we should do
in the midst of this pandemic
is it the Christian thing to do
to let millions of people die
did not Christ talk about love
compassion and mercy
would not Jesus
wear a mask
to protect himself
and others
from this ravaging disease
that does not care
who you are
who you voted for
which church you go to
and Jesus and God
are not there
watching all of us
as the virus spreads
it will affect you
sooner or later
and when it does
perhaps if you had worn
a mask
you might have prevented
a few more people
have died
a few more people
including your grandfather
grandmother
friend
relative might be alive
if you were not such
a self- centered person
and I appeal to you my friend
to grow up, become a member
of the human race again
also published in Plethora Magazine in India
General Corona Leads His Troops Into Battle, a crown of sonnets
corona
General Corona leads his forces across the world
riding on a black horse
from out of the Apocalypse
ride the four horsemen
which are let loose upon the world
He leads his forces across the world
into battle as the leader of his evil forces
The enemy of humanity
General Corona, he does not care
nor does his virus minions care
about your nationality, he does not care
about your politics, he does not care
or your wealth or who you are
for all you are nothing but humanity
the corona general sees humanity
as nothing but hosts for his virus army
chanting death to humanity
until his evil army
sweeps throughout the world
throughout the world
and millions must die
it is the will of the general all must die
and it is the end of the world
or perhaps the beginning of a new world
filled with hope and love through out the world
humanity comes alive throughout the world
fighting back against the virus army
peace, love and compassion defeats the army
and general corona will finally himself die
Corona Ghosts Haunting the President
corona virus
The corona ghosts are angry
Watching the news every day
In limbo land
The corona ghosts decide
To pay the president a visit
To show him the humans
Who have died
Due to his incompetence
And lack of leadership
175,000 Corona ghosts
Descend upon the white house
At midnight
And surround the president
Screaming at him
Saying look at me
Look at me
You did this
You did it
You Mr. President
You are not the smartest man
In the world
Far from it
It is all on you
And you will soon
Be joining us
Be afraid
Your time is up
General corona
Is on the march
third of my fake food rants for today mostly related to fake booze i.e. fake alcoholic beverages, fake beer, fake wine, fake vodka, fake beer, fake rum, and some success stories in the battle against fake things – development of real soju and Malaki traditional drinks in Korea that are now mostly real booze not the chemical based booze of a few years ago
these are my poems about “fake booze” from the wide variety of alcohol free booze, to chemically produced booze, it seems that it is hard to get real old fashioned unadulterated booze these days. Oh well.
Fake booze
I never really understood
The concept of alcohol-free booze
Alcohol-free beer
Alcohol-free wine
I don’t get Mocktails
And I don’t get fruit beer
And coffee beer
And other the other weirdo drinks
That people drink these days
I mean when you drink booze
You want the alcohol
You want the buzz
You need the booze
And you want it now
And frankly fake booze
Just does not do it for me
So please no fake beer
No mocktails
No fake wine for me
As the song puts it
One scotch, one bourbon
And one beer
So, either give me the real deal
Or give me a cup of tea
Or coffee or water or juice
Or whatever
But don’t serve me fake booze
Comment: I also don’t get fake alcohol although like fake coffee I may eventually learn to like it. But not yet…
end comment
Fake Beer
Nowadays
When you order a beer
You have so many
choices to make
You can order a craft beer
Or in Korea a fake craft beer
You can order a stout, an IPA
You can order draft beer
You can order canned beer
You can order keg beer
You can order bottled beer
You can order freshly brewed beer
You can order fruit beer
You can order corn beer
You can order gluten-free beer
You can order fortified beer
You can order alcohol free beer
You can order low-alcohol beer
near bear
or no-alcohol beer
You can order light beer
You can order dark beer
And if you are insane
You can order coffee infused beer
But nowhere in this fake world
That we live in
Can you simply say
Give me a beer
And get a god damn beer
No more choices
Just give me
a damn beer
Is that too much to ask
Or Beer Gods?
comment: another poem about fake booze – in this case fake beer end comment
Fake Wine
Like beer
Wine has evolved
Into so many damn choices
White wine
Red wine
Rose white
Dark wine
Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc,
pinot grigio
wine from any of the 49 US states
and 7 Canadian provinces
Arizona “Rattle Snake” wine anyone?
wine from 20 European countries
including Great Britain
due to global warming
wine from Australia
wine from New Zeeland
wine from South Africa
and even wine from India
South Korea and Japan
and various types of fruit wines
strawberry wine
apple wine
persimmon wine
but all I want to have
is a simple glass of wine
a real glass of wine
made from real grapes
and I don’t give a %$%%
where it is from
or what type of grape it is
just give me my wine
and leave me the bill
comments: another poem about fake booze – in this case fake wine end comments
the King of Fake Beer
Years ago, in America
A beer manufacturer
Discovered that it did not matter
Whether he made a decent beer or not
All he had to do
Was hire the right marketing genius
And spend a gazillion of dollars
To convince the world
That his fake lousy beer
Was not only the real deal
But the best you could get
And the rest is history
Another poem about fake booze – in this case fake beer and the awesome power marketing. I assume some people like this beer but for me, it is the worst beer in the world. My personal opinion so if someone from this company is reading this and wants to sue me go ahead Make my day! I consider this beer “fake beer” because I am sure that it would fail the German beer purity laws and I am sure it is filled with chemical enhancers but I could be wrong, perhaps it is real beer, just the worst tasting beer there is in my humble opinion.
Fake Rum
Another poem about fake booze – in this case fake rum and the awesome power marketing that make the worst rum in the world the number one selling rum in the world! My personal preference – I like Mount Guy rum, I only drink this unnamed rum if there is no choice and I want a rum drink. My personal opinion so if someone from the company is reading and wants to sue me go ahead Make my day! Again I assume that it has lots of chemical enhancers but who knows it could be real rum but the advertising makes it a fake rum in my opinion as they falsely claim it is the best rum in the world.
In Puerto Rico
An exiled rum maker
Discovered the same secret
And turned his rum
The worst rum in the world
According to rum heads
Into the best-selling rum
In the world
Forever ruining the image
Of rum
Among non-rum drinkers
Who associate rum
With his overly sweat
Rum product
Real rum is a delicious
Well-crafted complex drink
And every island in the Caribbean
Central America, Hawaii
Australia, Thailand
And even some states in the US
Have their national rums
All of which
Are far better
Than the fake rum
Sold around the world
But that hardly matters
In a world of fake things
Marketing rules the world
Fake Vodka
vodka
Used to a Russian thing
Not anymore
Vodka
Used to made out
Of potatoes
Not any more
Now Vodka
Is made everywhere
In France, in Sweden
In Poland, In Russia
In the Ukraine
And even in Texas
And vodka
Now is made with herbs
Potatoes, sweet potatoes
Corn, rye and so much more
And some vodka
Is made with chemical enhancers
But for me
Give me
A straight shot
Of proper Russian
Potato made vodka
Fake Soju
soju
There is some good news
In the war
Against fake food
Soju
The Korean drink of choice
Used to be made out of chemicals
But 20 years ago
The government allowed soju
To be made with real grains again
And so artisanal soju was born
Now you can get soju
Real soju made from sweet potatoes
According to ancient recipes
But soju has been watered down
No longer packs quite the punch
Still the cheapest drink
In the world
Fake Malkali
More good news
In the endless war
Against fake food
In Korea, you can now get
Artisanal malkali
The Korean rice wine
Malkali the drink of farmers
Used to be made out of chemicals
But the government legalized
100 real rice wine
Decades ago
When malkali became the latest thing
As Koreans rediscovered traditional culture
And malkali the drink of farmers
Became the drink of the urban intellectual set
From GF bread, (really good for you) to Healthy Choice food choices meh not so good for you and KFC and McDonalds more fake food for ya
Fake Bread
Fake Bread
Nowadays
Most of the time
I eat fake bread
GF bread
For health reasons
My wife can’t tolerate the real thing
And so,
I eat fake bread
Fake pasta
Fake pizza
But every so often
I want the real deal
I crave bread
Made with wheat
And a real pizza
And real pasta
And real donuts
comments: No disrespect to those like my wife who has celiac disease. But bread was originally made with wheat, hence in that sense “GF bread is Fake Bread, a kind of “fake food” ” given my definition of “fake” meaning altered from the original in some fashioned. Granted the wheat used nowadays has little to do with the original wheat used by our ancestors. and gluten is probably bad for everyone, and I do like it but once in a while I want bread made with wheat. end comments
Fake Cheese
In America
Most commercial cheese
Are processed cheese products
Chemically enhanced fake cheese
With maybe 25 percent
Real cheese from real cows
The rest
Chemicals and flavorings
And who knows what
Can’t pronounce the damn ingredients
And that can’t be good
I crave real cheese
My favorite is Tillamook cheese
From Oregon
But I love real cheese
But I have to restrict myself
If I eat what I want
I would gain 25 pounds
Overnight
My wife claims
Even thinking about cheese
Causes me to gain weight
And so,
cheese is banned
From my house
And boy do I miss
Real cheese
Never liked the fake stuff though
Just not a Velveeta cheese product fan
comments: can’t handle cheese any more – I gain weight just looking at it! but Velveeta is not cheese! end comments
Fake KFC
There is a joke
That many years ago
KFC was ordered to change
Their name
From Kentucky Fried Chicken
To KFC
Because according to the court
The chicken contained only 10 percent chicken meat
The rest was chemicals, soy, other extenders
And the chicken was not fried
And not made anymore
in Kentucky
That may or not be true
But I did visit the KFC museum
Near the highway rest stop
Where the first KFC opened up
Back when they produced real fried chicken
From chickens sourced in Kentucky
And it was 100 percent chicken meat
With spices etc
No extenders at all
I toured the museum
But did not eat there
Last time I ate at a KFC
Was in Sapporo Japan
for five weeks
When my American co-workers
Insisted on an American fast food lunch
I got sick from the KFC
My body just could not handle
The chemicals anymore
Their burgers are unnatural abominations
If you leave the burgers out for days
You can still cook them
And that ain’t natural
And ain’t right
No one knows really
What is in the burgers
That is a corporate secret
But one knows
That it can’t be good for you
I lost my taste for Mc Donald’s
And Burger King and Wendy’s
About ten years ago
I last ate at Burger King in St Lucia
And ate at Mc Donalds in India
Mc Donalds in India
Is not allowed to serve beef
They finally settled on a chicken burger
As their burger of choice
Wisely abandoning the Raja mutton burger
Which just tasted horrible
The veggie burgers were the best though
But I still crave a burger
And will eat at other chains
Or gourmet burger places
But the sad reality
The burgers are all the same
Ten percent beef
The rest chemicals and extenders
One day a study came out
Linking eating fast food burgers
To ED among men
And that may be true
It is also true
That eating fast food daily
is courting death at an early age
One day the CEO of Burger King
Came out in a Press conference
To denounce the movie
Super Size me
He said
“Fast food burgers are perfectly safe
And delicious
I had a Whopper for lunch”
Then he collapsed and died
From a massive heart attack
Poetic justice
At work
comment: May be an urban legend but boy is that an illustration of poetic justice at work! comment
Fake healthy Food
The evil food industry executives
Are on to us
They proclaim
That they get it
They need to sell us healthier food
And so, they present
all sorts of so-called healthy food
For us to consume
Only problem
The food is still
the chemical enhanced fake food
they always make
25 percent real ingredients
75 percent chemicals and extenders
they just slap a healthy choice label on it
charge you double
and proclaim it is healthier for you
Than the other crap they sell
but no processed food is healthy
only food created from scratch
can be considered healthy food
So, as you enjoy
your healthy choice fake food
just remember this
it is still fake food
still poison
comments: Sums up my feelings on fake food. I try to eat mostly healthy real food but when traveling don’t have much choices outside of my own kitchen. End Comments
These are my poems about fake food. this is the first part of my “fake food” chapbook which is a sub-set of my “Fake Things” manuscript. I hope to shop both around for publication in the Spring. For both collection I use as a working definition of “fake” anything that is not 100 percent the original deal or state. Thus most of the world we live in is that sense “fake” fake things can be better than the original, or just meet a different need but some are insidious like “fake food”. I have posted some of these earlier, and they can be found on Cosmosfunnel, All poetry, Hello Poetry (where is trending whatever that means) and poetry magnum opus.
of course these opinions are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of any my prior employers.
here we go my poems about fake food! comments and feedback welcomed.
Fake Food
in this world of fake things
Nothing is more fake
Than the food we eat
Most of the fake food crap we eat
Is nothing but chemicals
And flavorings
Added to a small amount
Of real food
All packaged and sold
And marketed
Scientifically designed to taste good
So we eat the poisoned food
And get sicker and sicker
While the food industry giants
Make obscene profits
Selling us poison
Comments: almost all processed food sold in the market is fake in the sense that it has chemicals and preservatives added to it along with gluten, corn syrup and who knows what else, not to mention GMO’s. Fresh fruits and vegetables often have wax on it.
it is difficult but not impossible to find real food but the big food companies don’t make a lot of profit so they push all the various processed foods on us and we mostly consume as Frank Zappa once sang,
“eat the garbage that I feed you” from ” I am the Slime” end comment
Fake coffee
I used to be a big coffee drinker
Had to have my four or five cups
Of real fresh brewed coffee
Not for me the weak instant coffee
Of decaf coffee or herbal fake coffee
But over time coffee caught up to me
And now I can not handle the real deal
And I am forced to drink decaf coffee
Which is a kind of fake coffee to me
Or herbal coffee
Which is entirely fake
Designed to taste like the real thing
But without that caffeine kick
That true coffee drinkers crave
Since we are all caffeine addicts at heart
Just need that rush to get going
And keep going
And the fake coffee
Just does not do the trick
And so, I am doomed
To drink decaf coffee
And fake coffee
Missing my real cup of coffee
Until the day I enjoy the last drop
comment:
I do like my coffee so I drink a cup of decaf almost every day and once in a great while real coffee and I will resume drinking herbal coffee but these are fake in the sense that coffee in its original state has caffeine in it. see my other coffee poems on my web page. Several have been published. Particularly snarling cup of coffee.
here in Korea, there seems to be a coffee shop on every corner. Only in the last year has decaf become widely available, before then it was impossible to find anywhere so there is progress for those like me who can’t handle caffeine.
When I go to a vegetarian restaurant
I often encounter fake meat
Often called mock meat
Made out of soybeans, and other things
And I wonder
Why bother with the façade
I mean if you are a vegan
Be a vegan
Don’t eat or make fake meat
You don’t need it
You really don’t like it
And it is somehow
just wrong to me
So please no more fake meat
No more tofu turkey for me
Either give me my meat
Or give me my vegan delight
comment: no offense to my vegan friends, but I just don’t get the concept of fake meat. I have had some great fake meat dishes and enjoyed it but just don’t get the concept. end comments
Fake fish
Everywhere in the world
When you eat fish
In a restaurant
The restaurant owners
Claim it is salmon or tuna
Or other delicious fish
But the sad reality
60 percent of the time
You are eating fake fish
The fish may be fish
Or may not be fish
But if it is indeed fish
It is probably tilapia
Or some other cheap
Bottom feeding scumbag fish
Filled with toxins
And possibly tape worms
And other parasites
And as you eat your delicious fish
You are eating the fake fish
And helping the fish industry
Continue this con game
But there is nothing you can do
Except for catching your own fish
And preparing it yourself
So, when you eat fish
Pretend if you must
That you eating salmon or tuna
While you eat your tilapia
And pay the salmon/tuna premium price
comment: there are so many fake fish products in the market. one study estimated that less than 50 percent of the time the customers are getting what they thought they had ordered, and it is difficult to tell at times whether the fish you eating is the real deal. Here in Korea though you can buy real fish from the fish market and be somewhat assured that you are eating the real deal. End comment
updated with fresh index, audio and first poem, ‘Fake Things”. Foliate Oak Literary magazine will publish the poem in their next edition. Stay tuned, I will provide a link in due course.
just an update. Foliate Literary Review has just published “Fake Things” foliate literary review
These are my poems about fake things. By “fake things” I mean almost everything we find in this modern world because no one including me is the original product of nature. I wear glasses, dentures, and live in an artificial environment. just because something is fake does not make it evil or fraudulent but many fake things are fraudulent. This is especially true about fake food. Almost none of which with the possible exceptions of home made smoothies are better than the original product found in nature. and most are dreadful for you although scientifically designed to taste good. I know I used to eat Fast food until I woke up and realize that it was slowly killing me so I became much more conscious of my food intake – although I am not yet a vegan!
and these poems are dark, cynical, poetic rants. Which makes me a fake person because in real life I am pretty content except for when I write! so in that sense I too am nothing but a fake person.
some of these may be offensive to some people particularly the political and religious poems. In my opinion, all religious believe is fundamentally fake in the sense that religion is based on supernatural understandings of the world. People have a right to believe or not believe anything they want to and I am not trying to change peoples minds, just pointing out my opinions.
these opinions are mine alone and do not reflect any of my prior employers.
if some of these are offensive to you I apologize in advance. So read, enjoy I hope and send me your feedback.
if you have your own examples I would be happy to add them to the final product. So here goes, my poems about Fake Things….
photos
president trumpBARCELONA, SPAIN – MAY 09: The Terminator robot is seen in the paddock following qualifying for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya on May 9, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Fake People
AI Created Fake People
Fake Love
Fake Life
Fake Death
Fake Souls
Fake Jake
Fake relationships
Fake friends
Fake laugher
Fake crying
Fake food
Fake food
Fake coffee
Fake vegan meat
Fake fish
Fake Bread
Fake Cheese
Fake KFC
Fake Mc Donald’s
Fake healthy Food
Fake Menus
Fake Salt
Fake cereal
Fake ice cream
Fake eggs
Fake bacon
Fake tea
Fake booze
Fake beer best beer in the world
Fake rum best rum in the world
Fake soju
Fake malkali
Fake kimchi- the kimchi-Kimuchi wars
Fake vodka
Fake appearances
Fake appearances
Fake hair
Fake eyes
Fake ears
Fake faces
Fake Teeth
Fake Legs
Fake knees
Future of fake body parts
Fake Hearts
Fake Wrestling
Fake Falls in Soccer
Fake Home runs – drug enhanced sports
Robot Sports?
Fake Politics
Fake Politics
Fake Solutions
Fake Outrage
Fake Denials
Fake Apologies
Fake Cops
Fake news
Fake Voting Scams
Fake Presidents
Fake Human- Alien Shape Shifting Lizards
Fake Humans – Coming of the Clones
Fake Humans -Designer Babies
Fake Humans – AI Decides to Kill All Humans
Fake Gods
Fake Gods
Fake War on Christmas
Fake War on Christianity
Fake Prophets
Fake business
Fake Products Conquer the World
Fake Business
Fake clothes
Fake shoes
Fake bags
Fake watches
Fake car parts
Fake Visas
Fake Marriages
Fake Divorces
Fake Deaths
Fake computers
Fake phones
Fake marriage videos
Fake videos
Deep Fake
Fake Calls
Fake Real Estate Ads – True story
Fake Builders
Fake drivers
Fake lawyers
Fake People
AI Created Fake People
Fake Love
Fake Life
Fake Death
Fake Souls
Fake Jake
Fake relationships
Fake friends
Fake laugher
Fake crying
Fake food
Fake food
Fake coffee
Fake vegan meat
Fake fish
Fake Bread
Fake Cheese
Fake KFC
Fake Mc Donald’s
Fake healthy Food
Fake Menus
Fake Salt
Fake cereal
Fake ice cream
Fake eggs
Fake bacon
Fake tea
Fake booze
Fake beer best beer in the world
Fake rum best rum in the world
Fake soju
Fake malkali
Fake kimchi- the kimchi-Kimuchi wars
Fake vodka
Fake appearances
Fake appearances
Fake hair
Fake eyes
Fake ears
Fake faces
Fake Teeth
Fake Legs
Fake knees
Future of fake body parts
Fake Hearts
Fake Wrestling
Fake Falls in Soccer
Fake Home runs – drug enhanced sports
Robot Sports?
Fake Politics
Fake Politics
Fake Solutions
Fake Outrage
Fake Denials
Fake Apologies
Fake Cops
Fake news
Fake Voting Scams
Fake Presidents
Fake Human- Alien Shape Shifting Lizards
Fake Humans – Coming of the Clones
Fake Humans -Designer Babies
Fake Humans – AI Decides to Kill All Humans
Fake Gods
Fake Gods
Fake War on Christmas
Fake War on Christianity
Fake Prophets
Fake business
Fake Products Conquer the World
Fake Business
Fake clothes
Fake shoes
Fake bags
Fake watches
Fake car parts
Fake Visas
Fake Marriages
Fake Divorces
Fake Deaths
Fake computers
Fake phones
Fake marriage videos
Fake videos
Deep Fake
Fake Calls
Fake Real Estate Ads – True story
Fake Builders
Fake drivers
Fake lawyers
J
Ode to Kombucha
Down in the Dirt Updates
