GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXX: Turn Left At Wet Dreams

Here it is. After a long and gruelling, yet also fun and exciting, and at the same time tragic, month… we are at the end of this year’s Na/GloPoWriMo writing challenge. Its had its ups, and it’s downs… Did we create some art? Did we just fart around? Well that’s for all of you out there to judge for yourselves.

But without any further ado, based off today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt, here is today’s offering… ‘Turn Left At Wet Dreams’

Turn Left At Wet Dreams

Mind that first step
It can be quite a doozy
Keep going till you come up on
‘Memories, Boozy’
From there veer right
Past the ‘Past, Happy’
And lets skip right ahead of
‘Birthdays, Crappy’

Okay here’s where it gets tricky
Climb up the stairs behind you
Yes I know, what a task
But it takes some effort to find ‘you’

Keep on heading straight
Past ‘Lyrics, Songs’
It’ll take you some time
That rooms 5 miles long
Then a sharp left
And then one more
Then left, right, and left
Till you see three black doors

Enter the one in the middle
Go straight for a block
Turn left past wet dreams
Then past the melting clock

You’re almost there now
It’s just after the snack bar
If you hit the room of never-ending darkness
Turn around, you’ve gone too far

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXIX: A Window To Tomorrow

Today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt is to see through a window to a place, or perhaps a scene. So let me paint a picture…

A Window To Tomorrow 

What is that I see through this window?

I see smiling faces
Basking in the open sun
Green grass wavING in the fresh breeze
I see kites and picnic blankets
Bodies free, with abandon
This is what I see

I see sadness in their eyes
For those no longer with them
Their laughter is bitter sweet
I see them pause to think
And celebrate their freedom
This is what I see

I see the shadows in the distance
Barely visible now
All they can do now is be
I see the future rebuilding
The light at the end of the tunnel
This is what I see

This is what I wish I saw

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXVIII: Question Time

Going off today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt, today’s poem is inquisitive, and curious… or is it just a bit of silliness? Who knows? Who cares? Does it even matter?

Question Time

May I ask you,
A question or two?
Three? Or Five? Or more?
Will you give your time?
Will you follow this rhyme?
Are you already bored?

What makes the sky blue?
What is 2 + 2?
How old do you think is the Sun?
Do you like games?
Are anteaters tame?
When will the cookies be done?

Can you make toast?
Do you have a boat?
Do you think there’s life on Mars?
Can you drive a stick?
Have you ever been sick?
Do you know the names of the stars?

Is there meaning to life?
Can I borrow a knife?
Why does my knee ache at the joint?
Are the answers worth knowing?
Is your curiosity growing?
Does this poem even have a point?

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXVII: A Simple Life

Going promptness today for fourth last poem of our month-long Na/GloPoWriMo saga, with a simple little rhyme, wishing on simpler little times…

A Simple Life

There once was a man of little worry
Who lived life with no real hurry
He never ran, he never scurried
For life it was so fine

He whistled a happy little tune
And happily hummed from morn to noon
He ate his meals with a silver spoon
That’s just the way it was

Time went by, and life was swell
He lived it big, he lived it well
Right up till the death knell
He had no real complaints

A short little story
Of no great acclaim or glory
Nor fate most great or laudatory
And that is all my friend

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXVI: The Politician

I don’t usually lean into derisive or subversive poetry, but today’s just sort of fell into place. The Na/GloPoWriMo prompt for the day was to write a parody poem, and at first I was going with a common nursery rhyme – Humpty Dumpty – for my subject piece. But then as I went to publish this post very suddenly my mind constructed another rhyme, based on a re-read of the prompt. Finally for today I’m going with a somewhat biting parody inspired off Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Crocodile‘ (which in turn parodies the moralistic verse of Isaac Watts’ “How Doth the Little Busy Bee”)

Before I jump to it though I must disclaim that, while the poem is bred of a growing disaffection of a certain human animal, we must always remember the exceptions and the exceptional, which there are, though their light isn’t always easy to see in the often overwhelming shadows.

The Politician

How does the Politician
Always improve his lot
While his people around him
Are often forgot

How selfishly he always
Guards his own luck
While the rest of the world
Can go and get f***ed

And not to waste a rhyme, if you’re curious how the Humpty Dumpty piece turned out, here it is

The Uppity Somebody

Uppity somebody was belle of the ball
Then they posted something offensive on their facebook wall
All of the publicists and well paid PR men
Couldn’t make Somebody beloved again

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXV: Missed Goodbyes

Today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt is to write an “occasional” poem. But what occasion to chose? Well recently many of us have lost those close to us, or know people who have. And sadly many have not had the chance to say goodbye. So this is for all of those out there, on the occasion of funerals and wakes and goodbyes missed…

Missed Goodbye

We are gathered together
To say our goodbyes
To celebrate a life
Gone before our eyes

Gone too soon
In too cruel a way
They deserved more years
More sunny days

We must temper our urge
To find someone to blame
To direct our quiet rage
And curse their name

Whether cruel fate
Or some divine plan
They are gone now
And here we still stand

They would want us to laugh
Not to cry or be sad
They’d want us to smile
For the memories we had

Our struggle now
Is to find some meaning
To keep on living
To keep on being

We must, for their memory
And for all their days lost
We must live twice as much
We must at all costs

For all the days that came
And the days that will not
We say our goodbyes to them
Gone, but never forgot

GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXIV: The Heart Is A Small Mongoose

Today’s Na/GloPoWriMo Prompt is a potentially fun, though in hindsight odd, one… It reminiscent of a mad-libs exercise that went a tad off-track. Yet, I took the challenge and honestly, even if the poem itself may have gone off the rails, the Title/the first line alone is enough for me to enjoy it!

The Heart Is A Small Mongoose

The Heart is a small mongoose
That digs with it claws
When it senses something amiss
It burrows without pause

It can thermoregulate
To survive a harsh habitat
Its instinct is to protect itself
And it really ain’t bad at that

Encounters between members
Of different tribes or packs
Can turn out highly aggressive
With many savage attacks

Which can lead to severe injuries
And sometimes even deaths
And alas a poor little broken heart
Takes its final breath

The Heart derives its name
From a kind of dutch monkey
You’d be advised to stay away from its urine
Coz smells really funky

The Heart is generally quite tame
Though don’t take it for granted
They can get quite aggressive
If they become disenchanted

Hearts are quite social
They thrive in groups
They’re active during the day
Mostly early morning and late afternoons

Hearts are widely depicted in the media
With names like Timon, and Jeff, and Stevie
And other famous one like Sergei and Aleksandr
Who sell car insurance on the TV

What else can we say about the Heart
Its a strange and funny creature
With all its curiosities
And its strong, yet fragile features

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXIII: What’s In A Name?

We’re in the home stretch of Na/GloPoWriMo! Just about another week to go, that’s another 7-8 more poems before the challenge ends. Am I excited? Am I bored? Am I emotionally and creatively spent? Yes to all of the above!

Today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem in response to another. Well I took a fairly famous example and ran with it. Here is today’s offering…

What’s In A Name?

What’s in a name
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
But would it as easily entice or entreat
You to smell it as deeply and full
With a name most foul, and turgid
Reminiscent of the faeces of a bull

Easier said than done
Not to judge a book by its cover
Not to cease at the shallow ends
In pursuit of another

For we are human
And it is human to err
To be blinded, distracted
Visions impaired or blurred

We are beings of great aptitudes
With minds most expanded
But oft we are confined
To that which we are handed

So it may be that a name
Can be quite important
For as humans our prejudices
Aren’t always evenly apportioned

It may be a descriptor
And often a guide
To the meaning of something
Held deep inside

And if whole’s worlds a play
And each of us actors
Then surely sometimes the name
On the playbill matters

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXII: That Dark Place

Not much context for you today readers, other than to say I’m going off-prompt for today’s poem. This poem is based on a moment that I couldn’t really explain, though I remember what it left me with, even once it gone and faded.

That Dark Place

I went to a dark place
In the alleys of my mind
Invisible and in plain sight
Hidden in the corner of my eye

A fleeting visit
Of momentary fright
Jettisoned in an instant
Out of mind, out of sight

I’ve been there times before
But I did not want to return
It pulled me in unwittingly
Unwillingly I was interned

Now I sit here, breath heavy
Heart pounding, dead stare
I was taken to a dark place
And that place is still there

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GloPoWriMo 2021: Day XXI: It All Started With A Thought

Today’s poem (coming in just under the wire) is loosely on the Na/GloPoWriMo prompt, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a closer kinship to another poem the prompt reminded me of. Not from any great poet from history, but from a source many of you may consider less relevant for the art form… a 1998 short comic series from DC Comics called “The Nail” (there are many other iterations and versions throughout literature). The comic was an epic ‘elsewhere’ tale. One to really put some shiver up ye timbers (no there is actually no pirate connection that was just random). Anyway, as often, I digress. Read the comic if you haven’t, it crazy good. And read this poem too if you’re inclined…

It All Started With A Thought

It all started with a thought
From that thought there came an idea
From that idea there came a force
From that force there came a movement
From that movement there came a revolution
From that revolution there came a nation
From that nation there came a people
From those people there came idea

And it all started with a thought

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