NaPoWriMo 2025, day 23: Racket

April 23, 2025
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The big leafy tree is full of birds

And many of them have something to say.

There are at least a hundred bird-voices.

They are all talking at once, filibustering, advancing arguments, proclaiming availability, squabbling over details, celebrating the rising of the Sun, denouncing Interlopers, and ruffling each other’s feathers.

Suddenly it calms down to a few. And unoccluded birdsong becomes finer than noise, sweet and fluidic.

A bird flies off.

Two birds begin a mating dance. One will later commemorate the occasion with a clutch of eggs.

Answering a summons from afar, many fly around

Then away.

satisfaction

April 22, 2025
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long-distance running is now out of the question/at my age and weight and joint-degenerative status/but slicing tomatoes using a hand slicer/affords a similar satisfaction

place a tomato stem-navel side down/cock the elbow of your slicing arm/pile-drive the tomato through the blades into your catching hand/inspect and discard unsuitable slices while conveying the tomato to the tray/arrange the tomato in the tray and quicklikeabunny take another tomato from the cambro/and do that loopy set of motions over and over seventeen more times/till you have a full tray/adding the step of making a half-tomato top layer with the last six tomatoes

then put the slicer and its fluid-catching platform aside/wipe your workstation surface with sanitizing solution/slide the boxed roll of sealing wrap into position/and gift wrap the tray/and convey the tray to the cooler and while you’re there and if you’re low on tomatoes/grab another cambro full of tomatoes from the rack/and take it to the station

do this over and over again until mandated break time/then quickly strip your hands of the six gloves you are wearing/discarding the vinyl gloves but putting the cut-resistant gloves in a ziplock bag/then stripping your forearms of protective plastic sleeves/discarding them/untying your apron as you stride to the exit and hanging it on hanger #11 if available/then stripping your head of the bouffant hairnet/and tossing it in the trash receptacle just by the exit door

do all these things over and over in the course of a shift/over the course of a week/over the course of a pay period/over the course of a month/then a year

and it is oddly like running a marathon

a good marathon runner has an efficient stride/a foot strike neither pronated nor supinated/a mindfulness that dissociates from the endless repetition/while simultaneously running telemetry ofstride turnover and hydration need and breathing cadence and arm swinging/watching the ground for consistency/weaving around obstacles

over and over hill and trough mile after mile

tomato after tomato

footrace after footrace

finish line after finish line

clockout after clockout

with intense satisfaction that comes with a lengthy and worthy effort

and an effort-rewarding payday

refuge ease

April 21, 2025
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there’s refuge in absurdity

in life won’t do your bidding:

perhaps it’s all a joke and when

you die, god’s like, “just kidding.”

there’s refuge in uncertainty

in reign that gets us wetter

evaporative schooling says

in dry voice soon be better.

but what the hay and collie chi

it sucks to be a refugee.

Poetry Month, day 21: Pie-Dye Day

April 21, 2025
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On Everything Road someone stuck a giant spoon in me

I was, honestly, bestirred

Extracting the spoon, I gripped it, weaponized it, stirred things up

Waving the spoon through the body of an approaching prostitute, I gave her the face and demeanor of Meryl Streep

She thanked me and said she always wanted to be a Streepwalker

And at the intersection of Everything and Trapezoid Circle

The light turned purple and the pedestrian sign said both DONT WALK and RUN!!

And the cars hopped on their tires instead of rolling

And I hopped too when I tried to walk and was able to bound over the cars like I was jumping over pieces in checkers

People pointed at me and laughed and I looked down and found that I was dressed as a carhop

The light turned mauve and the cars turned to cages with odd creatures inside wearing buttons saying I AM A ZOID

And I thought, Well, that is one way to trap a Zoid

But then all the cages disappeared

And in the middle of the intersection was a gigantic piece of lemon meringue pie

And it looked gloriously delicious and I still wielded my giant spoon

So with one last mega-hop I bounded right into its fluffy center

But as the spoon touched the meringue the harangued meringue changed in color from snow-white to slurpee blue

And the pale-yellow filling turned to hooker’s green

I licked the pie-clumped spoon edge and it still tasted like pie

But something in either the danged meringue or the unwilling filling transformed me into an enormous bullfrog

Still wearing a carhop’s uniform

Except with a cowboy hat with tassels

And the magic spoon disappeared

And I thought, What could be worse??

Then found out I couldn’t hop anymore

So I bullfrog-trudged down Everything Road in my carhop uniform with the long tassels hitting me annoyingly in the face with every trudge and weird-colored giant pie residue all over me

And tried to hop again and couldn’t

And shrugged as best a bullfrog could and said croakingly Well,

At least this story has a moral:

The ultimate absurdity of the Universe

Knows no bounds.

National Poetry Writing Month, day 20: lot

April 20, 2025
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you ripen well, babe/as is your wont

you’ve felt the cool dawn, honey/on the flimsy cloth you flaunt

you stir well, and all’s swell,/and seems less pale and gaunt

and if angels sing, well,/let’s use italic for our font.

.

can’t the cat be so cute now/when we say knock it off

and the indecisive hat-hand/first a don and  then a doff

it needs to hear a few bars/written by rachmaninov

then it will freely gesture/however skeptic posers scoff.

.

seasonal allergies/stopper up the throat and nose

sprung spring stuns, hon/and the tearduct floodgate flows

you be my je ne sais quoi/and i will be your quelque chose

and we’ll dance away the Springtime/wearing fishnet pantyhose.

.

Afterword: the prompt suggested writing new lyrics to an existing melody. I chose Bob Dylan’s tune “It Takes a Lot to Laugh/It Takes a Train to Cry.” When I finished I realized that I hadn’t written the verse that would reference the title. So here is a bonus verse:

you coming bearing gifts, doll:/frankintense and myrrph and gott

for the bananas, thanks a bunch/thanks a mil for the ground-wheat spot

and now i can park my car/dusk to dawn and on the dot

and for that, sweetie darlin/what can i say but thanks! a lot!

NaPoWriMo 2025, day 19: entropy blues

April 19, 2025
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some say the world’ll end with a bang

some say it ends in a whimper

some say in fire and sturm und drang

some say with a traitor’s kiss and simper

i fear miss universe will wither away

no matter how we prop and primp her

.

creation came with a big explosion

heat and accretion and spin

now we are witness to a slow erosion

randomness creeping on in

miss universe has started to tilt and sway

intoxicated by a black hole’s mickey finn

.

who cares? you say–we’ll be long gone by then

i care! miss universe weeps in shame

my candle burns and so do mice and men

no matter who or what may bear the blame

and it will be as if we’ve never been

no dice, no pieces, no game board, no game

.

but at the heart of science is Doubt

and no one knows for absolutely sure

and if existential gloom lurks about

why then have a shot of Doubt for a cure

and after two or three you’ll twizz n flout

n miss universal look downright demure

NaPoWriMo 2025, day 18: beachin’ daydream

April 18, 2025
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if only the girl in the song were real/and the boy were me

she would be a california girl with a mild southern accent/and i would have surfed from an early age/and met her on a bright summer afternoon on the beach

and i would have a vw bug and legs almost too long for it/and she would say I was lanky

and we ate a lot of ice cream but stayed skinny by burning calories surfing and running miles and miles on the sand and making out after taking showers

and we got picked to be the first shipload of settlers on the first moon colony where there would be no surfing but plenty of flying with strapped-on wings and tail assemblies

and–whoops, the song is over

wow, what a song/really took me places

here I am a seventy-year-old man with stubby legs again

yearning for what can never be

but maybe there’s a woman out there, a woman my age, for whom leg-stubbiness is not a significant factor in the selection of a companion

who wants to be a landlocked surfer girl

with some occasional barefoot-on-the-sand interludes

time and patience will tell

and hearing that song

NaPoWriMo 2025, day 17: Moe’s Ache

April 17, 2025
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Moe missed his or her or their friend.

They had excursed in shared dream bubbles

And danced a labyrinth formed of a snake of near-infinite length

And had their passports stamped in principalities where it was impossible not to belong.

One horrid day though

Moe’s friend asked to express their friendship with a name change

And became Eom,

Thinking they would reflect,

Would harmonize;

But a cruel hit-and-run spirit told the two

That due to Eom standing for End of Month

Their friendship would end at midnight

Three days hence.

Over those days Eom transformed

Into an Aleppo Pine tree,

All but their mouth

Which lamented, “O! I am losing you. I am losing our memories. Where have

Adventures Six and Seventeen Gone??”

And that last day

Eom’s voice became ropy

With emotive sapdrops

And right before the bells of Midnight tolled

She wrestled out “Farewell, beloved…”

And her mouth barked and hardened.

Moe was inconsolable.

Her friend had pined away.

NaPoWriMo 2025, day 16: East on Thomas, North on Western Civilization Going South

April 16, 2025
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From the website’s prompt: “Today, try writing a poem that imposes a particular song on a place. Describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language.”

East on Thomas, North on Western Civilization Going South

Walking on the sidewalk on the north side of Thomas Road/Heading east toward the Sonic/Where I’ll order the #13 medium, tots,/Diet Coke plus a corn dog with three mustard packets,/”Flight of the Bumblebee” starts playing in my head

There are no bumblebees here/But there are bicyclists far outnumbering the pedestrians/Who out-of-nowhere insistently materialize from the gloom between streetlights/And somehow connote the threat of a swarm of bees

And somehow spark the memory of a thirsty four-mile hike/Up to the base of Piestewa Peak/Where I knew a blessedly coldwater drinking fountain awaited/To cure my early-June dehydration/But when I arrived at that oasis/I found it to be jealously guarded by honeybees/Who inexplicably preferred the cold metallic sterile drip-puddle/To the lively nectar of lantana and cactus blossoms

And the rumor of aggressive Africanized bees from way back danced in my vivid imagination/And fueled my cowardice/And, thwarted, I turned my back on the mountain I had intended to climb/And rubber-leggedly made my way to the nearest convenience store/There to buy a large bottle of the appropriately-named Lifewater

Yes, these cyclists vibed a similar menace/And I flinched and dodged ineffectually as they zoomed past

Then as I passed a bus stop/Where idlers with blankets and a shopping cart with oddments were chatting/I heard a hate-filled young woman’s voice say/…and it turns out my FUCKING husband had been texting her all along…

And it was as if stage-scrims of scenes from Armageddon/Lit up above the gloomy sidewalk/And they featured the mysterious death of bees/The uncaring wheeled hordes/The disenfranchisement of multitudes so recently compelled to sleep at bus stops/My own complicity in buying products packaged in environment-damaging plastic

And I wondered as I walked/How long the fragile embroidery/Of this our civilization/Would hold

And “The Flight of the Bumblebee” played on in an endless loop as I walked…

having his way with us

April 15, 2025
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an “administrative error” booted a man out

but this mistake is not going to be set right

not if he has his way

.

last time round he was like

“hey, obama got to kill a guy”

“i wanna kill a guy”

and so one of iran’s military heroes

was droned out of existence

.

he partners with a murderer of a journalist

and now phil mickelson

has golfed for murderers

and taken their blood money

.

tariffs and drone strikes and bribes

o my

stock market insider trades o my

warrantless immigrant raids o my

having his way with us all o my

.

boys and their toys

make mayhem and noise

some never grow up

some never feel guilty

.

did you vote for him?

you are either sorry or not sorry

if you are sorry renounce him

reduce his crowd size

he is powerless without his mob

cease to be his mob

.

if you are not sorry

then you are beyond redemption

and i invite you to go to hell

where you will fit right in