The optional assignment from the napowrimo website:
Today, I challenge you to fill out, in no more than five minutes, the following “Almanac Questionnaire,” which solicits concrete details about a specific place (real or imagined). Then write a poem incorporating or based on one or more of your answers.
It took me longer than five minutes, but here’s the result:
Lord Capulet Takes an Almanac Questionaire
Weather: Unseasonably warm.
Who’s idea was it to build a fire?
It’s summer for Christ’s sake and
the room is grown too hot.
Flora: Holly, cork, oak, pine and olive groves.
Architecture: renaissance, chiefly, stone and brick.
Customs: We dance, fight in the streets,
arrange marriages for our 14 year old daughters.
Mammals/reptiles/fish: yes.
Export: mostly olives and wine.
Graffiti: Down with the Montagues.
Lovers: I have seen the day when I wore
a visor and could tell a whispering tale
in a fair lady’s ear such as would please.
‘Tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.
Conspiracy: Friar Lawrence is a shifty guy.
I don’t trust him. He’s up to no good, I can tell.
Childhood dream: I wanted to be rich
like my father and his father before him
and his father before him. Having watched
siblings die, even as a child I knew that
when I became a man I wanted my
children to survive. I wanted boys.
I have one daughter and she’s been
weeping non-stop for 24 hours
about the loss of her cousin. My brother’s son has set.
Found on the street: Tybalt’s dead body, not cold yet.
michael jarmer 