#394: Poem on April 21, 2021

I don’t even know how to describe this next thing. The Napowrimo website does it best. It’s a poem inspired somewhat by a famous childhood nursery rhyme by an anonymous author (“There was a man of double deed?”) and ends up being simply an exercise in repeating the last part of a line in the next line. Actually, that’s not it at all. That’s what I did. And I stole some lyrics from Prince. The task was to write using repetitive set-ups. It was surprisingly difficult to do. Rules were broken. But nobody was hurt, not even the dogs. I think I’ve inadvertently written a different kind of poem. I think it has a name. Does anybody know it? I don’t know what I’m doing today.

Poem on April 21

The neighbor kids
play on the mound of dirt
while the neighbor two houses down
plays reggae music in the afternoon.
In the afternoon I take a well-deserved
nap in the hammock .
In the hammock I swing,
take 10 minutes to snooze.
To snooze, to dream of birds.
To dream of birds and to wake up
under oak trees full of birds.
Of birds, I’d like to know
what kind of bird is making that sound,
that coo coo song. That coo coo song
sounds like doves crying.
Maybe I’m just too demanding.
Maybe I’m just like my father.
I get up, come in for dinner,
just as the dogs are playing
that same old shit song:
let’s escape into the neighborhood.