Tag Archives: A poem a day for a month

#567: Dream Song Sonnet with An Extra Couplet

The drummer reaches the end of the songbut can’t remember having played the bridge. He thinks to himself, as he prepares for thenext tune, did we mess up the arrangement?Did we all make the same mistake or wasit just me? He doesn’t recall any strange looksfrom his bandmates, no side-eyes or scowls, the usual indicationContinue reading “#567: Dream Song Sonnet with An Extra Couplet”

#566: Two Sonnets for Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacios by The Mars Volta

I I haven’t even listened to it yet, but I have looked at it with some surprise– precisely because there’s nothing to see.I will describe it from the inside out.Black vinyl, black label, on which tiny numbers indicate sides, inside black sleeves.An insert, the only art, a gray and tanindeterminate image, a map, orjust randomContinue reading “#566: Two Sonnets for Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacios by The Mars Volta”

#565: A Sonnet for Japanese Breakfast

From jubilation to down in the dumps: The trajectory of Zauner’s JapaneseBreakfast from the last album to this one. For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Womenspin for the first time on my turntable, but I’m not despondent, not in the least, in the way that it can feel good to be sad,in the way that aContinue reading “#565: A Sonnet for Japanese Breakfast”

#564: Starlings

When I read the prompt today on the NaPoWriMo website, to write a poem about listening to or singing a song while driving, incorporating a lyric quote somewhere in the piece, and I read the example poem by Ellen Bass, I knew immediately what song I would write about. And shortly thereafter I also knewContinue reading “#564: Starlings”

#563: Good Enough

After years, nay, decades of experience, you think you’ve figured it out. You think you’re pretty good at the thing. You’ve got a job to do, and you listen, and you think you will sit down and immediately jam out exactly the right thing. You listen back and it sucks. I can do that better,Continue reading “#563: Good Enough”

#562: Watermelon in Easter Hay

I have friends who don’t like the summer, who are intolerant of even mildly hot weather, absolutely miserable above 80 degrees. I had a professor once, a poet, Vern Rutsala, who absolutely loved the rain and he’d dressfor it even if the skies were perfectly clear. On a day like this the sun is out,Continue reading “#562: Watermelon in Easter Hay”

#560: No Birds

It’s good to be home. Alone for a few dayswhile my wife and sondrive back from SoCal. Imagine a housewith no one in it. Imagine a back yardwith no people in it. The music back there. Bees buzz now that Springhas sprung, and that thingwe bought, chimes in the wind. I’m lying. There may beContinue reading “#560: No Birds”

#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong

(Here’s a poem loosely modeled after a formal structure invented by Donald Justice. It was yesterday’s prompt from NaPoWriMo, but I found it especially challenging. This one took me two days) I There is something odd and possibly wrong about writing a poem with the Notes app, at a gate in the Atlanta airport, no less.FewerContinue reading “#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong”

#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements

I We’re in Ohio, outside of Daytonin a town called Xenia, stayingat a Hampton Hotel, where theideal of the mythic guest-friendship is somewhat wanting.  All the fixturesare installed off-kilter or crooked,the bathroom door came off itsglider, trapped my wife in there,I almost lost myfingers trying to free her,and the toilet seat is broken. No oneContinue reading “#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements”