#351: Earth Has Acquired a Brand New Moon That’s About the Size of a Car

Here’s some good news for a change. I love how the earth can acquire moons and I hope this won’t be the last. I’d like to see a moon the size of a bus, a really big bus, one of those accordion busses that bends in the middle, and I’d like to be the firstContinue reading “#351: Earth Has Acquired a Brand New Moon That’s About the Size of a Car”

#350: The Garden of Earthly Deep Purple

Today’s NaPoWriMo suggestion was to write a persona poem in the point of view of a character from Bosch’s famous triptych “Garden of Earthly Delights.” A great prompt idea, I think, one that I would have liked to write from. But even after I watched and listened to the interactive tour of this crazy thingContinue reading “#350: The Garden of Earthly Deep Purple”

#349: Twenty Little Poetry Projects

I thought I would just share the instructions from the optional prompt today on the NaPoWriMo website, so folks could have some insight into the composition of today’s poem. I tried to write a line or lines inspired by each item of instruction in chronological order, rather than jumping around, in the hopes that theContinue reading “#349: Twenty Little Poetry Projects”

#348: Don’t Do Something

I get it. People shut in want to get things done, they get all ambitious and want to complete the house project, write the great American novel, exercise themselves into hardbodies, record a hit record, paint their master- piece, read 20 great books, write poems every day. The experts tell us to knock that shitContinue reading “#348: Don’t Do Something”

A Journal of the Plague Year: #15

Famous people are sick and dying. Yesterday we learned of the passing of Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne. I love that band. He was 52 years old. That makes me sad and anxious. So, among the new coronavirus developments is this understanding that you don’t have to be old to be especially vulnerable. TheContinue reading “A Journal of the Plague Year: #15”

A Journal of the Plague Year: #14

Today, was the third day “back to work” as a Distance Learning Public School English Teacher and the second day of National Poetry Month, April, 2020. My contact with students thus far, remotely, has been minimal. Our district has given us three days to prepare the rollout of some supplemental learning resources for our students,Continue reading “A Journal of the Plague Year: #14”

A Journal of the Plague Year: #13

Today is April 1 of the year of our pandemic, 2020, but it is also the first day of National Poetry Month, during which, over the past six years, I have celebrated by writing a poem every day for an entire month. This will be year seven in a poetry writing streak. To the bestContinue reading “A Journal of the Plague Year: #13”

#347: A Prose Poem Meditation on the Penultimate Day of National Poetry Month by the American English Teacher in His Potentially Penultimate Professional Year, Ending in a Rhyming Couplet

The natives are restless, the 9th graders are rowdy, won’t stop talking, interrupt almost every teacher phrase with chatter, and because my intern has the class, I am completely unruffled. It’s the penultimate day of National Poetry Month and this is my penultimate poem in prose in the April of my potentially penultimate school yearContinue reading “#347: A Prose Poem Meditation on the Penultimate Day of National Poetry Month by the American English Teacher in His Potentially Penultimate Professional Year, Ending in a Rhyming Couplet”

#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home

I drove for three hours, through the desert and back over a mountain, to get home. Listening to XTC the whole way, I felt every twenty minutes or so tears of gratitude welling up, which I staved off, because I was driving at sixty-five miles per hour and singing along to every single song, neitherContinue reading “#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home”

#345: According to This Map

I have lived for a long time now in the country of Autumn, ruminating in the mountains near the capital city of Change, trying to see my way back into Summer. I know I’m going to hike my way through Somewhere on my way over the Plains of Solitude, and I may have to takeContinue reading “#345: According to This Map”