Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.
 
A swirl and a twirl
to protect you in shade
Keeping you cool
in the heat the sun made
Nothing too special
to fit one and all
Walking the lane
with a new parasol.

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves. 

The General Public

Sitting next to someone 
as any person knows 
can be so annoying 
no matter how it goes 
 
You can hear them chewing 
even when you’re not 
And you can hear them sniffle 
Was that really snot? 
 
Then out again you go 
to shop until you drop 
and see all the people 
The madness has to stop 
 
Nothing here smells good 
and crowds all look crappy 
all the moms are screaming 
and no kids are happy. 
 
The family up in  front 
decides they need to talk 
when all of a sudden 
they decide not to walk. 
 
So now you are so close 
you can hear what they say 
you really couldn’t care 
about the food they ate that day. 
 
And so you move around 
to get past this whole pack 
Only now you went too far 
and now you go right back. 
 
You decide you must leave 
You’re done shopping at this store 
You need a store that sells  
plants and wood galore. 
 
You find the perfect section 
that has only stuff you need 
but every aisle’s blocked off 
So now you’re getting peeved. 
 
How are you supposed to 
get a bulb from their lane four 
when all the ends of aisles 
are roped off from the floor? 
 
Go try to find a person 
who might be able to assist 
You can’t find even one of them 
You want to scream but you resist. 

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s  table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature. Will you choose “the poem squash?” or perhaps “grocery weeping” or “the blue socks”? If none of the 60 rather wonderful chapter titles here inspire you, perhaps a chapter title from a favorite book would do? 

My Hippo Girl: Chapter 9 “Naming Wild Hippo”

Do you see my hippo girl?
She’s really smart and sweet
I have to find a name before
miss hippo and I do meet.

I look at hippo’s body,
her teeth inside her jaws
Do people call those toenails
or do they call them claws?

Her eyes rest upon her head
and peek out of the sea
Is she looking for something
or looking just for me?

She isn’t really ugly
nor is she kind of cute
Will she be a noisy one
or will she be quite mute?

I guess I have to wait then
until I know her well
She’s not the smallest creature
as anyone can tell.

So I will wait to know her
and name her when I do
For now she is a stranger
and I really have no clue.

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

Because it’s Friday, today I’d like you to relax with the rather silly form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each line should be short, and should aim to have two or three stressed syllables. And the lines should rhyme.

Broken Date

Once upon a time 
there was a violent crime 
where someone stole a lime 
and threw it at a mime 
It happened in the street 
right there at my feet 
With a guy I meant to meet 
for dinner and a treat 
but before when the cops came 
they thought I was to blame 
It made me feel such shame 
to give them my real name 
so now I sit alone 
no one blowing up my phone 
I can hear my tummy groan 
My dinner date was blown. 

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

Today’s prompt comes to us from Juan Martinez. It asks you to think about a small habit you picked up from one of your parents, and then to write a piece that explores an early memory of your parent engaged in that habit, before shifting into writing about yourself engaging in the same habit.

Mother, turn the television up
that is how high it can go?
I hear the scratch of the nail
on the callused skin, not scratching for purpose
just a simple response
to sitting legs to the side, crossed ankles
paying attention to the movement
of the toe against the sole
except forty years later
watching television, turn the volume down
what is that scratching?
My foot does not need it
but my nail finds skin with a small callus
to make a scratching noise
like a memory

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

This prompt challenges you to write a poem using at least one word/concept/idea from each of two specialty dictionaries: Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary and the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. A hat tip to Cathy Park Hong for a tweet that pointed me to the science fiction dictionary and to Hoa Nguyen for introducing me to the Classical Dictionary.

dionysias
congoer

Upon the wall the congoer stands
waiting to jump in the dionysias
looking for a coin
to purchase a text
upon entering the large auditorium

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

This is a twist on a prompt offered by Kay Gabriel during a meeting she facilitated at the Poetry Project last year. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters. The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person. The second part should be the letter you receive in response. 

To Me, From Me

Hello myself, I say to thee,
in a  letter I write  to me.
I’d like to say you are okay 
I think you ought to stay this way. 
You work real hard and care so much 
using all your time and such 
and so I’d like to say  today 
that you can take a break to play 
play with words, play  with sound 
Notice things that are all around 
Write them up, Spit them out 
Now that is what I’m talking about! 

Hello to you, it’s me you know 
I think you’ve got a point to show. 
You care for others and your dad 
making him happy  makes you glad.
But don’t forget to care for you 
And one more thing before you do 
Think of all the people near 
who love you and will hold you  dear. 

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021

Find the information here: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-9/

It’s called “Junk Drawer Song,” and comes to us from the poet Hoa Nguyen

I didn’t follow the prompt exactly as I don’t have a junk drawer anymore. I have dumped all the junk as I get prepared to put my house on the market. So…Here is my junk drawer poem…

My Junk Drawer

Open it up and you will see

All the junk belonging to me

There are clips and pins

Bands and pads

Some random old screws

And a few crafty brads

A few short pencils

And a black dried up pen

A stamp from that letter

I got way back when

A tack from my corkboard

A bit of tack too

You know what I mean

The gum that is blue.

With all of this junk

I could open a store

Come in we’re open

Just open my drawer.

©2021 CBialczak Poetry
NaPoWriMo 2021