I will race you to the moon
upon my flying carpet
around the speeding comet
toward the brightest star
where my heart can soar
where my mind can travel
where my love can be
eternal
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
I will race you to the moon
upon my flying carpet
around the speeding comet
toward the brightest star
where my heart can soar
where my mind can travel
where my love can be
eternal
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
I am from the NE US but have been living in the SE US. I cannot get used to the temperature difference. This was just my thoughts for the morning.
Have to get up/where is the robe
Not enough heat/I will adjust
Cannot take the cold/bones hurt
Shivers run through/cold hurts
Blood needs to warm/have to get up
Get used to it/it is not cold
Stay covered up/things to do
Turn up the heat/not fast enough
Have to get up/deal with the cold
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
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.
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?
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.
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.
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…
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