Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem about something that returns.”
Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a praise poem. Praise your health or the taste of chocolate cake. Pen an ode to normalcy (whatever that is) or expound on the wonders of your favorite pen (for me, it’s either the Pilot G-2 or Pilot Precise V5). Have a favorite song? A favorite saying? Today is a perfect day to sing its praises.”
I'd like to take a moment to thank Maureen Thorson and Robert Lee Brewer for the years they've both provided prompts in April. Here's praise to you both, and of course you and we will all return next April!
Today my last poem is a triolet with the requisite 8-syllable lines. A little cheating with the refrains, though, if I may. Just a hopeful little ditty merging both the prompts. Enjoy!
Looking Forward to
the Good Old Days
O let us praise our previous lives:
everything was sweet and normal.
Endless pizza in lockdown gives
us cause to praise our previous lives
when we could eat in seedy dives!
Shall we meet again, informal?
May we soon praise our future lives
with all again sweet and normal.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
And here is Alan's last poem for the month. It's been glorious, Alan!
Flapper
Who in the night has not heard
the high-pitched whine like sweet strings
backing a Glen Campbell song
about some frozen phone lines
as the lineman makes his run,
especially after one’s
bed companion wakes them up
and makes them check the toilet,
finding in the tank the flapper
off kilter on the flush valve?
Oh, flapper, first of the joys
of home ownership, the first
plumbing job one does oneself,
to replace you by yet one more
in a series of others,
all guaranteed to shut off
the seal, to conserve water,
to keep the toilet silent,
hear my praise! What have you taught
so many like me but to look
in the tank and find plastic
objects: weird toys for STEM kids,
some like Mouse Trap game pieces,
some like junkie cousins’ works,
some like medical gadgets
best left as strange mysteries.
You teach us priorities.
You teach us it is better
to reach into the icy cold
and move a rubbery disc
half a centimeter—so!—
and hope the next flush lands square
than to lie awake and wait
for some silence that may not
happen at all. You teach us
that hard water will make even
a pliable object stiff
and unyielding. You teach us
what the plumber will tell us
when there’s a genuine need
for a plumber: not to put
any chemicals where they
might deteriorate works
in the tank. Only water
in there, guys, and it will last.
The tank, therefore, serves for us
as analogy of mind.
The flapper is the tank’s tongue,
relaying cleansing content
of the mind but shutting up
when it is time to refresh.
Praise to you, Fluidmaster,
Korky, Kohler, and Toto,
praise to the chains you come with,
praise to your universal
fit, no matter your design.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope it was a great National Poetry Month for you! See you here next year!
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