Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 104

Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo and PAD. I think it was a great month for both Alan and me, with regard to the poems we wrote. I, for one, am glad to have written so many poems in my favorite poetic form, the curtal sonnet. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem that . . . describes different times in which you’ve heard the same band or piece of music across your lifetime.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a remix poem. That is, take one of your poems (or several of your poems) from earlier this month and remix it. You could make a free verse poem read like a triolet or haiku. Or you could pick six words from a poem and make them the end words in a sestina. Heck, take an image from one of your poems, make it the title of your new poem, and then, write your poem. There are any number of ways to remix a poem.” My poem today mixes both prompts to finish the month with a flourish. I'm particularly happy with how I got the third rhyme — hyphenated! — in this curtal sonnet, my tenth this month! Chicago Remix In two poems this fine April, I mention Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4.” I really love Chicago Transit Auth- ority’s debut album — what a fun trip! Early Chicago was one hardcore rock band, for sure. Lead guitar Terry Kath, said Jimi Hendrix, played guitar better than him! In “25 or 6 to 4,” scorching lead solos — fuzz and wah — are proof! That man sure could play one mean, mean guitar.                                                   Rock on, Terry Kath! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Video: “Terry Kath and Chicago ‘25 or 6 to 4’ ’70 Tanglewood” Alan's poem today is a remix of his poem on Willie Nelson yesterday. That makes this poem Alan's own "Angel Dream No. 2"! And, as usual, the poem is a mix of the day's two prompts. Angel Dream On a recent Tom Petty tribute album, Willie Nelson’s son augments his dad’s vocals to add texture and strength to Willie’s distinctive phrasing of Tom Petty’s lyrics. “Angel Dream No. 2” has its name because on the She’s the One soundtrack album, recorded during the Wildflowers sessions, the other version, “No. 4,” has a slap bass sound like on a Buddy Holly record. Petty loved the Byrds, backed up Dylan and Cash, duetted with Stevie, and Willie, like Emmylou, finds songs from everywhere and takes care of them like a friend who borrows your favorite book, never breaks the spine, never dogears a page, but reads your favorite passage to you so that when you subvocalize it later, you can still hear them reading along, too. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Video: “Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson - Angel Dream (No. 2)” Well, congratulations to us, Alan and me. We made it, buddy! It's really fitting that, since you and I are both poet-musicians, our final poems this month both have to do with music. Do it again next year? And, dear readers, see you again next year too! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 29 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 103

Well, it's the second-to-last day of April poeming. Hoping to get another curtal sonnet today. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “It's time for the fifth (and final) Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a ‘near the end’ poem, and/or . . . 2) Write a ‘near the beginning’ poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that takes its inspiration from the life of a musician, poet, or other artist.” Fortunately, I was successful in writing a curtal sonnet today, merging all three prompts. Front Man Renewed —a curtal sonnet When Freddie Mercury announced his AIDS diagnosis, he must have felt he was near the end. He passed away the next thing almost, it seemed. He thought that having AIDS had a stigma, and Freddie must have guessed being gay was the same. It was singing that was his saving grace, his bright glory. I hope at the end a brilliant sunrise blazed in Freddie’s mind’s eye, the final thing to turn life back to singing, his story                                     back near the beginning. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Freddie Mercury (1986) Alan's poem today hits all three prompts brilliantly, without using the phrases "near the beginning" or "near the end." Willie Early on, you wrote of night life, how time slips away, wanting walls for company in crazy heartbreak, and last year, you covered “Angel Dream No. 2,” blessing us with a Tom Petty song seeming made for your voice, as if any song were not made for your voice. You possess them. You refused to play Nashville’s game, outlaw, artist, archivist, shaman, showman, activist, the last highwayman, how traditional country has evolved while commercial country chases any airplay it can get. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Willie Nelson at 90 (2023) I love Alan's soundplay and wordplay with "shaman, showman." Some magical work, there! Also, today is Willie Nelson's birthday . . . he's 92. What a great birthday poem, Alan! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 102

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Music features heavily in human rituals and celebrations. We play music at parties; we play it in parades, and at weddings. . . . Today, we challenge you to write a poem that involves music at a ceremony or event of some kind.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a color poem. The poem could be about a color, mention a color, or be somewhat "colorful." Of course, the title of the poem could be a color (or include a color) and then not mention colors in the poem at all. So there's a lot of wiggle room with this prompt.” Another curtal sonnet for the books — #7 this month — merging the prompts as usual. I hope you enjoy this poem, dedicated to a good friend. Synesthesia —for Lisa March Dunlevy My friend, when she hears music, sees colors. I wonder what that’s like. I imagine myself in a concert hall, listening to Santana: “Soul Sacrifice” in flares of rainbow — cerulean, vermilion, saffron, silver and gold flashes — filling the air. Lis is a glorious singer and guitarist herself . . . when she is on stage, are clouds of color celebrating? Teal guitar chords lighting up her fingers?                           Indigo voice blending? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Lis March Dunlevy (photo by Renee Wilkie) Here's Alan's poem today, also merging the prompts as usual. A sad and funny story. Bravo! Blue Funeral One of the other English majors when I was pretty eager for graduation told me that her family made her biggest wish come true by sending her to college even though she was not well. I didn’t understand her at first—it did not occur to me just how sick she was until about fall break, and then she came back from Thanksgiving even weaker. Once, exams about done, she asked me to put together a mixtape to play during her viewing. “Only songs titled ‘Blue’ or ‘Blue Something,’ or ‘Something Blue,’” she said. “Any kind, country, punk, new wave, you get to choose.” I borrowed so many discs for the next few weeks, I had to keep a running tally, and I finally came up with a practice mix. I gave it to her to preview it, and she brought it back because Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” wasn’t on it. “It’s my mom’s favorite,” she said. That March, when the quad on campus glowed yellow from the oak pollen, her mother called me, invited me to come. What I most want to remember is how folks, all teary, figured out her last prank and waited for song after song, laughing, groaning, singing a bit of snatched line. But what I remember most is how her dad laughed hard when he asked me if Terry told me to put “Blue Christmas” on the tape. “Her mother fussed every time she played it. It’s family tradition.” —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 101

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[T]ake the phrase "New (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: 'New Moon,' 'New Car,' 'New Significant Other,' 'New World,' and/or 'New to This City.' And yes, it is totally fine to replace the word 'new"' with the word 'knew if that helps you get your poem out today!” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.” Here's my poem today, a curtal sonnet merging the two prompts . . . an ekphrastic poem again on yet one more Grant Wood painting. This is my sixth curtal sonnet this month. New Road, Chickens, a Horse after New Road by Grant Wood and “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden On country life, Grant Wood was never wrong. This painting shows a new crossroad cut in the old land, green and wooded. A farmstead sits right on the new corner, a small throng of chickens and a little white horse stand undisturbed by the novel, modern road. If Icarus were to fall out of the sky with his newfangled wax wings and crashland on the crossroad, would horse and chickens note something amazing had just occurred? Why,                                           they’d never raise a head. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Grant Wood, New Road (1939) Alan's poem today also involves Icarus, as we cover similar ground with two very different poems. Also, Alan is mashing up both prompts. A New Look at Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus In “Literary Explorations,” again I look at Bruegel’s Fall of Icarus, but this time, I’m assigned to a new classroom— it’s in the business department building— and a smartboard as tall as me displays the painting big as life in ways I’ve never seen it before, how the colors lure in hues they never have in textbooks’ glossy signatures under fluorescent lights and incidental shadows of underclassmen penned in shoulder to shoulder. We are performing subversion, meta-appreciation of art in the university’s chapel of commerce, the ekphrastic poem and its subject, the artist and painter, and newly humbled me as I see how impossibly large Icarus’ leg is, larger than the red-capped figure sitting on the bank, making the harbored ship seem displaced and small, and I newly understand how the plowman’s focus on the folding field before him could keep his awe in check, how the shepherd could look skyward in the opposite direction of the faint splash, how business can be made distractingly beautiful as its directors select where light can fall upon it. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Pieter Breugel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1560) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 100

Can't believe we're hitting 100 poems in the Stafford Challenge today. I'm still on schedule and only 265 poems to go! Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Try your hand at a sonnet – or at least something 'sonnet-shaped.' Think about the concept of the sonnet as a song, and let the format of a song inform your attempt. Be as strict or not strict as you want.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a hermit crab poem [that] takes on the form of another type of literature. So a hermit crab poem might be a poem that looks like a to-do list, footnotes, obituary, spam messages, or a message on a postcard.” Today, I offer a Pushkin sonnet, which uses elements of the Shakespearean, Clarean (couplet), and Petrarchan forms, rhymed abab ccdd effe gg. The Pushkin sonnet form is very snooty about stressed and unstressed rhymes at particular points, which I'm ignoring, so that's where I'm being "not strict." Merging both prompts in a hermit crab poem that focuses on my sciatica health problem right now. Shopping List avocados, grapes egg noodles for lo mein crepes cool, hip cane gabapentin tizanidine Tylenol extra strength Tylenol! physical therapy Mayo visit epidural shot surgery? goal: pain relief sciatica-free life —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's the "cool, hip cane" I got from — can you believe it? — Ace Hardware! Here's Alan's poem today, also a Pushkin sonnet in iambic pentameter. Bravo! I hope you feel better soon. Checkup Interview I have the April crud, my head’s on fire, my chest feels full of cotton fluff, I cough but never quite enough, and I perspire like marathoners in July. I’m off my feed, Doc, too—now just a whiff of food can make my insides turn, and that’s not good. No ma’am, I don’t smoke any cigarettes, and I don’t drink a bit—no vice regrets, the ones the state can tax or otherwise— it’s just the job. I feel as if I’m trapped. I push for weeks, and energy gets sapped away for stupid reasons. I despise the insincerity of social “thanks” that land as true as stage magician blanks. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 25 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 99

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a memory poem. This is one of my favorite prompts, because all writers can take a moment to dig through their own personal memories to find a moment (or several moments) to remember and write. The memory could be from your childhood, a year ago, a month ago, or even from earlier this week.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem that recounts an experience of your own in hearing live music, and tells how it moves you. It could be a Rolling Stones concert, your little sister’s middle school musical, or just someone whistling – it just needs to be something meaningful to you.” Today I offer a curtal sonnet mashing up the two prompts. Earth, Wind & Fire / Chicago / and You —for Renee Your eyes twinkled in the half dark before Earth, Wind & Fire exploded into light, their sharp R&B swinging us back to bellbottoms and platform shoes. And then more: Chicago’s kickass rock lit up the night. Mellow horns and brilliant guitar breaks blew fireworks in the theater. Remember when both bands took the stage together? Right to "25 or 6 to 4" — bright brew, magic stew. Best part of that memory,             though . . . I was with you. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Chicago and Earth. Wind & Fire have been touring together for years. It was 10 years ago that my son Marty and I saw that double bill in Indiana. And then last year in Minneapolis, my partner Renee and I saw the two bands together. Always a great show. Something I noticed, as a bass player: when both bands are on stage together, only one bassist is playing in any song — either EWF's Verdine White or Chicago's Jason Scheff in 2015 and Eric Baines in 2024. And sometimes the bassist at any point is playing the other band's song, like in 2024, when we saw Verdine White playing bass on "25 or 6 to 4." Members of Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago on stage together in 2016. (The Wichita Eagle) Alan's poem fulfills both prompts with a heartwarming story. Tuesday Evening, Yee Haw Brewery, We Watch While We Play The first time that I joined the jam, my choice I made while taking ethnomusicology and wanting to do more than just observe, to be a part, commitment to a group, he was not there, but they all spoke of “Doc,” affectionately “Doc,” who was accused of slipping maybe once a third when he competed in two-finger rounds, denied with near profane expostulations once I got to meet him, what a banjo man, and what a life of stories that he told— I instantly liked him, generous and sly and good the way some folks still manage good. A younger man, he played all over, played with famous folks before they made a name, and taught some players getting started here in bits of Appalachia that we love. I can’t remember when I met him first. It’s been some years. I don’t remember when, but I remember how it feels when our small circle can be close or might expand to welcome who might come and play with us. He plays guitar far more than banjo now. Of late, we watch as much as listen, ask him how he is with earnest care, and hope that he will play again this week. He can’t stay with us quite as long as he once could, an hour's worth, at most, and then heads home. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 24 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 98

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a time of day poem. You can pick a specific time of day (like the songs "3 A.M. Eternal," by The KLF, or "12:51," by The Strokes), or it can be a more generalized thing (like "early morning" or "lunch time" or whatever). Snack time is one of my favorite times of day, for sure. (And don't forget poeming time!)” Today, I'm fulfilling both prompts with a tanka, untitled, of course. The prompts came in here about 11:00pm last night — midnight, I think, in the time zone where both Maureen and Robert happen to be. I was still up and had written a decent draft by about 12:05am (in the wee hours of this morning) and then finished the poem today. Several times of day in this one. The Bangles sang, “Six o’clock already,” like I do. I wake each morning at 6, take pain meds. Then again at 12, 2, 6, 10, and 12. Just to make it through one more day. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The lyric "Six o'clock already" starts off the song "Manic Monday" by The Bangles (1986), composed by Prince. One of my favorites of The Bangles' songs. Here's a video of them performing the song live in 2011, twenty-five years later. Friends, Alan has "gone rogue" today, meaning he's not working from the day's prompts but instead going with a theme of his own, dealing with the James Weldon Johnson novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. UPDATE: I had misunderstood how Alan was working with the prompts today. He was working with the music prompt and not going rogue. So sorry, Alan! Playing by Ear As a youth, the Ex-Coloured Man in Johnson’s novel learns by ear to play piano, the one his white father gives him when he perceives value his blood has granted the son he has sired by his black mistress. Later reading notes under duress but even then inventing improvisations, later and in love he became entrapped within measured bars while accompanying a girl who could not improvise with his young virtuosity. We think of love as liberating until we have fallen into it. Let it extend us as far as it can, the tie holds, a securing tether, each path becomes reconnaissance and each echoed misstep resonates. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Incidentally, I got some cool poetry news recently. My book Dragons & Rayguns has been nominated for the Elgin Award from the SFPA (the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association) for best speculative poetry book published in the last two years. Wish me luck! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 23 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 97

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Humans might be the only species to compose music, but we’re quite famously not the only ones to make it. Birdsong is all around us – even in cities, there are sparrows chirping, starlings making a racket. And it’s hardly surprising that birdsong has inspired poets. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that focuses on birdsong.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a book poem. Today is World Book Day, which may be one of my favorite holidays moving forward, because I love books. Your poem could be inspired by a book, an author, a character, a scene, and/or however you'd like to come at this one. Heck, write about a bookstore, library, card catalogue, or any other bookish thing you can imagine.” Merged both prompts again . . . I found a fun way to use "birdsong" in an unexpected way (I think) and just barely got a "book" reference in. The poem is a shadorma (a Spanish poetic form with these syllabics in six lines: 3/5/3/3/7/5), a tough, very tight form. Cindy Birdsong was kidnapped, while in the Supremes, at gunpoint. She dove out of the car on a freeway. Like a book hero! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here are the Supremes in 1967. Cindy Birdsong is on the right. And here is Alan's birdsong poem today. Today’s Poetry Prompts Make Me Think about A. P. Carter, so I Wrote an Anti-Capitalist Poem Flipping Off the Music Industry Nature’s songcatcher— hear the mockingbird imitate phrases not claimed as its own, love songs from other birds, as trees break blossom in morning twilight. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 22 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 96

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “It's time for the fourth (but not final) Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a tell me poem, and/or . . . 2) Write a don't tell me poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem about something you’ve done – whether it’s music lessons, or playing soccer, crocheting, or fishing, or learning how to change a tire – that gave you . . . satisfaction, and perhaps still does.” Merged all three prompts, as usual. My Guitar Journey You can’t tell me there’s anything that’s done more for me as a lover of beauty than learn to play guitar starting at eleven. I took lessons for maybe a year, from a teacher who wanted me to learn to read music. I didn’t want that ’cause I wanted to learn songs, not plink, plink, buzz. My best friend Pete and I started teaching ourselves, and the first song we learned together started, “Shady side of sunny mountain,” in E minor: a folk ballad titled “Julianne” by The New Christy Minstrels (1963). From there I moved to the Beatles, the Animals, the Beach Boys. Then parsed lead guitar breaks on records I wore out, like “Louie Louie” by both the Kingsmen AND Paul Revere and the Raiders. What an iconic song! Then Quicksilver, esp. the great instrumental “Gold and Silver,” where I learned, note for note, the lead guitar parts, not knowing I was emulating two excellent guitarists: Gary Duncan and the incomparable John Cipollina. Then Jimi Hendrix (“Fire”), Carlos Santana (“Evil Ways”), Terry Kath of Chicago (“25 or 6 to 4”), Eric Clapton of Cream (“Sunshine of Your Love”). Even a bit of jazz: Wes Montgomery’s “Bumpin’ on Sunset,” with those amazing octave leads, and George Benson’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Twenty years on, I picked up the bass and now I’m the bassist of the band Deja Blue. Friends, don’t tell me it hasn’t been a good life, ‘cause it’s been a lovely trip on the strings. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Three of my axes, going back to 1969. Here is Alan's poem, merging prompts as well. Don’t Tell Me about Music Lessons because the biggest lessons I learned early came from a cousin who worked as the school system band director who did some prep training for fifth graders before they went to junior high school, and I was learning alto sax and did practice every day, and one day, he said in front of everybody, “If you can play this solo, I will give you all the change in my pocket,” and I played it, he said “Good,” and he reached into his pocket to find that he had far more change than he intended to give anybody, and he muttered “too much” loud enough for us to hear him, and he gave me a quarter. I learned that day that blood ties mean nothing to some people, that some “teachers” don’t think children matter enough to keep from lying in front of them, and that there would have to be a difference between respecting someone and treating that person respectfully. I haven’t forgotten. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] For shame, for shame! And a cousin too. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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