Day 5 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 79

Hello again, friends! Today's poem for Day 5 is #79 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #444, including the count from last year). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, your challenge is to . . . write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a safety poem.” In his poem today, Alan is writing about things happening at the university where he works. He is merging the two prompts. Missing the Urinal I do not mean the way you think I mean. The renovations to our building made it necessary to convert our johns to gender-free, essentially to build small rooms, a toilet in each one, the sinks in common space outside. I don’t pretend the state considered privacy for folks who are nonbinary or trans to be the reason for this change. The cost to build additional facilities on each floor of the building was too much to spend. It was not safety first. Some of the men— I’m at a university, so I apply that term with reservation—piss without concern. They leave seats down. They don’t wipe up; I doubt some even aim at all. In men’s rooms, urinals are kept in view to keep such disregard in check, but this much privacy lets careless men behave like privileged boys who have someone they don’t acknowledge follow close behind to clean up after them like every mess of every type they’ve ever, ever made. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] https://cuningham.com/2018/06/25/all-inclusive-restrooms. I recently learned about a poetic form, the ZipOde — five lines where the number of words in each line matches the corresponding digit in one's zip code. If there's a zero, the matching line can contain an emoji or a symbol or a number of words (1-9). My zip code is 50701 and you'll see below how I handle the two zeroes. Here are the instructions for writing ZipOdes: https://omiami.org/pages/zip-odes. There, you'll see how to handle postal codes that have letters. Again, I'm merging both prompts in my poem. ICE             —ZipOde from 50701 Supposedly working for our safety . . . zero truth there. Gotta dislike — no, despise — ICE . . . zero accountability. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for reading our poems, folks. Come back tomorrow and see how Alan and I handle the prompts, especially when we merge them. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ