Day 22 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 96

Hey hey, friends! My poem today is #96 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #461, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: Write a “poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with him or herself.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a natural poem.” Another successful day combining the prompts. My "natural" element is Mother Nature herself. Mother Nature Talks to Herself             —tanka sequence I was out swirling my ocean water, whistling a tune, enjoying the lofting blue of my sky when I saw the three red chutes like pockmarks dangling their Artemis II capsule. Said “Damn!” to myself. “Goddess Me, I thought for sure humans were all leaving soon.” —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Artemis II landing (Photo Source) Today, Alan is combining both prompts as well — with a speaker in conversation with one of their own body parts, and hence nature. The Intermediate Phalange of My Left Index Finger Tells Me to Take It Easy I mean, it might be the intermediate phalange of my left index finger. It might be the flexor digitorum profundus tendon or the flexor digitorum superficialis tendon. for all I know, it could be the proximal interphalangeal joint. It just speaks up, not like my right wrist when I’ve been at the keyboard for hours, demanding to be kept still, not to be pressed against the edge of a desk, not to have nerves twinging through it, but murmuring a soft complaint, “How can you go for days without playing guitar and then think playing for two and a half hours straight would be a good idea?” “Do you really need to press the ‘F’ key that many times? You’ve almost worn the letter off! What the hell is going on? Are all your students failing?” “Who all are you beckoning? Can’t you just bring yourself to say, ‘Come here?’” —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for visiting the blog. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 21 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 95

Greetings once more, friends! My poem today is #95 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #460, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: Write a “poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given or, if you like, the name and nicknames for an animal, plant, or place.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For the third Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a high poem, and/or . . . 2) Write an low poem.” I've been successful this month in consistently combining the prompts. Done again today, with all three prompts. Also, I'm writing today in the haibun form — a Japanese poetic form with a prose paragraph and a haiku together. Nicknames High and Low             —haibun In fifth grade, my classmate Steven Pasquale called me “The Goat,” a pun on my family name, and that nickname stuck for a year, with other classmates also calling me that. Thank goodness it went away. Thirty or forty years later, there was a high point for that nickname when people started referring to the GOAT as an acronym for “greatest of all time,” applied often to Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali. But there was no such high point when we were in fifth grade. Steven also made up another nickname: “Gotera Paper” (that is, “go tear a paper,” like in the bathroom). That was a low point that only stuck around for a day or two, again thank goodness. If I had been sharper, I could have struck back with a nickname for Steven like “Piss Quality.” I wonder where Steven is these days — never too late, even sixty years on.                         Friends called me “The Goat”                         when we were ten. They were right —                         “greatest of all time”! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Mountain Goat (Photo Source) Today, Alan is also combining both prompts — this poem is about the radio biz, especially stage names for radio personalities. These Are the Pros and Cons of Broadcasting In Tuscaloosa, two guys in the dorm room right next door “studied” media, the jock who couldn’t walk on baseball half-assing his sports writing, not being telegenic, and a radio DJ, another aspiring Rush. In those days, local stations weren’t all syndicated yet, and one learned cultivating personality alone, unless a car wash opened or a B-side musician headlined a Shriners potluck. I won’t name these two—the sports guy’s byline runs locally, but barely; the DJ’s name on air is still “Steve Shannon,” a common DJ handle in the Ronald Reagan years, but this one once ridiculed a local public figure, already troubled, until he threw himself—overpass, oncoming traffic, morning rush hour—Steve Shannon changed his name and took graveyard shifts at a small sister station until notoriety faded and he could resume being Steve Shannon on air at a charity bazaar or some rural high school dance, introducing the prom queens whose names remain in gossip scrawled on yearbook endpapers. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Okay, we're three weeks down. Thanks for coming by the blog. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 20 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 94

Hello, friends! My poem today is #94 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #459, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “For today, try writing your own poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life. Include one spoken phrase.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a ‘No ___’ poem.” Once again, I am combining the prompts. No More Dragons? No.             —curtal sonnet Today’s prompt for a mythic animal probably made you think that I would write a ditty on the almighty dragon. After all, I wear dragon apparel daily! I composed one hundred and eight dragon poems last year! Shall we dragon? Or is it, drag on? I read a poem today with the metaphor “dragon’s breath” for war. So folks still need to know dragons, at least in Asia, are wise, kind, esteemed.                                   “Dragon dragon dragon!” —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon By the way, the "one spoken phrase" required by the NaPoWriMo prompt was fulfilled by the last line of this poem, "Dragon dragon dragon," and this happens to be a quotation of the last line of my poem "Sestina: Dragon," which appeared in my most recent book Dragons & Rayguns and originally appeared in the blog during April 2014. Just a fun little detail. Today, Alan is combining both prompts as well, but with several animals. No Innocence I have taken many lives, but none on purpose. 1. Hundreds, maybe thousands of insects before the depletion of the biomass, especially as I frequented interstates and rural two-lanes, especially during an early-season road trip back from Jacksonville so that as I drove through South Carolina, the worse of the Carolinas, I encountered a plague-like cloud of love bugs whose remains splattered the hood, grill, bumper, and windshield of the state car I was driving to the degree I felt concerned I would lose access to the motor fleet for the rest of my career, and 2. Random birds, no more than ten, usually songbirds flying too low and colliding with me (again in cars) so that they caromed off the windshield, presumably dead from the impact, except the one undoubtedly dead and slightly integrated into the central grill of a 1972 Ford LTD, and then, a few years ago, a duck that just plopped down on the State of Franklin Road while Thomas Crofts, medievalist, was riding with me to get Mexican food, prompting him to say, “¡Chingada Madre!” a term we sometimes hear from language students in our department but never any Mexican folks we know, and 3. No turtles, because they are too easy to miss, and a good guy will hit a turtle only by accident, and I have been spared, and 4. No dogs, although I have been known on familiar streets to slow down so a particular dog can catch me, only to see how confused he gets afterward, but 5. Sad to say, about ten assorted other small mammals, absolutely never on purpose, always the ones that dart heedlessly into the street, prompting me to swerve in what I afterwards attempt to persuade myself has been a successful maneuver to miss them, even if I hear a thump under the floorboard, and I swear never again to look in the rearview mirror immediately afterward, I swear. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Amazing details again today, Alan. With regard to swerving (in this poem's section 5), remember William Stafford's warning and advice about roads and animals, “to swerve might make more dead,” from his poem “Traveling Through the Dark.” It's okay, maybe better, not to swerve. (Incidentally, friends, check out that Stafford poem . . . it's my favorite of all his poems.) Thanks for coming by the blog today. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 19 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 93

Greetings, friends! My poem today is #93 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #458, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, pick a flower or two (or a whole bouquet, if you like) from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers. Now, write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a family poem.” As usual, I am combining the prompts. The Greenaway connection is revealed within the poem. My Mother's Sampaquita             —curtal sonnet Mom’s favorite flower: sampaguita, national flower of the Philippines, known in horticulture as Jasminum sambac. Its name comes from “sumpa kita,” Tagalog phrase for lovers, “I promise you.” Called Arabian or Indian Jasmine, in Kate Greenaway’s book Language of Flowers, this climbing vine’s blossom means “I attach myself to you.” This sweet bloom, white stars of fragrance, I always attach                                     to you, my sweet Mom. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Source: https://findingutopiabykgmresorts.com /p/sampaguita-the-philippine-national-flower Today, Alan is working with the Language of Flowers prompt. His plant is the Judas Tree and the significance is "Unbelief. Betrayal." Redbud (Sometimes Called “Judas Tree”) The on-air name ages like cheap mirrors whose aluminum alloy corrodes and flakes from its back, the decay like the CD rot of a later technology, the lack of care to preserve integrity over time. A man’s pompadour does not misdirect scorn from the man. The scent of a mouth pursed with peppermint does not mask the imagined scent of seeping bandage glimpsed below an untucked shirttail, metallic raw pork savor of uneven stitches. Eddie McAnnally’s connection attempted to introduce himself into WXXR during my graveyard shift. It was not his pompadour that pissed me off, but the realization that I was alone, and people for miles around knew it and knew where I was, hubbing it for minimum wage, hardly gas money, holding down a DJ job in case I ever needed another one, keeping my options open in case I ever needed a real job if the English thing didn’t work out. Eddie Mac would call me “Professor” on the air before I’d earned my bachelor’s degree, and he expected me to accommodate his bookie friend. No one trusts barbershop hair tonic fragrance to mask the scent of desperate vulnerability to chance. The Professor brooked no horseshit, and will have walked away from fandom, pep rallies, congregations, and blood ties, Daedalian affiliations, flying nets, no more, forever. Táim i mo shagart. The door shut him out. The bolt locked him out, like the denial I still feel when turning aside the mostly fastidious gambler who relied on Eddie Mac to admit him after hours to read the most current scores from the Associated Press teletype, information the next morning’s newspapers would offer, the whites of his watery eyes as lustrous as the streetlight’s reflection from the pearlescent saddle of his Lincoln Continental’s landau roof. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Amazing details, Alan. I especially savor the allusion to James Joyce's Ulysses. I mentioned yesterday that we've been at a poetry festival — Poetry Palooza — this weekend. While at the festival we have been visiting with our friend Neta Updegraff in Des Moines, who graciously offered us her guest room. When I happened to mention the Greenaway prompt last night in conversation, Neta said, "I have that book!" And there it was: The Language of Flowers! It was interesting to actually hold the book and not just see it online. If you looked at the online version, you'll see that this is a different edition, with different illustrations. Here are some photos of Neta's book, which she had received as a gift from her sister in years past. First, the front cover . . . quite a small book in the hand, as you can see. Then, pics of the dust jacket inside text (front flap and back flap), which give some fascinating background on how the book came to be. Following are a couple of sample pages. Finally, the intro page, with an inscription from a "Father" to a "Mother" — originally an anniversary gift from 1913 — with a sweet dedication in verse. Very interesting. No mention of Kate Greenaway, who must have put together and illustrated a larger edition later than the original book of which this is a facsimile. Here is the text of the dedication page, since some young people now are not able to read cursive. This is written in a lovely hand. To Mother. Wishing you many happy returns of the day. from Father. August 8th 1913 There is a language, “little known”, Lovers claim it as their own. Its symbols smile upon the land, Wrought by Natures wondrous hand; And in their silent beauty speak, Of life and joy, to those who seek For Love Divine and sunny hours In the language of the flowers.                                         F. W. I. Thank you so much, Neta! A wonderful addendum to today's prompt and poems. Thanks for coming by the blog today. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 18 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 92

Howdy, friends! My poem today is #92 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #457, including the poem count from last year's Stafford Challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we don’t challenge you to write all of a long, dramatic, narrative poem, but we invite you to try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of one . . . with the plot of an opera.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a reconsideration poem.” Again, combining the prompts. My list of roles reconsidered is pretty true, though not necessarily in the order given. Reconsideration Opera             —curtal sonnet At five, I wanted to be a pirate. It was the eyepatch. But no, seasickness. Then I decided to be a spaceman. It was the jetpack. I reconsidered — spooky vacuum, pesky G-forces. I thought maybe a cowboy, a horseman, but when I saw a real horse — scary! Viking, scientist, and then guitarist ultimately when the Beatles came in. And now the bass. Till the Viking lady                     sings, the bass I’ll play on. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Today, Alan is also working with both prompts: a reconsideration of a certain translation of Beowulf. In Which I Insert a Vital Explanation for a Logical Omission in the Feast of Heorot Scene in Beowulf as Translated by Seamus Heaney                             The truth is clear: Almighty God rules over mankind and always has.                             And yet the mystery persists, how could a monster loathsome as the grave, pungent as the slaughterhouse, evade the guards to set himself among the weary warriors, and not be smelled? Spear-brothers lay as thick as kenneled puppies, snug and warm of bellies full, their guts protruding, gaseous gale of pork and ale expressed through windpipes’ belches, God-directed, or, more likely, tunneling through hell-path guts with sulfurous expulsion, one’s nearby kinsman sleepsealed of eyelid, saved from blindness, others, snoring mouth agape, to dream of Alison and think themselves in the wrong tale, one, too near the hearth, igniting farts that singed the fair flank fur from Pussgar, Hrothgar’s favored mouser, troubled dreams of demons, fires, and pitch which Christ alone could overcome.                             Then out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] An illustration of Grendel, the monster from Beowulf, by J R. Skelton (source) Beautifully done, Alan. Wonderful language. Thanks for coming by the blog today. I've been at a poetry festival — Poetry Palooza — for the last couple days so I'm posting this quite late. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ