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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