Thanks / May the Fourth Be with You

Friends, a belated thank-you here. Many thanks to my poet buddy and blogger fellow Thomas Alan Holmes, for writing April poems with me all last month. You rock, dude. (Sorry this is so late. My partner Renee was in the hospital from Tuesday through Sunday (yesterday) and so I was distracted.) Everyone, if you're a Star Wars fan, you know that the 4th of May is a fun day because "May the Fourth be with you" is a pun on "May the Force be with you," a classic greeting in-universe. Here's a little poem connected to my Rod Con appearance recently. (Rod Con is an annual comic-con at Rod Library on the University of Northern Iowa campus, where I gave a reading from my book Dragons & Rayguns last month.) May the Fourth Be with You             —tanaga Three weeks ago at a Con Renee and I dressed as Han Solo and Tsuru, from One Piece. Ang araw at buwan. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Renee and I at Rod Con (April 2026) The tanaga is an ancient Filipino poetic form (7-7-7-7 syllables, rhymed AAAA, traditionally untitled but sometimes titled now). The Tagalog phrase in the poem is "The sun and the moon." I'm of Filipino ancestry so I was glad to learn of this form recently. It's a very small space to work in, especially because of the monorhyme. I wrote this poem as part of the Stafford Challenge, where hundreds of poets across the world are writing a poem a day. Today is day 108, so my 108th poem this year. This is my second time doing the challenge, so counting the poems from last year, this is poem #473. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 104

Greetings, everyone, for our last day in April! My poem today is #104 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #469, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a harvest poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: a “poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession (demons, firefighters, demonic firefighters) with [a] musing yet dispassionate tone." Combining both prompts successfully for the last time. Thank goodness I was able to complete the whole month combining all the prompts. Philippine Flying Dragons             —curtal sonnet Draco volans — famous flying dragons of Mindanao soar from tree to tree like nine-inch-long miniature pterodactyls. Male dragon flies down to a tree trunk and waits there for a line of red ants, then strikes! Harvest of insects, a nearby anthill’s bounty. Female dragon descends to earth and excavates a hole with her head like a shovel, lays five eggs, and then tamps soil back in. For one whole day, this mom will guard.                                           Flying dragons rule! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source And here is Alan's last poem for the month, combining both prompts in an unusual fashion once more. Baby Potatoes I stand confused in the produce section by baby potatoes. They suggest that some people have a sense of inexhaustible plenty, that it makes some sense to consume the young, the tender, the underdeveloped to suit appetites of those who cannot appreciate how fulfilling the maturely developed can be, how what will be gone in one or two bites could with patient and nurturing stewardship fill a hungry belly and provide for the next planting instead of appealing to privileged preference who expects always to have access to a gulped taste that never sates it, grabbing for more. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The notion of "harvest" is implied by the poem as a whole, and the tone achieves the dispassionate feeling suggested in the prompt. Thanks for coming by the blog all month, everyone. It's been fun poeming with Alan and, of course, with you. See you in April next year. Friends, today, 30 April 2026, is the last day of my two-year term as Poet Laureate of Iowa. It was a wonderful two years, traveling to different parts of Iowa and giving poetry readings, poetry workshops, and poetry lectures at colleges and universities, town libraries, bookstores, literary festivals like Poetry Palooza, churches, Rotary Clubs, the Iowa Veterans Home, various groups of literary lovers, and writers' groups. I had the privilege of being commissioned to write (and completing) the official sesquicentennial poem for the University of Northern Iowa's 150-year anniversary. I was also glad to be asked to write several ekphrastic poems on artworks on the Iowa State University campus as well as do a "Poetry Walk" visiting those artworks with an audience and reading those poems aloud there. Thanks to all the lovely audience members and event organizers. Best of luck to Paul Brooke, the incoming Poet Laureate starting on Mayday. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 29 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 103

Hello, everyone! My poem today is #103 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #468, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a pocket poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[C]ompare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind." Combining both prompts, as usual. I hope tomorrow I can finish the whole month combining all the prompts. My Pocket Poem Tomorrow is “Poem in Your Pocket Day.” The last pocket poem I wrote was 14 years ago. My life was so different then. I was married, but a couple of months from moving out. Like many Aprils before, I was also having bad hay fever . . . springtime, so much pollen in the air. Those days were notoriously unhappy. But today, thanks to allergy shots, I’m free from hay fever. More important, the biggest change of all is, I’ve met the love of my life. Renee and I have had a happy couple of years. Blissful years. That’s our sweet pocket! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And here is Alan's pocket poem, combining both prompts in an unusual fashion. The Watch Pocket Naive university freshman, grandparents’ first-generation student, living away from home for the first time, you decided to use a pocket watch your parents had given you for fun. It was louder than you realized, and, during an in-class examination, your professor said to put it away, and you wore a wristwatch from that time on. You flattened your nasal intonation by speaking from your chest almost like hums, and you made fewer one-syllable words shift tone and pitch midway through. I don’t know where that watch is now; when I get tired, though, that tone shift returns with a worn tenor, and my watch pocket holds two guitar picks, and I teach literature about the folks we learned to hold inside long years ago. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Don't you think that's actually a self-portrait? Very interesting way to fulfill the past-and-present life prompt. Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 102

Hello, everyone! My poem today is #102 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #467, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For the fourth and final Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a love poem, and/or . . . 2) Write an anti-love poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, try writing a poem [with] three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion." Combining all three prompts . . . a very small space to get all this in. True Love She to him: I love you and I don’t love you. He to her: is that true or is that not true? She to him: either/or; He to her: both/and. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan very successfully combined all three prompts. Bravo! The Haters Want Us to Love Them They bought a warehouse, replacing goods with people. See how a bully calls foul when he's called "bully"? He insists on love when all we want is justice. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 101

Greetings, friends! My poem today is #101 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #466, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a fan poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: write a “poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind." Combining prompts again ... had good luck with that this month so far. Rhymed couplets and some mentions of "fan." Adventures in Dentistry I walked into the dentist’s office this morning with no ideas about today’s poem. None brewing, even simmering slightly. As the hygienist was scaling — scrape scrape — I began to realize I have more than a few stories about dentistry. (How do you rhyme that? Palmistry? Fancy-free?) When I was in the Army, I was in the dentist’s chair and went “Ow!” while he was drilling. With a glare he growled, “If it hurts that much, I’ll just pull it.” I gotta say, I didn’t make any more noise. Just took it. Not a fan of that chairside manner. When they pulled my wisdom teeth, they gave me IV Valium. The oral surgeon was doing whatever (I wasn’t knocked out) with all sorts of crunching, grinding, and other loud sounds, but I couldn’t care. I was floating somewhere near the ceiling, a peaceful summer cloud, not a care in the world. At some point, he said, “Okay, you are done.” I remember being baffled. “Did you do something?” When I was three or four, my dad took me with him to the dentist for whatever odd reason, and I ended up having to sit in the treatment room while the dentist was pulling a tooth. He couldn’t extract it and actually put his foot on my dad’s chest! That’s my nightmare memory about visiting the dentist. A lovely memory about dentists centers on a hygienist, actually. In my late 20s, after an appointment, I asked the hygienist out and she said yes. Paula, rodeo rider, art history major in college. She became my girlfriend, and I recall wondering how someone could fall for a patient after scaling their teeth! Still a fan of Paula, a beautiful redhead. So what’s the moral of this long poem? Next time you’re in the dentist chair, don’t obsess on the scraping and whirring. Just let your mind drift over everything! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Alan's poem takes on the perspective of an English professor reading student essays; there's a mention of characters from James Joyce's short story "The Dead." The Five-Paragraph Essay Must Die These twenty-somethings enrolled in any upper-division literature class should all know better than to follow that familiar pattern of tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them. Well, now, God damn it, Gabriel Conroy has just realized his wife, Gretta, has not loved him as much as a youth she’s known as a girl, who’s died in part of knowing he will not live hers. But these enrollees submit chickenshit formulaic gobs of labels, Goddamned generalities, and dead, cold, safe hearts. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan is combining both prompts here: the fan aspect is covered by the speaker not being a fan, quite strongly, of the five-paragraph essay; the NaPoWriMo prompt is satisfied by the poem being in quintains, so that all the stanzas have the same number of lines: five. And clearly the poem is instructional in an entertaining fashion. It's also quite clever that the poem rails against the five-paragraph essay format but uses five-line stanzas. Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 100

Hello, friends! My poem today is #100 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #465, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). So that's 100 poems since January 17, William Stafford's birthday. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, take the phrase 'Last (blank),' replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write your own ars poetica, giving the reader some insight into what keeps you writing poetry, or what you think poetry should do.” The term "ars poetica" is Latin for "the art of poetry." Combining prompts as usual. A little background: my term as Iowa Poet Laureate is ending on April 30. It has been a great run. The Last Ars Poetica             —curtal sonnet At least my last as Poet Laureate of Iowa. My main message has been to champion light poetry. Often poets can look down upon, denigrate light poetry as weak, something to shun. As if somehow, it’s not good to have fun with poems. Poets are too serious sometimes. Light poems can be genuine and profound. For example, satire and parody: play plus outrage, furious.             Weight with sparkle . . . write on. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Turns out Alan and I both wrote a "last ars poetica." So he is also combining the prompts. Last Ars Poetica of the 2025-2026 Academic Year Because last fall semester saw two colleagues urged to walk away from their lives' work because each made in public comments of offense, because selective boundaries between a private life and job, regardless of its level, blue- or white-, professional or day-, an academic or a pope, some words get targeted, yet words intended never to deceive remain reliable when thoughts, emotions, gestures do not always serve in public, far too vulnerable, we are all too vulnerable, so let me delay exposure for a while and take some private time to offer explanations to myself, as best as I can say how I might understand the truth that might be factual or truth as I distill it from experience outside the hard, invasive, cold, unceasing blast of monetized, manipulated messages intended to entrap my time, my hard-earned life, my hard-worn love, this intimate, spontaneous, authentic urge to share at last a testament of loving truth. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, great close . . . "a testament of loving truth." What more can we do? Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 25 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 99

Hello, friends! My poem today is #99 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #464, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: Write a “poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a remix poem. Pick a poem you wrote earlier this month and re-create it in a new way. Maybe you take a sonnet and turn it into free verse, or a haiku. Maybe your free verse can be turned into a triolet or villanelle. Or you can mash up multiple poems into a new creation. ” Today I'm remixing yesterday's poem, the first half, subtitled "Spring Riddle." And following the NaPoWriMo prompt pretty much to the letter. Midnight Riddle             —curtal sonnet A skin-winged blackbird that isn’t a bird. A winter-long sleeper that’s not a bear but lives in caves. Under starry night skies, invisible singer that can’t be heard. Three inches long, a foot wide. In your hair she’d make you scream, “Help!” Mating ecstasies in autumn, delayed fertilization in spring. Delayed? What could that mean? In her the sperm is stored, then she is fertilized during first flight after hibernation.             Little Brown Bat . . . wondrous! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Little Brown Bat (Photo Source) Today, Alan is remixing “Not Bug but Function” from Day 9. And bringing in elements of the NaPoWriMo prompt. Document If I document my list,             Not ally but deceiver,             not enabler but manipulator,             not dealmaker but conceder,             not liberator but jailer,             not savior but abuser,             not leader but invader,             not king but parasite, I might call it my finest worksong while I witness this world leader pretend not to bring the end of the world as we know it. “Welcome to the Occupation!” I call with sadness to the one I love as we gaze into the fireplace, my list of concerns like exhuming McCarthy, although I don’t believe we’ve brought him back so much as disinterred his underground machinations, and we have been too green to realize it. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, great remix. What do you think about this revision and also mine above? Please comment below on that. Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 24 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 98

Greetings once more, friends! My poem today is #98 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #463, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that takes place at night, and describes something magical or strange that happens but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write an unidentified poem.” Let me do something different today and give you a photo first. To whet your appetite for later. Photo Source Okay, now on to the poems. I'm happy today to combine the two prompts in two poems — both prompts in both poems — which I'm grouping together as a single poem with two titled sections. Strange Night Tankas             “Spring Riddle” Dark flying creature swooping under stars, her long winter sleep done, makes a baby with sperm she saved since fall . . . skin wings swoosh unseen.             “Moon Gardens” Moonflower vines bloom white at night, beckoning bats, Luna Moths, Sphinx Moths, and other mysterious creatures to scatter pollen. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Bat and flower (Photo Source) If not for the "unidentified" prompt, however, I probably would have given the first tanka a straightforward title like "Little Brown Bat in Iowa Spring" and have it be a poem on its own. (A single tanka is usually not titled, though, so that's something to [re]consider.) The second tanka, separated out, would probably still be "Moon Gardens," but it could be expanded later into a multiple-tanka sequence. Actually, maybe both sections could become separate tanka sequences, in which case the presence of the title(s) would be defensible. We'll see. Oh! The info in the first tanka is all true with the Little Brown Bat . . . the delayed fertilization is pretty trippy. Today, Alan has an interesting approach to the prompts with a poem in six-line stanzas (sestets) in tail rhyme or maybe rime couee, both rhymed aabccb — however all in pentameter, rather than the varied line lengths usually associated with those forms. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!     About this poem, Alan told me, "There is really a Mothman Statue in Point Pleasant." And there it is up above, red eyes and all. Go up and look at it again. Be sure to click on it to see it larger. And pinch it wider to see it even better. That's a great yarn, Alan! It is a yarn, right? Photo Source Incidentally, the Elizabeth Bishop allusion that this poem is not, is to her poem "The Man-Moth" (though that's worth looking at for another magical creature — or man?). Thanks for visiting the blog, dear readers. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 23 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 97

Hello again, friends! My poem today is #97 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #462, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Try your hand today at your own take on a villanelle, and have the poem end on a question.” Here's a great page on the villanelle: https://poets.org/glossary/villanelle Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a juxtaposition poem.” I'm happy today to present a villanelle on my hometown and its juxtaposition of variations, for example, bringing together native San Franciscans with other residents born elsewhere, including foreign countries. City of Juxtapositions             —villanelle Come with me to the place where I was born — San Francisco. Each night I was soothed to sleep by distant foghorns crooning, “Come with me to Dreamland.” They called out to people foreign-born, “San Francisco can be your refuge, your home. You out there feeling lost and forlorn, come.” Youth moved to the City when I was a teen, to the Haight-Ashbury, and turned San Francisco into a sanctuary. We loved it, too, we San Franciscans, native-born. Come with me to San Francisco? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco, Cole and Haight Streets. (Photo Source) Today, Alan is also combining prompts, with the juxtaposition of professorial exigencies with what Gotera wants (who is that guy?). Gotera Wants a Poem Every Day Gotera wants a poem every day in April, when I have enough to do, and yet I try to write one anyway, though April, in its headlong rush to May, has reams of paperwork I must work through. Gotera wants a poem every day as if exhausting meetings leave some way for one’s creative side to feel fed, too, and yet I try to write. One, any way he can, preserves a preference for play, like Johnny Cash, when he sang “Boy Named Sue.” Gotera wants a poem. “Everyday I Write the Book”—Costello’s songs convey the notion love’s an act of art. That’s true, and yet I try. To write one any way I can, a promise kept, a vow, let’s say (although remaining rhymes are far too few) Gotera wants a poem every day, and yet, why try to write one, anyway? —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Very funny, Alan. Great alterations in the refrains, especially through syntactic manipulation. Thanks for visiting, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!     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

Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 91

Hello, friends! My poem today is #91 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #456, including my poems in last year's Stafford Challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “For today’s challenge, write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write an ambiguity poem.” The favorite poem I'm using is "Soldier's Dream" by Wilfred Owen. I'm employing the same form as he did, two envelope quatrains in pentameter, like the opening octave of a Petrarchan sonnet. As usual, I'm combining the prompts, though my ambiguity aspect is reversed. The title is a famous phrase from Owen, from his poem "Strange Meeting." ​ ​​​. The Pity of War Wilfred Owen wrote about a dream Where “kind Jesus fouled” the machines of war, But God sent Archangel Michael to repair The weapons. And so, war still on — obscene. About today’s war in Iran: is it Jesus Or Archangel Michael who is now in charge? It’s eminently clear who’s on the march. Friends, it’s not at all ambiguous. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo source Today, Alan is also working with both prompts — the favorite poem he's responding to is "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman.. Song of Trumpself I celebrate myself and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to you as good belongs to me. I golf, years without a soul, I’m lean and lithe in my eyes, chipping balls from the       rough of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, the best of blood,       my blood, Much better than the Deutsche of my father, the servant       Scot class of my mother, the diluted of my children       (especially the one by the Bulldog dropout), I, now nearing eighty years old in perfect health begin, Hoping not to leave office or to die. Creeds and schools in abeyance. Retiring back a while suffered from what they were,       I have now forgotten, I charge harbor fees, grant permits, overlook every       hazard; Nature is undeveloped real estate, nothing more. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Nicely done, Alan. Well-rendered voice here. Thanks for swinging by today. See you again tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 16 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 90

Welcome, friends! My poem today is #90 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #455, including my poems in last year's Stafford Challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, try writing a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a new poem [— that is, a poem] about something or someone new.” I'm combining the two prompts again in a single poem, a Quadrille Quaiku, a new poetic form invented by David Hoffmann — exactly 44 words like a quadrille, with 4 linked haiku using strict 5-7-5 syllables, and 11 words per stanza. New Bass             —quadrille quaiku New Fender Jazz Bass, in brilliant electric blue, active and passive, five bright roundwound strings, sounds wonderful, smooth thunder in springtime rainstorm. It doesn't speak but it has a beautiful voice, deep, mellifluous. It boldly declares to me, confidently, I'm your new number one. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] My photo of the new bass when it arrived in late February. Today, Alan is also working with both prompts — a new interaction with a voiceless family member. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!     Wow. That's an amazing poem, Alan. Thanks for coming by today. See you again tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 15 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 89

Hello again, friends! My poem today is #89 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #454, including the number of poems from last year's challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like you to write [a] poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, take the phrase 'Under (blank),' replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.” I'm combining the two prompts again in a single poem. Under My Thumb — What?             —curtal sonnet “Under My Thumb” by the Rolling Stones was one of my favorite radio songs in seventh grade. A guy calls his girlfriend “squirming dog,” docile “pet,” and “Siamese cat.” I didn’t notice anything wrong with those slurs back then. I hope I didn’t think that was how love was supposed to be. With my parents, my dad was controlling towards my mom. Just the same with my friends. A wonder we learned to love tenderly,                                     passion and care entwined. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Today, Alan is also working with both prompts. Underwear After forty-something years Everything means something more, so when I cannot see (my belly in the way) whatever the hell is going on at the top of my thigh, just below the hem of my shorts, not even flirting this time, and I ask her to take a look, in some ways it’s like asking the luthier to check the buzz from the B string. We hold the ideal of the note and can only approximate it with the earnest care of our seasoned instruments and continued practice. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] That's a subtly sweet meditation on love, Alan. Thanks for coming by today. See you again tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 14 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 88

Great to see you, friends! My poem today is #88 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #453, including the number of poems from last year's challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “a poem that . . . bridges . . . the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For the second Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a poetic form poem, and/or . . . 2) Write an anti-form poem.” I'm combining all three prompts above in a single poem — for "form and anti-form," I begin with a curtal sonnet and then move to free verse. Actually, four prompts, however, because this is also a tribute poem for the Eye to the Telescope call for submissions on the theme of tribute. Tribute to George Jetson             —curtal sonnet, at first Most people are clueless I’m a poet. They only see George J, with Jane his wife, daughter Judy, his boy Elroy, our dog Astro —Rastro, he growls — and our robot maid Rosie. I write poems on our lives in the sky, living high above the smog, jetting around in flying saucer cars. I work at Spacely Space Sprockets, where life is pushing buttons all day, just a cog. In between button pushes, I write verse.                   Here’s my new monologue. “I don’t tell people I write poems because everyone in 2062 thinks poetry is passé. Who needs poems when we have such incredible technology: flying cars, apartment buildings up in the clouds like Googie drums, moving slidewalks to go everywhere (who needs walking?), humans living in outer space, aliens living here on Earth, jetpacks, robot pet animals, and robot housekeepers. Poetry is old hat, old-fashioned, obsolete, they say. But writing poems makes me happy, just like drumming, like when I got to jam out with Jet Screamer. That kid’s A-okay . . . eep opp ork ah-ah! I just can’t let anyone know, especially Jane. She would think I’ve gone bananas. Maybe I have. Uh-oh, this poem-machine is careening out of control, spinning in zero-g. Jane! Stop this crazy thing!” —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Today, Alan is working with the "poetic form" prompt, using a form he invented, described below. Controlling Modes of Speech Is Infringing on Free Speech My institution’s architect has made aesthetic plans affecting how we speak to one another, but it’s not unique designing offices where we’re displayed behind glass walls; of course, he was dismayed to learn no bookcases was a mistake— we’re lit professors, after all; opaque, fake frosting on the glass has not allayed resentment we were wronged. Bulletin boards face banishment by admin overlords, replaced by screens that cycle an ICE raid, corruption, shootings, broken peace accords, but no “reward” sign or “top wages paid” or invitations to potlucks next week. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan said about this poem, "This is a form I invented that begins with a Petrarchan octet. I call this sonnet form the Uvalde sonnet; I invented it about four years ago in response to the Robb Elementary School shooting. I have moved the culminating couplet one would expect from a Shakespearean sonnet to follow the octet so that it feels as if it occurs prematurely." It's an interesting form, and here Alan is employing slant rhyme with the "-eek" and "-ake" rhyming sounds. Thanks for coming by today. See you again tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ