Day 22 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Happy Earth Day, o fellow earthlings! Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a nature poem. Write about the natural world, sure. But don't be afraid to delve into human nature or the nature of love or whichever other interpretation comes naturally to you. Poem on!” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion today begins by citing a Poets & Writers prompt based on "an essay by Urvi Kumbhat on the use of mangoes in diasporic literature,” which maintains that “mangoes have become a sort of shorthand or symbol that writers use to invoke an entire culture, country, or way of life. This has the beauty of simplicity – but also the problems of simplicity, in that you really can’t sum up a culture in a single image or item, and you risk cliché if you try.” Today's prompt “challenge[s us] to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.” I use the mango again in linked haiku here, but in my mash-up of both prompts, the mango is not a symbol but rather a mountain. Mango World Partially eaten mango lying by the side of a park pathway. Nearby, an ant hill brims with workers and soldiers to explore this world: mountain of mango . . . deep within, the wrinkled seed a brown rocky mass. Workers swarm over the gigantic precipice of sweet, golden fruit, mango flesh seething with interlocked ant bodies, legs and antennae, in concert, a corps, individual soldiers bound in regiment, a bucket brigade made of thousands of bodies heaving together. The crag of mango starts to slip sideways toward the waiting ant hill. Slow lurching at first, then gradually moving faster, a smooth glide. The yellow mountain swallowed by the open mouth of the ant hill nest. The community  shivers in merriment, joy at mango treasure. Juicy mango meat will feed the giant city one bright, long season. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Today, Alan worked with, not the mango, but the mimosa. Mimosa A forked mimosa stood on the western edge of our property, its split so low I could straddle it or hoist myself up into it, climbing higher but never more than a man’s height from the ground. They broke easily. In spring, their blooms looked like the pink hair of Muppet fairies, and they would fill with webworms, building tents and feeding on the leaves, leaves so fragile that touching even healthy ones would trigger them to close, fragile as the tree itself, imported as ornament and bringing its own destroyer along with it. My home now, miles and years away, is filled with black locusts, bearing sharp thorns, sending shoots underground, and twisting upon itself as it grows, so that its own asymmetry supports it or its neighbor, leaving some standing dead, an imminent, heavy threat should it fall. I would be an oak, taking my time to mature, reaching all around and up. —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 18 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt “comes to us from Stephanie Malley, who challenges us to write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s 'Look inside' feature. Will you choose 'the poem squash?' or perhaps 'grocery weeping' or 'the blue socks'? If none of the 60 rather wonderful chapter titles here inspire you, perhaps a chapter title from a favorite book would do? For example, the photo on my personal twitter account is a shot of a chapter title from a P.G. Wodehouse novel — the chapter title being 'Sensational Occurrence at a Poetry Reading.'” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is one in which the poet writes a poem based on another work of art, whether that's a painting, photograph, sculpture, mixed media, or other piece of art.” Alan's Petrarchan sonnet today comes from both prompts; his chosen chapter from the NaPoWriMo prompt is “Snowflakes and Secrets.” 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!   Winslow Homer, Fox Hunt (1893) Just for fun, I decided I would also do NaPoWriMo's "Snowflakes and Secrets" to see how different our poems might be. Also doing the Poem-a-Day ekphrasis, on Grant Wood again, like my ekphrastic poem yesterday. Today's form: linked haiku — in American traditional 5-7-5 — finished off by a tanka, similarly syllabled. On Grant Wood’s January Haystacks, snow covered, like cows in a thunderstorm facing the same way. Rank and file soldiers, early morning formation, hushed close order drill. Cotillion damsels in beige and white ballroom gowns dance in unison. Pyramid city, millennia of sand cover, home of ancient ghosts. Tracks of snowshoe hare lead from a triangle door in the closest stack, a comfy refuge within, where Hare took a winter's nap. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Grant Wood, January (1940) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day Ten ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, write a lone poem. Perhaps the poem is about a solitary wanderer or person who just prefers to go it alone. Or a lone winner, lone wolf, or some other solo individual. Or alternatively, I’ll accept poems that are about loans or that are about being alone.” A regional weather phrase . . . that made me think immediately of a California term: tule fog (pronounced "too-lee"), a thick ground fog that occurs in California's Central Valley during the winter, typically from November through March. It can be unbelievably thick, with visibility sometimes going down to zero, just a few feet, not much farther than the front bumper of your car if you're in it. It's the cause of many huge highway pile-ups and traffic deaths. For example, on "November 3, 2007, heavy tule fog caused a massive pile-up that included 108 passenger vehicles and 18 big-rig trucks on northbound State Route 99 between Fowler and Fresno. Visibility was about 200 feet (60 m) at the time of the accident. There were two fatalities and 39 injuries in the crash" (Wikipedia). Tule fog can be strangely surreal. I have personally seen tule fog that was only a few feet from the ground, almost like a lake of thick cotton, so that cows out in a field looked like boats moored on the water. Okay, here we go, merging both prompts today. Linked haiku, strict 5-7-5. Tule Fog I must have been just 16 when I was driving on some bridge, not sure which one, on the Bay, so weird I sometimes think now it was just a dream. The traffic had slowed to maybe 10 miles per hour, and you couldn't see the other cars, though you knew they had to be there. Headlights a diffuse glow all around you, like you're in a ping-pong ball. You had to open the window, and stick your head out, try to listen for the other cars, invisible hulks like dead ships in a graveyard of still, thick water. I felt alone there like Frankenstein's creation out on the tundra, the sled dogs howling as they run through endless white. So strangely peaceful and yet you knew Death was right there, in metal and glass vehicles, each containing a lone traveller, so terrified of the final kiss. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day Six ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of the possible. . . . not on what has happened, or what will happen, but on what might happen if the conditions are right. . . . a poem that emphasizes the power of ‘if,’ of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.” Maureen provides links to example poems by Raena Shirali and Rachel Mennies. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, take the phrase ‘After (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 include: ‘After Dinner,’ ‘After You,’ ‘After Hours,’ and/or ‘After I Finish Writing This Poem.’ ” Okay, doing both prompts in one poem, as usual. I'm trying to hit the ‘if’ thing pretty hard here. Linked haiku in strict 5-7-5 syllabics, for you form aficionados out there. After the Sky Falls What if all the clouds start to harden into white porcelain, then crack, spiderwebs of stress fractures spreading everywhere, the clouds shattering, falling on the earth, like huge thunderstorms of shards, microscopic stones? If the blue above begins to flake in thick sheets as big as houses that tumble downward crushing vast fields of flowers, knocking down buildings, skyscrapers toothpicks, whole city blocks demolished, rivers glutted, dammed. If the black that was behind the blue then splinters into a billion obsidian spears, what would joggers do? Truckers on the open road? Gardeners? Beat cops? The crowds of pedestrians on their way to work? Outer space falling, a trillion stone javelins, black ice projectiles. What next could befall us? What other disasters, after the sky falls? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Image from Antarctica Journal (source). Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day Three ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)" Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: "write an animal poem. The poem could be about an animal. Or it could just mention an animal in passing. Or include an animal in your title and fail to mention the animal once in your poem. Your poem, your rules." Today's poem is a mashup of both prompts, imagining a pet dog throughout his entire life. As a boy, I had a black and white cocker spaniel named Argus. As an adult, I have had soft-coated wheaten terriers; I still have Blue, who lives with my ex-wife. I melded those real-life elements into this dog-life narrative in annual snapshots. Anniversaries with Argus Soft-coated wheaten terrier pup, brown and black comet of fur — fun! Year 2, now ecru, the adult color, but still a silly goofball. 3 years old, Argus must stay on leash . . . he’d run off with any stranger! Age 4, bouncy boy, always the effervescent puppy, run run run! At 5, now square-jawed, with wheaten goatee — grown up? Nah, always a pup. 6th birthday, Argus shreds a throw pillow, feathers everywhere — snowstorm! 7 . . . how many years in dog time? 49? Still undignified. Now 8, he pulls hard while on a walk . . . he never learned to heel. Bunnies! 9 years old, starting to show some age: grizzled snout, still mischievous eyes. 10, tug-of-war king, cruncher of bones and meat treats, afternoon long naps. At age 11, cancer caught early, removed, dog smiles, laughs, relief. 12, hip dysplasia, Argus now moving slower, a pup in his heart. 13, while sleeping, his paws twitch and quiver, chase and hunt in dreams. 14, he didn’t wake up this morning. Last night, licked my hand goodbye. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Yesterday, I mentioned I was trying to keep the poems small for the first few days, just as a fun experiment, and I joked that after tankas on Day 1 and 2, I might go smaller, to a haiku or a single hay(na)ku. Well, okay, haiku today, but there's 14 of them! Technically, not full-on traditional haiku, but rather haiku stanzas, linked haiku. With regard to my inspiration for the poem, here's a photo of my dog Blue, from last September, 2018. Unlike the fictional Argus in the poem, Blue is still going strong, though starting to get old . . . yet still a puppy at heart, like most soft-coated wheaten terriers. Such a fun breed! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 16 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2018

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up." Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: "For today’s prompt, write a favorite poem. Maybe that sounds a bit silly, but what I mean is to write a poem about something that’s your favorite. A favorite teacher. Favorite movie. Favorite ice cream flavor. I don’t know, because I have my own list of favorites. Only you can do you . . . and your favorites. Who knows? Maybe this will end up being your favorite prompt this month." Magic Horses As a child, I loved a favorite chess piece: The Knight. (Though really, The Horse, 'cause my dad's chess set had Knights carved to resemble actual horse heads.) And they were magic! The horses could jump over opposing pieces, though I imagined that they actually jumped between the pieces or even through them! Some kind of dimensional legerdemain or tour de force. Couldn't be held in or back. They were unstoppable djinns. Yes, at four I knew about djinns and lamps, Ali Baba's forty thieves, and especially, princes on flying stallions. Scheherazade's tales. Dad's chess set would fold into a box where the game pieces lived at night. In this dark corral, the four horses, black and white, would graze together, and talk of battles, of slipping through the warriors' maze and trapping kings. Sleeping, the horses dreamt of emerald pastures where they galloped, free, in thundering herds or alone, ranging far, wide, under a bright sun. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2016

Day 17. Today we have a week's worth of prime numbers: 17 is the seventh prime number since the top of the month. Robert Lee Brewer's PAD prompt: "Today is International Haiku Poetry Day! . . . For today’s prompt, write a haiku. Simple as that. Or well, if you’d prefer, write a poem about haiku; I’ve done this before. So that’s an option too; or write about poetic forms in general." Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, I challenge you to find, either on your shelves or online, a specialized dictionary. This could be, for example, a dictionary of nautical terms, or woodworking terms, or geology terms. Anything, really, so long as it’s not a standard dictionary! Now write a poem that incorporates at least ten words from your specialized source. Happy writing!" À la Thorson, I'm using ten technical terms in poetic craft, such as haiku and lineation. À la Brewer, I've made my poem out of six linked haiku stanzas: not discrete haiku but rather haiku-shaped bottles, the old-fashioned 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. Technically Speaking A haiku’s a room filled with meter, rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, those high-falutin tricks like consonance, assonance, endstopped or enjambed lineation. Right? No. Not just. Also laughing and crying, screaming. Blue and lead-gray skies. Dead loved ones, foes, friends, strangers. Zebras, hummingbirds, feathered pterosaurs. Vermillion, periwinkle, and snot-filled puke green. Not always pretty but real. Damn right real. Open eyes and hands. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] "Forgive me, friends," Alan says, "today I have been recovering from many trips within these past few weeks, taking care of being home and spending time with family, avoiding the crunch of work responsibility to come tomorrow. I have been weighing friendships in transition, feeling empathy for mourning friends and unmoored friends who shift from drifting to propelling themselves, and looking forward to spending time with loved ones I have not seen for a long time. So, when a prompt called for a specialty dictionary, today I had no real interest in going to my workplace to look at one and decided to write some related haiku instead, inspired by my first mowing of the year. It started bad today with malfunctioning mowers and malfunctioning me, but it wound up putting me by myself, letting me work to a satisfactory, sore fatigue, and permitting my mind to range a while. I will be more diligent tomorrow, but I am having a hard time getting Jason Isbell's song 'Children of Children' out of my mind, figuring out how a small band might play it, and waiting for this rough semester to end." Late April 2016 My first mow of spring I leave the anemones for the honeybees. Standing tall, sweetbriar offers waxy yellow blooms soft to cautious touch. Two weeks past Easter, defiant testimony of late dogwood blooms while no pink petals remain on the Judas trees green in my back lot, I watch black locust dense as old cast pig iron blocks bud white. They smell sweet. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Bravo, Alan! Real haiku, unlike my haiku-shaped stanzas! April is the haiku-est month. Jed says, about his poem today, "Every line has at least one term from the glossary of Derivatives Markets, 3rd ed., by Robert L. McDonald. I repeated Greeks and Vanilla a few times, for narrative purposes, but otherwise used terms only once." Narrative haiku! Specialized Words There’s a warrant out. Vanilla used a strangle, Charged a dirty price. The Greeks admired The forward curve of her spine. Law of one price, though… Call protection please. You may be in-the-money, My dear Vanilla. You’ll get a haircut If the Greeks ever catch you; Over the barrel If they collar you. The Greeks volatility… You’ve got real options. No lookback option. But a Bermuda option. Take a random walk. Make a purchased call. Absolute priority. I’ll go spread the word; Tell the Greeks you took The European option. Pay me a Troy ounce. I’ll be repricing If I don’t get settlement. Don’t make me wait long. —Draft by Jedediah Kurth    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Ven says, "I put all my specialized terms in the title because I'm sneaky and lazy." Be that as it may, it's a very smart strategy. It keeps these many-syllabled words from taking up room in his haiku. Animalia Chordata Aves Neornithes Neognathae Neoaves Passeriformes Passeri Corvoidea Corvus Brachyrhynchos Black wings fluttering over a roadkill buffet — a murder of crows. —Draft by Ven Batista    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And here's an array of related haiku from Sarah. Haiku on the Modern Social Justice Warrior You see my skin — white. History seen in color is your obsession. You rant without end; intellectual godhood so misdirected. Research is nice but nationally acknowledged words are not action. I see you — human. I weep for your mistaken take on oppression. —Draft by Sarah Smith    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Wonderful haiku today, everyone. Happy International Haiku Poetry Day! Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 18 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2015

Day Eighteen. The number "18" is fascinating . . . in many countries and cultures, it marks the age of majority. So 18 is a borderline of privilege: the boundary between child and adult. It's interesting to google images of 18. Click on the sign to the right and you'll see. Be warned: some of the images are — how shall we say? — naughty.  ヅ  Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo challenge: "And now for our (as always, optional) prompt, which takes us from 2015 back to the 1700s. After all, it’s the eighteenth of April, which means that today is the 240th anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere! Today, in keeping with the theme of rush and warning, I challenge you to write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message. It could be historical, mythical, entirely fictional, or memoir-ical." Robert Lee Brewer's PAD suggestion: "For today's prompt, pick 2 vowels and write a poem using words that only contain one or both of those vowels. For instance, write a poem with words that only have a 'u' and 'o.' Also, the letter 'y' is wild–so the words 'my' and 'gypsy' are freebies. And I’ll allow text-speak (or maybe I should say 'txt spk')." Well, today I couldn't combine the "official" prompts. I really wanted to do something weighty with the journey/warning prompt and the two-vowel approach seemed too constrictive for that intent. You may remember that on April 4 my poem was in the voice of Clara, one of my two aswang lovers, about her man Jesús. He's a shapeshifter, a werewolf, and she's a body-splitter whose top half can grow wings to hunt and feed while her bottom half is safely hidden from monster-killer eyes. Today, I imagined a crisis for the two lovers: she is being suspected by the people in their town of being an aswang and he realizes he must save her. The poem is a curtal sonnet — like Clara's on day four — in the mind of a fearful Jesús. Aswang Peril Dios mío, I must warn Clara right now! Rumors have been flying about how she Was missing the night a manananggal was seen In the moonlit sky last week. And also how She seemed to wince in the market yesterday when someone handed her garlic. Tonight my cousin says men are gathering with guns. I bow my head and feel the pain of bones grinding as they lengthen and shift. As fur sprouts, my skin burns. I howl. The moon is flaming red.                                                         My love, I’m coming! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] After I finished that curtal sonnet, I wondered if I could manage another curtal sonnet fulfilling the two-vowel prompt. I hated the idea of not writing to both prompts. Since allowing just two vowels would severely limit the words that could be employed, I decided to use just two words per line, meaning then only one word in the closing tail line. Instead of meter, syllabics: two syllables per line and a one syllable tail. Here goes . . . hope it works. Cyberbullying spin grin tell fell slid skid thin skin belle shell did mid teen scene yell hell kid hid screen seen                         rid —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Today, Alan had an interesting, alternative approach to merging the prompts. "Of course, it was going to be TCm's journey, and I made a character repeat a single vowel sound. It sounds better read out loud. I hope I successfully fit the two prompts together." (Alan and I have taken to abbreviating Thomas Crofts, medievalist to TCm.) Thomas Crofts and the Cold Ghost Where does Thomas Crofts, medievalist, search to find the secret of life? An artesian spring rises past Elizabethton toward Roan Mountain. One day a woman dressed in a gray winding sheet sat at the spring’s mouth. “Go home, lone soul! Go!” she spoke, her lips thin as rime, as was her garment. “Rolled stones show old woes; hold close those woes; know those bode lone roads for bold souls.” Thomas did not stop. He asked her name. She replied, “Rose Jones,” and fell still. Thomas, shivering, saw ashes near her bare feet. “No hope for cold bones.” He gathered bracken, lit brown, dried grass for kindling, and built a good fire. The figure came near the fire and melted away, dousing the spent flames. Mist rose from the ash. Thomas cupped his hand to drink from the cold, clear stream. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, I love the ghost's round, single-vowel utterances. Nicely done. And a very convincing ghost as well. Thomas Crofts, medievalist, is of course as lifelike as ever. Great idea to use linked haiku as a skeleton — sorry! — for the narrative. Bravo! Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

NAPOWRIMO / PAD 2015 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 19 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2014

Hello, everyone. Day 19, almost 2/3 through National Poetry Month, and I only today found this cool little button online for NaPoWriMo 2014. Not sure what one could do with such a thing, but here it is on the right. Anyone have any ideas for what I could do in the blog with a button? Why they are called buttons anyway. Comment and let me know if you have a suggestion, won't you? Okay, let's get on to the business at hand, the official prompts for Day 19. Poem-a-Day guru Robert Lee Brewer's prompt today: "pick a color, make the color the title of your poem, and then, write your poem" (Poetic Asides). Maureen Thorson says, "Today I challenge you to take a look at the list of actual sea shell names below, and to use one or more of them to write a poem." You'll have to look at the entire list of 19 at NaPoWriMo.net, but here are a few of them: "Shuttlecock Volva," "False Cup-and-Saucer," and "Lazarus Jewel Box." I googled images of all 19 and here's the best-looking one, the most colorful, the shell of the "Strawberry Top" sea snail. You probably won't be surprised to hear I'm combining the two prompts today. I really need to write a proper love poem to Kathy and so I'm using her favorite color as my starting point and title. Here we go: linked haiku. Enjoy! Purple Kathleen, you were born to the purple . . . regal queen of periwinkle and magenta rose. Royalty's Tyrian hue. Strawberry Top snails Your fave sea creature. The color of penitence at Lent. Deep Purple, the band of your dreams. "Purple Haze" and "PurpleRain, " your best rock anthems. And, except for me, of course, Prince is your main man. Well, not the best poem someone ever wrote but heartfelt . . . a love letter of amaranthine splendor, amethyst gemstones, lilac, lavender, orchid, mauve, fuchsia. Plums, pomegranates. Heliotrope, mauve blossoms. Kath, I purple you. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I was inspired by this particular image of a Strawberry Top seashell photographed in ultraviolet light. Isn't that the most magnificent shade of purple? Alan sets up his poem today: "Lunches lead to conversations that can go anywhere." Two of My Colleagues Might Have Encountered Each Other at a Nude Beach Years Ago Before They Met Each Other Suppose we’re having lunch, semester nearly done, and two at table talk about their trips to Greece, and one says “Speedo,” laughs, and then the other says, “Since all the other ones were nude, then why should I stand out?” And I can’t think of anything but how, away from anyone you know, high SPF, Wayfarers, and a smile would be all that you’d need. And then I realized how private tanlines are, a demarcation — here is what one shows the world, and here’s a privileged space. It seemed to me a beach of unclothed people would be like a zoo, the norm negating nudity, but knowing someone puts a face with all that flesh. And now, at least for weeks, I will associate these two with stripping down in anonymity because Greek locals did. My locals did as well, but nakedness has risks that being nude does not. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] That must have been a very interesting lunch, Alan. Anyone I know?  ヅ Won't you comment, please, friends? To make a comment, look for a blue link below that says Post a comment; if you don't see that, look in the red line that starts Posted by Vince and click on the word comments. Okay, friends, watch out for purple seashells on those nude beaches.  ヅ  Ingat, everyone.

POEM-A-DAY 2014 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30