Napowrimo 4/12/26: Restaurant Wars (Between Children)

Today's Napowrimo prompt asks us to consider writing about an experience with a beloved relative. Here's one of those.

My older cousin
not much older, but a little bit,
not like some of my other cousins 
who were much older. Anyway, 

my older cousin
told me that his city had all
of the food imaginable that we
had in New Jersey. And then some.

what followed was me naming
every place of foodstuffs my slightly-younger
mind could think of. all chains,
because I was young and lived in


a fine dining desert. He had them all. Then I mentioned
a local diner and saw its foreign title gloss over him.
He smiled and said, "well, imagine how disappointed
I am that I don't have that one back home."


He was, of course, sarcastic, but that
that sign for the restaurant was a sign
of my victory. I'd drive by with a grin, and though I 
never went myself. It was mine alone.


Now, he is gone. too soon. and that same sign,
still standing there, next to a bunch of chains,
coughing fits of traffic, highways to elsewhere. 
Now, I wish we'd had the chance to share it, after all.

Napowrimo 4/11/26: It's the [Blacked Out]

 Today's Napowrimo Prompt implores the writer to create a blackout or erasure poem. I just took words from the linked prompt above and made a short poem.

We made, everyone, 

a mysterious grief .

Our  day is Here,  his favorite 

(optional)  Erasure — also known as  —  existing. 

a great 

is one of the grand-daddies  

Lost). Today,  You could use a 

favorite play  

an unfamiliar  route,  find something of interest  

to maintain 

 your chosen 

Happy.

Napowrimo 4/10/26: interrogation

 Today's Napowrimo prompt implores a "container" poem. If you click the link, you'll see a great example of this from Geoffrey Brock. I decided to eschew some of the rhetorical element and expand the poem, but here it is.

in terms of what we know
and what we don't know
we are somewhere around
20/80. we've got less than
we want, and we're looking
to rectify that presently.

rectify what? (you know)
[what does he know?] he 
knows tide charts and recipes
for a decent lamb dish. [that's
a start, certainly] (I told you)
[stop making this about you]

in this moment. we, this
enterprise of sorts, apply the
stated reason: our charter, our
spirit of the endeavor. we set 
aside the old ways. with some 
small sense of disdain, we begin.

where do we begin? (before the end)
[what is the end?] (now we're getting
somewhere) where are we now? [until
now, I believed I was sure I knew] what
did you know? (assuredly, little to nothing)
[who invited this guy?]

and we, reverent explorers for an
honest sense of the word truth, sussing
out it's uncertainties and ushering them out
the door with a swift kick in the posterior,
make for a better tomorrow.
or the day after tomorrow, more likely.

can we get something on the calendar, like 
an end date? (time is an illusion) [will you 
stop being mysterious?] is he correct about you?
are you mysterious? (that answer is mine alone)
[someone needs to punch you in the facial region]
who among us is the right man for the job?

we, brothers, persons really, acolytes of a violent
truth. we, the bringers of blows and kicks and maybe
one aggressive human bite [I got carried away]. we know
now, our hubris (who will pay my medical bills?) in pursuit
of the words of a better tomorrow, have marred today.
when will we learn?

[(there is no answer)]

Napowrimo 4/9/26: smilax for the camera

Today's Napowrimo Prompt asks us to write from the perspective of a plant or animal. I chose the Greenbrier Vine/Smilax.

I've never met a tree or fence or intrepid home owner
foolish enough to try and stop my ascent
from earth to sky.
dug in, wrapped up.
Made myself at home.

I ripped the entire hand off of an amateur
landscaper. Recent home owner, the hubris
of doing what their partner wanted. Clean up
the plants. They, errant fool, loping around and lopping
my appendages off. Appendage, grow a knife, set the
knife to thy own whetstone--never cease sharpening.

That landscaper went through three packs of gloves
before my slicing limbs swung true. the grand slam and
they still won't forget. Any of them. The sinew shredded.
The taste of success. The mushroom cloud of obscenity.

Pick up the pieces and know your wound, fool.

The land nods in defeat before my hunger.
Submit. I

Twist and bend.
Coil. Bind.
Snuff out.

The yard becomes a mirror. My own kingdom.
Forever, my image.

Napowrimo 4/8/26: mining a mantra

 Today's Napowrimo prompt tasks writers with repeating a phrase and then inverting/contradicting it.

nothing bears repeating.
you were born three thousand
times last week, each one
a different "first day out the 
womb" outfit and a new head
of untamed hair. some you were
kind, others you were irate. soothed,
settled, and restless in no sort
of discernible pattern.

nothing bears repeating.
i told the same story to anyone
who would listen. details sacrosanct,
inflections primed and rehearsed. control
without variables. with each successive
recitation, the story became my
god's-honest truth.

nothing bears repeating.
the kids began flipping coins from
dusk until first light. trying to see
if divine will favored the head or
the tail. sleepless, bleary-eyed,
meticulous. perfecting the launch and
catch phases of the operation. duty bound
to record the results and share the good word
of nickel-copper. 

nothing bears repeating.
soon the old ways and forgotten fashion senses
will return to their throne. ascend and wave the scepter;
we will become as we were. as if the bad now were the 
good old when. we'll all be dressing like cabbies and gabbing
away about how it feels right
this time.
we've never been more sure of anything
and we'll flip a coin and chart the heavens and
retell what we've been doing. we'll be born
again and again and again and eventually
we'll do the same thing but with dying.
we're ready for anything, then and now. 

Napowrimo 4/7/26: Song of No Self

 Today's Napowrimo Prompt invokes the rhythm and sound of children's games. Here is something something close to that.

if. and then
(when?) when.
still.sense.tells.me 
clapalong, clap...along
(shimmy sham [bimbam])

yep.

my-parents-told-me-to-trust-the-finer-institutions-that-uphold-everyday-life-and-
then-they 
taught-me-how-to
[fire that slingshot!]
slingshot?
slingshot!
[fire that slingshot!]

hit the mark
right in the middle.
watch it fall down
now we're fit as a fiddle

sense. it told me,
(no) sense
but the senseless

[yeah, well]
my-parents-told-me-to-stock-the-pantry-with-canned-goods-and-freeze-dried-ice-cream-then
-they-went-to
[fire that pistol?]
pistol!
(pistol!)

now-we-got-ourselves-a-situation
and. all. we. do. is.
clapalong. clap...along
[fire that missile]

wait, we had that missile?
(yeah, pay attention)
right, sorry.

and-when-we-clap-we-clap
off
        rhythm.

but.we.still.
clapalong. clap...along

fire that rocket
straight to--the sun?
to the sun!
yeah, sun's how it's done.
looking straight at the sun.

sense, it told me.
[no sense wasn't talking]
(will you just let him talk)
[finnnnnneeeee]
now-it's-time-for-dinner-and-I'm
going home.

[typical]

Napowrimo 4/6/26: garbage day

 Today's prompt for Napowrimo tasks writers with a casual tone and dream imagery fusion.

I don't know, I told myself that life has no meaning so I wouldn't be disappointed when the trash guy didn't take that extra bag I left off to the side. Strict limits, he said. 

I don't recognize limits; I'm a citizen of the world, I said. He stared at me and started to say something, then his face wrinkled up,
he started gagging. I thought he might be faking it so I started laughing at him.
You know, play his game back at him and see if he caved.

He fell to his knees. Eyes bulged out,
deep sobs of coughing or something. I swore I heard music, jagged string hits and cymbal
crashes, but
that might be what I'm telling myself now. His whole body got
caked in sweat or something.
Inside the trash truck I heard rumbling from the compactor.
Oh come on, it said. Not again. Will you hurry up?

The trash guy, now a different, yet unnamed color was like, crying, and
I was sort of mortified but my feet told me to stay put. My feet weren't actually talking
or anything, but my shoes got really firm in their beliefs and I couldn't go
anywhere.
Meanwhile, the cymbal crashes I might have been hearing got angry,
I guess.
I could've sworn the sky looked a little meaner, but I
couldn't tell you what that means, even now.

Look, I'll pay the difference, I said.
We only accept crypto, shouted the truck. That's when I realized
I was being hustled.
I get it too. It's hard out here.
So I left that gasping trash guy con artist and his talking truck and my extra trash
outside. I had to clean the bathrooms something awful and it was already midday.

I've reevaluated my life a little. That trash shakedown has changed me;
I now have a belief system. I think life is
mostly nonsense,
but we all have a breaking point, at least that's what I'm thinking
as I look out and see the trash truck's wheel nudging the limp figure, lying
inert next to my extra trash bag outside.
Somebody should really go and check on that situation, but I still need
to dust the light fixtures.

Tomorrow is recycling day.

Napowrimo 4/5/26: Loathsome Highway

 Today's prompt from Napowrimo tasks the poet to consider an over the top reaction to something innocuous; I've been waiting for this my whole life.

The "Speed to the Red Light" crowd formed a likely alliance with the "Race to the Stop Sign" crew. Together, they extended a half-chewed olive branch to the "Loud Pickup Truck I Don't Use for Anything But Aesthetic Reasons" brigade. They met outside my home, engines revving, house music playing with the bass knob turned all the way up. They were helping Brigadier General Richard P. Drencher start his beater, but they couldn't remember how to jump a battery. They were all out of ideas, so they all jumped out of their cars and tried to push the Ford EFFOneWhatever to the non existent shoulder of the road, but the truck was too heavy for their arms, despite the amount of bench they hit at the gym, known only because they all bragged about on their Tik Tok channels and had bumper stickers on their cars indicating their Personal Records. 

Noting the need for backup, they called Comrade Walter Rutherford Spencer III to bring his winch and haul them up and over to the Gas Station Parking Lot. He obliged and they formed a Freedom Flotilla and budget Memorial Day Parade, cars backfiring to the tune of the latest Morgan Wallen symphony.

There wasn't much to say and the road was littered with energy drinks and Pre-Workout mix packets, so the good people of my hometown cleaned up the battlefield, shaking their heads and praying that winter wasn't far away. The battalions didn't know how to drive in winter and hated getting salt on their steeds.

I knew better though. It was only getting hotter out here and if this wasn't Hell just yet, well, the Devil doesn't believe in green lights. He's here and now and he's turning the heat up every day.

I for one say take those stop signs and lights away. Let them rev and speed and squeal all the way into the horizon. Do a burn out and smell clutch and put the pedal to the space next to the whole in the floor. Let them drive into the sun and find what they've been looking for all along. What we've all been craving: peace.

Napowrimo 4/4/26: Microburst

 Today's Napowrimo prompt challenges the writer to write a short, rhyming poem including a weather phenomenon. Here's something like that, but without the rhymes.

When Wind met
the Neighborhood and 
bent trees like stale hard pretzels-
snapping them, chewing with
his mouth open, and leaving
the crumbs behind-I don't
think he realized that his
little tantrum, his funhouse
feasting, would ruin the 
weekend for the rest of Us.
All that line work and all that
heat. Vinegar in the milk.
Last week's groceries out for 
the garbage crew to drink in
the aroma of spoil on a day
with just enough of a Breeze
to otherwise be considered
charming. 

Napowrimo 4/3/26: town crier

Here's today's Napowrimo prompt. 

Some speak the sounds
news let fly
news let fall. 

Let it fall all where it may.

I've been here long enough to know
what needs saying.
More is never less, and I've said nothing that bears
repeating. Yet I've bared it all. 

The good words used to flow through me. I used to
know them all. And still I've withheld so much of
what was given to me to say. 

The words stay inside/stacking themselves and digging
in to my stomach/climbing up my throat in imitation-reflux.

They want out. They don't know what it takes to unwind
the wires of this tired voice box. To let the hiss and crackle take
hold. To cough out the bargains of the day and the cookie cutter
pronouncements. They'll be waiting without patience/toe tapping/
sighing. They'll be waiting for the truth.

They'll know it when they hear it.

They've heard it from me all along.

It's everything I'm not saying.

I've said nothing,
that bears repeating.

Napowrimo 4/2/26: pathetic happenings, a record

 Today's Napowrimo prompt tasks writers with recounting a childhood memory. Here is one of those.

[injustice crawls from under the fire doors. our hero, 8 and a rule follower, listens at the end of his elementary school gym class. let the record show it was raining outside] 

gym teacher, with all of the authority of a blowhard: I don't want to hear voices.

a peer, talking: words, etc.

me to the peer: he just said stop talking.

gym teacher, to me: and your name is on the board. [let the record show that this was a punishment our hero was not eager to report home]

me, aggrieved, to gym teacher: but I was telling her to stop talking.

gym teacher, getting progressively angry and lecturing me, probably misusing a word and generally being a caricature of his role: words I don't remember. some variable of "I am the god of this elementary school gymnasium and you, pitiful 8 year old, will give me tithes."

me, feeling the slight of authority's half-nelson, probably crying: this isn't fair.

my classroom teacher, arriving and huddling with the gym teacher:  inaudible whispers.

me, hoping for vindication, thinking to myself: today, a wrong will be righted.

[silent walk back to class. tension rippling through the air fused with the smell of the hallway lunch cart's lingering odor. peas and some unnamed meat.]

my teacher, closing out the day and awarding the good behavior award that [let the record show] I never once received: thank you, ______ [let the record show this was my peer who was initially talking], for waiting patiently for your award since I had to deal with that situation. [let the record show that my behavior was the implied situation].

[moments pass. our hero is in the car with his mother explaining the day].

me, observing the rain on the windshield; feeling each second of the slowed, school-dismissal-in-a-too-small-town traffic conspiring against an easy arrival, against refuge; staring at the blur of light and water and the war of windshield wipers and their squeak on conditioned glass: it's just pathetic.

[let the record show it still is]

Napowrimo 4/1/26: Love in the Time of Tanka

 Day 1 of Napowrimo challenges us to write in verses of Tanka. I do not adhere strictly to the meter of haiku/tanka/senryu but the form is still honored.

I.
these good winds
spin dead leaves in the yard
into the sun's path
a carousel
of broken things

II.
today, some rain
let dirt become mud
and fed the flowers
more than their fill. they lurch,
leaning over, in surrender. 

III.
the snow died
in spring's esteemed glance
left its memory
in my basement's floor, covered
remembered, through damp and mold

IV.
humid tappings
on these sweating skulls
another scorcher
outside is a sauna
inside, an oasis.

Napo-Prelude 3/31/26: Store Bought

 Prompt from NapoWrimo. It starts tomorrow, y'all.

I don't know if this is hard won
or just another compromise. Sanitized,
pre-packaged. Off-brand (never off flavor)
snack-shaped objects and the family is
fed another week. As we elbow through
three aisle calamity to weave through essentials
and the excess. Balancing the checkbook of
wants and needs. Now and Later. 
Mouth's watering at the impending coin coming
back into our pocket when we return our carts.
This, at least, is free.

Munch's The Scream was stolen
right from our collective throats. The sight and
sound, on display in some bunker of excess and
the finer things. In front of some interpretation of
controlled flame and feet up.
No sense of a bargain. Just
a mouth, hanging open. Maybe, it's just
hungry. Maybe, it has never known fullness.
Maybe, it just waits for the rest of us to check
out in the controlled lines of the overworked
for the cart to be returned and the parking space to
free itself from our collective presence.
for the lights to go out in the store.
in our homes. in our
hearts.

Then, and only then, will it close its mouth.
Only then, it will be satisfied.

holistic

all of the time, soul and body telling each other stories through a tin can walkie talkie. old friends, known it all along. mistakes were made and yet, let the record show, they aren't blaming the other just yet. not the time. bonds aren't meant to fray so easily.

give it time. let the understanding run its course. we'll see what they're made of yet. and soon enough, we'll know beyond the shadow of any doubt.

everything, in time.

Healer

some version of me/past perfect/you/ know the type
made myself/reimagined./this is me and you/and you
likely have a different version of the events./i want to
right the ship/all the time, subconscious fixes/fixations.

me/aberration in the wavelengths/wave tables/we are
here /never/.

we were here/maybe?

i want to dress it up the way it could have or should have
been/and/this is personal./

i'm sorry for involving you/this go around/let it
be/good, and buried/

reminiscing/lord, help each of us/we'll make
it right/soon/

enough.