a poem a day ~ the first seven

In honor of April being National Poetry Month, I am participating in the Poem A Day Challenge at the PoeticAsides blog site. Every day there's a writing prompt and the deal is that you're supposed to write a poem on the fly using the prompt. So far I have been keeping up, and it's already Day 7. First I thought I would post my poems here, but I'm not that sure I can get my act together enough to post every day. So what I"ll do is give it a go, and post my poems here when I think about it. Here they are, in reverse order:

April 7: a rambling poem

Just this morning, early,
earlier than the sun,
when my mind started to wake up,
I began to think again about being laid off
about where we would get the money
to pay the bills
to buy gasoline
to go to the movies
to have a taco at Taco Bell
and why they call them pink slips
when they are not pink.
And then because it’s Monday
I began to think about these little boys
at school, the ones whose parents are in jail
the ones who apparently know more than we think
but just ain’t tellin’. I wondered
what in the world will become of them
if they continue to resist even such things
as listening to a story, and then asking myself
whether I could relax if both
my parents were in jail.


April 6: chronicle of a day’s events turned into a poem

Nothing ever happens to me
especially on Sunday.
On Sunday after I fetch the paper
out of the gutter
my day is pretty ordinary.
It is my day to sit outside
in the garden and read
maybe catch up on emails
avoid the streets
Other than the cats
strewing litter all over
the bathroom floor,
nothing happens to me on Sunday.


April 5: worry poem

Always a Mom

They’ve been grown
and on their own
for nearly a decade.
From two hundred miles away
I wonder whether they’re
eating right, sleeping well,
getting designated drivers
on party nights.
On the phone I ask
do they have enough money,
are their jobs going well,
have they been to
the dentist lately?
I imagine they roll their eyes
the way I did at thirty
at the same questions.


April 4: thank you or tribute

Mom and Dad

They deserve a daughter
half again at least
as good as me,
not one who forgets to call on Sundays.
Knowing this, I should tell them so.

Yet all these years they have given
only love, and loved me
unconditionally.


April 3: haiku

one gnarled oak tree branch
hangs over the garden walk
a squirrel's playground


April 2: put yourself in someone or something else’s skin

Kindergartener

Every day we have to
say I plejallejens and then
sing yankeedoodle.
Our teacher makes us sit
on the hard floor
but she gets to sit
on a fluffy chair with
rolly wheels.
She tells us to write
when we want to draw.
Then we count to a hundred
and it takes so so long.


April 1: a first

April First

On April first the last
of the redbuds bloom.
I drive down the mountain
distracted by purple
on both sides of the road.