Writing group date: 02/16/26

Prompt

Someone brought you flowers.


My Poem

You Brought Me Flowers

The Tuileres once witnessed
Our purple-petal prancing.
Lavender aflutter flew
Among our tipsy toes

Tyler roses twined in poses
While we twinned in elegance.
We knew that we would always dance,
And never dance just once.

Even when I couldn't stand,
Those precious calla lillies
Saw you swaying hand-in-hand
With my heart so willing.

Even when I lost the battle
My love, your orchids did witness bear
To your circle dance, entranced,
As you swirled 'round my cairn.

As I leave Miseria's moans
For freshly-budding shores,
I love you for the dances and for
Bringing me the flowers.

Writing group date: 01/12/26

Prompt

What is an acceptable loss?


My Poem

Acceptable Moss

Stumbling over rotting
Redwood root boles,
Towering elder evergreens
Choking a leaden sky,

Slippery granite slopes of
Chilly northwest dew,
No longer give me pause to
Traverse and bow in honor of you.

Gazing up at stubborn moss
Clinging northward to the bark,
Perhaps today I will finally
Stop wondering,

"Did she cling to his collar as she
Clung to life?
In this mouldy earth does she still
Cling to this realm?"

Gazing up at stubborn moss
Perserverance in green, in the dark,
Perhaps today I will finally
Start letting go.

Perhaps I will
Bow my head, shed a tear,
Turn around, and
Head from here,

Without hating,
Without cleaning off
The moss, ever returning
Above her head.

NaPoWriMo - April, 2025 - Poem: Wounded Deer Karma - Rewrite

NaPoWriMo 2025

04/27/25 - Day 27 of 30

NaPoWriMo.net Article


NaPoWriMo Prompt

And now for today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.


My Poem

Inspirational Painting: The Wounded Deer - Kahlo, Frida

Wounded Deer Karma

(Original Poem)

There must be a frisson when the deer knows it’s doomed.

At first it is only startled into

Log leaps

And

Quick-turn

Bolts

As hunters’ chuckling grunts precede taut bows.

Then the first arrow pierces, a quick dagger

Strike.

Off it

Bounds in

Panic

Arrow shaft bouncing, rending quivering shoulder meat.

Three, four, shafts, and more,

Thwick thwickthwick

Through the air.

Find lamprey-toothed purchase in flowing red hide.

With

Hammer jack

Heart thumps,

The deer stops.

Stock still

Until

Shivers course through the stag in dawning throes.

It cannot escape. It now knows karma.

Dropping in supplication to fate,

Sacred cervine majesty endures

As flensing blades

And unassailable darkness

Still the stag’s heart.

Wounded Deer Karma

(Rewrite)

Flank flutter frisson

When the deer knows doom.

First, only startled,

Log

Leaps,

Quick-turn

Bolts,

Hunters’

Chuckling grunts precede

Taut   drawn   bows.

First arrow

Flung,

Quick dagger

Strike.

Deer bounds

Off.

Wild-eyed

Panic!

Arrow bounces,

Rends

Quivering shoulder

Meat.

Three, four

Shafts and more,

Thwick thwick-thwick

Through charged air.

Strike strike-strike,

Lampreys hooked

In red-flow

Hide.

Hammer jack

Heart thumps,

Deer stops.

Stock

Still

Until

Shivers-course,

Dawn-throes,

Karma

Known.

No escape.

Supplicant fate,

Sacred cervine majesty

Endures.

Flensing

Blade-borne

Darkness

Stills its

(thump-thump)

Pure

(thump

thump)

Stag

(thump)

Heart.

NaPoWriMo - April, 2025 - Poem: Wounded Deer Karma

NaPoWriMo 2025

04/27/25 - Day 27 of 30

NaPoWriMo.net Article


NaPoWriMo Prompt

And now for today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.


My Poem

Inspirational Painting: The Wounded Deer - Kahlo, Frida

Wounded Deer Karma

There must be a frisson when the deer knows it’s doomed.

At first it is only startled into

Log leaps

And

Quick-turn

Bolts

As hunters’ chuckling grunts precede taut bows.

Then the first arrow pierces, a quick dagger

Strike.

Off it

Bounds in

Panic

Arrow shaft bouncing, rending quivering shoulder.meat.

Three, four, shafts, and more,

Thwick thwickthwick

Through the air.

Find lamprey-toothed purchase in flowing red hide.

With

Hammer jack

Heart thumps,

The deer stops.

Stock still

Until

Shivers course through the stag in dawning throes.

It cannot escape. It now knows karma.

Dropping in supplication to fate,

Sacred cervine majesty endures

As flensing blades

And unassailable darkness

Still the stag’s heart.

NaPoWriMo - April, 2025 - Poem: The Hunger Triangle - Rewrite in Free Verse

NaPoWriMo 2025

03/31/25 - Warm-up day before Day 1

NaPoWriMo.net Article


NaPoWriMo Prompt

And now, here’s an early-bird prompt for those of you who want to write a poem, whether it’s April or not – and for those of you for whom it’s April already, even as poets in other places around the world are still in March.

Maybe one of the most common subjects in art is a portrait – a painting of one, singular person. Portrait poems are also very common. To get a sense of the breadth of style and form that these poems can take, take a look at Anni Liu’s prose poem, “Portrait Of,” John Yau’s, “Portrait,” and Karl Kirchwey’s “The Red Portrait.” Now try penning a portrait poem of your own. It can be a self-portrait, a portrait of someone well known to you, or even a poem inspired by an actual painted portrait. (If you’re looking for one to inspire you, why not check out the online collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery?)


My Poem

The Hunger Triangle

(Original Poem)

 

The Hunger Triangle forgotten by God 

Is Kongor, Waat, and Ayod 

Sudanese famine as rebels and pols  

Disrupt the flow of food. 

 

The boy is less than a mile away 

From food and too weak to go on. 

The vulture waits patiently for the end 

Of the spirit that clings in Ayod. 

 

Crisis framed will feed his fame. 

The journo’s conscience is cleared. 

As he shoos away the caws and claws 

Of the ebon harbinger bird. 

 

First world home, his guilt is borne 

A vulture squawking, “Why?” 

If he’d borne him to the tent 

Would he have survived? 

 

A shadow swings across the wall. 

The Pulitzer is framed 

By the swinging body of the man 

Who hung his head in shame. 

 

Decades pass and war goes on 

And famine grips the land. 

The Hunger Triangle forgotten by God 

Is Kongor, Waat, and Ayod

The Hunger Triangle

(Rewrite in Free Verse)

Rebel war in Sudan is

A hooded vulture

Stalking, hissing, waiting,

Anticipating the death

Of its intended meal.

Predation instinct in an ebon cape,

Tearing beak and slashing claws.

Carrion comfort to sate its empty maw.

Famine across the desert is

A skeleton once a boy

Crawling, teetering, falling,

Dragging a bag of bones

Across the arid scrubland.

A bloated belly full of starving pain.

Stick-thin limbs, a head too heavy for his neck.

The UN relief center is less than a mile away.

Governmental apathy is

A photo journo clicking away,

A Nikon shield for his guilt,

Witness to a dying flame,

Journalistic neutrality intact.

Should he tarry to carry the boy to the tent?

He shoos away the bird instead.

He is already late for his flight.

The hunger triangle is

Kongor, Waat, Ayod,

War, famine, apathy,

A vulture, a boy, a Pulitzer.