04/13/25 - Day 13 of 30
NaPoWriMo.net Article
NaPoWriMo Prompt
Finally, here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). Donald Justice’s poem, “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” plays with both art and music, and uses an interesting and (as far as I know) self-invented form. His six-line stanzas use lines of twelve syllables, and while they don’t use rhyme, they repeat end words. Specifically, the second and fourth line of each stanza repeat an end-word or syllable; he fifth and sixth lines also repeat their end-word or syllable. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that uses Justice’s invented form.
My Poem
The Field General, Death, on Flaming Steed Revealed
A certain cloud comes to pass as the fog of war,
When orders from bureaucracy continents away
Are misconstrued, mis-transcoded, irrelevant.
To soldiers going, gone, in battle far away
With a shout the General spouts, “Get them off that hill!”,
Too late to stop ravaged bodies strewn on that hill.
Fighters afield scream in ears stuffed deaf with red tape,
“Pity! We can’t win this battle! You can’t win this war!”
Hawks roosting on maps and plans sign the orders and crow,
“We’ll send five hundred thousand more! We’ll win this war!”
The field General, Death, on flaming steed revealed
Scythes through war’s fog, a winner now cruelly revealed.
Yes, the only true winner, alas.
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