Before I show you the prompt I worked with from NaPoWriMo.net, and the resulting poem, I have to say how thrilled I was to be today’s featured poet, based on the cabbage-growing (or not growing) poem I wrote yesterday. Big thanks to poet Maureen Thorson for putting so much care into these daily prompts throughout April each year, and for the tremendous honor of having one of my poems spotlighted! Now, then:

“… an elevenie is an eleven-word poem of five lines, with each line performing a specific task in the poem. The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun is in three words, the fourth line provides further explanation in four words, and the fifth line concludes with one word that sums up the feeling or result of the first line’s noun being what it is and where it is. There are some good examples in the link above.

“A double elevenie would have two stanzas of five lines each, and twenty-two words in all. It might be fun to try to write your double elevenie based on two nouns that are opposites, like sun and moon, or mountain and sea.”

Monarch Season

Caterpillar
eats milkweed
in an enclosure
inside, away from predators,
safe.

Butterfly
drinks nectar
in the garden
braving all the elements,
free.

Do You Have a Head for Cabbage?

Please wait two to three weeks to plant the cabbage,
during which time it will remain on your table
in its paper cup, most likely with roots snarling around
the bottom, taking up the entire cup or exceeding it.
Consider that you could just eat it now, get the whole thing
over with. You wouldn’t win the cabbage-growing contest —
or your son wouldn’t, that is — but let’s be honest:
Can you even find the thing that came home with the cabbage
from the Bonnie cabbage company, explaining the contest,
how to win that $1,000 at some point in the fall?
Spring to fall is a ridiculous length of time, in terms of
paper, its management, to say nothing of the growing of
this cabbage. Anyway, what you should do is an elaborate
daily study of light patterns from your dining-room window,
an assessment of the perfect spot, and perfect day to plant
cabbage. But there is no “perfect” here, thanks to bushes
and a palisade fence, the advancing shadow that overtakes
the scrubby shared yard. It may be best to hem and haw
over cabbage, water it like a houseplant until it’s clear
that it’s missed any chance at all, be haunted by a photo
that can never exist: your son in a plaid shirt, farmer-style,
holding up his harvested cabbage like a gruesome trophy,
a head on a pike, after a summer of fattening for the kill.

______________________________________________________________________________________
Today’s prompt at NaPoWriMo.net was to write a Georgic, which is an instructional and pithy agriculture poem. I decided to catch up with the cabbage plant that I wrote about earlier this month.

The Only Thing the Ice Cream Truck Says

Come, children, and trade money for ice cream.
No one knows the name of my song.

____________________________________________________________________________
Not really based on a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net. I was supposed to use a bit of overheard speech, and I kept hearing the ice cream truck.

Designed for Use in Congested Areas

The WIFFLE (R) perforated plastic ball

is thrown like a baseball
and will curve very easily

different grips and releases
no need to throw the ball hard

designed for use in congested areas
the ball will not travel far

when solidly hit

ball chasing and base running
have been eliminated

an ordinary broom handle can be used

imaginary runners

____________________________________________________________________________________
From a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net, using information from the WIFFLE company website. The whole time I wrote this, I was sort of memory-smelling a WIFFLE ball and feeling a sadness that may be nostalgia or may be a remnant of dismal times playing with one of these because there wasn’t much else to do — like at your grandparents’ house (or at mine, anyway).

God Unveils the AirDancer (R)

Behold my finest creation:
a man as tall as a mighty elm,
with hollow arms and head,
ready to receive the breath of life
from a small compressor fan
and thence to dance, to wave,
to beckon human men and women
to purchase used cars, boats,
above-ground pools. I know I rested
already, on the seventh day, but
I might need to rest again, here on
day 512. I’ve outdone myself.
That much is clear.

_____________________________________________________________________
Based on a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net.

Option Paralysis

In the toiletsun
of a foreverheadache,
the ceramic bunny mocks me
as I question how I came here
to this clutterspaced nest
of my life, why I drag home
more and more lifethings,
like a secret hoarder of
responsibilities.
From the cottonworld of my
overstuffed head, I pull out
one thing and then another,
consider them,
put them back. I am too
busytimed today,
will be far more
adequatepaced tomorrow
or in some evermorrow
or the one after that.

_______________________________________________________
From a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net.

Nocturne for June

In the bath
of the lawn
in a nightgown
of light
your bare feet
on a path
of white stones
and dew

_____________________________________________________________
From a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net.

Dear Eleanor

How shall I tell you all that has happened here?
One day there were bells all in the sea
and washed up like whelks
only singing, ringing

Another day there were clouds everywhere I looked
including under the hearth rug, which was in turn
under a fat, sleeping dog which barely roused itself
to bark, but when it barked, it told me a parable
that I can’t now repeat

This evening, we sat down to our customary supper
and found that the table had gone all quavery
and halfway out the window, tasting the salt air,
which then made the tongue sandwiches taste
of salt, too

Well, it’s off to bed with me,
if I can find it. Some nights,
it’s strewn with fresh petals
of frangipani or damask rose,

and some nights, it’s
gone

Mrs. Frebish Dies on Tuesday and Says 

I was right in the middle of

something
and then this happened.

Isn’t that always the way?

________________________________________________________________________________

From a prompt at NaPoWriMo.net.

OK, here was the prompt I had to work with, from NaPoWriMo.net: Last but not least, our prompt! Because it’s Friday, let’s keep it light and silly today, with a clerihew. This is a four line poem biographical poem that satirizes a famous person. And here’s the result (keep scrolling — it’s there, I promise) … I didn’t want to join what I was sure would be a crowded field of Trump poems.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Shirley Jackson
can’t come back, son.
Enjoy her horror
unless you abhor her.