We sail for daisies at midnight,
having joined the daisy navy
several nights ago

(while drinking).

We sail for daisies, but you are still
inside your dark house. The time
draws near, and now I fear

that I will sail alone for daisies.

Will you remember my name, if I am
taken by the sea? Will you remember
my name in the harbor town —

my name and how valiant I was,
alone in my stem-green slicker,

alone and sailing for daisies?
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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to write a poem inspired by a Kandinsky painting. I chose The Golden Sail (which is covered by fair use):

Operation, that game of
BZZZZT
endless BZZZZT
endless fun where
BZZZZT you remove a rib
from a man with BZZZZZZT
a red nose, uncomfortably
BZZZZZZT naked body
and an alarmed BZZZZT
look on his BZZZZZZT
look on his BZZZZZZT
on his BZZZZT
his face. Operation,
the game BZZZZT
that my brother BZZZZT
that my brother and his
BZZZZZT and his friend
BZZZZZZT had to play
BZZZZT in the
BZZZT play in the
basement because BZZZT
when I was BZZZZT
when I was three BZZZZZT
when I was three years old
BZZZZT I was BZZZZT
I was afraid of
BZZZZZZT

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to write about a children’s game.

The rain has washed and laundered us all five,
my brothers and sisters and me, in overalls
that none of us own, wholly, or remember
as belonging to one of us or the other.
That’s how we are, all we five — sharing
in common our hearth-blue eyes, all stones
in all pockets equally. Share and share alike,
we say. We share and share alike.

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to use a quote from a poem by François Villon and write a poem of no more than 100 words. My first line is the first line of his Epitaph in the Form of a Ballade.

What kind of day is it
when you wake up this morning?

I hope it is a good day
for love
and, yes, for rainbows,

for sneakers and bowties
and for dancing, all together
and just the two of you

What kind of day is it,
where you are,
when you wake up this morning?

I hope it is a good day
for love.

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was a lovely and self-explanatory video of a song by Carla Morrison.

For some, the miracle is written
in corpses. Can you rediscover humor,
even before anger ceases?
Flies are masters, though they will never
say so — winnowing creatures down to bone,
the finest editors the world has ever known.

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to choose up to 13 words from the following quote (I’ve bolded my random selections) and use them in a poem that has something to say about metaphor:

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

Beetle
I’m here to do the
beetling
I think my name is —
I don’t know my name
or yours —
but
I am here
you are here
the sun is warm
and you and I have
time

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads involved Costa Rica, with several photos as possible starters. I chose this one, by JSB Fotografia:

My spine is the corncob
I toss to the squirrels

This is how your skills align
My kills?
What? No. Your skills.
SKILLS
and how they align in this sector
of corncob

of back — I want it back,
but the squirrels have taken it
to their unseen rooms of long ago.

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to write a poem of 12 lines or less, inspired in some way by Maya Angelou’s “When You Come.”

I worry I can no longer pretend
anything,
my face gone clear as a billboard
and as large,
telegraphing what it is I have
for sale, or worse,
what it is I’d rather hold back.
I worry that I’m now a balloon,
obvious as I blot out the sun
for a moment
before I travel on,
invisible, but bound to
strangle a sea bird or a turtle —
some creature that finds me subtle,
not clear enough at all.

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Today’s optional prompt at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was to borrow a line from another poet. I borrowed “I worry I can no longer pretend” from Tarfia Faizullah’s “Poem Full of Worry Ending with My Birth.”

We do not live at the last outpost of the world.
Our name is on the door — granted, it’s misspelled,
but it’s a good approximation. Would someone
look at Cavichia and Cavicchia and say they are
different, and it must be the wrong house?
That’s not what I said to Chaithra in the chat,
though I did say I was upset and that
the delivery person must not have tried
all that hard, since we were sitting at home,
one, both, or all four of us, all day long,
and never heard a buzz (it’s not faint,
and also the dog erupts every single time).
Chaithra said that she was addressing this as
a very high priority, and that she would extend
my Prime time by a month, and that it was
a pleasure to assist me today.
That was yesterday.

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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to write about something I’m waiting for, without saying what it is.

Caffeine is anti-inflammatory,
so I guess I may as well.
There is no end to this misery
but time, and to move when I can —
to rethink and suck my teeth
in panic when I move wrong,

amazed at what can hurt
when a back is not strong.

Last night, I walked our dog
but never reached the park,
holding on to fences, lampposts,
begging her to understand
why we couldn’t play ball,
why she couldn’t be a dog

pulling at her leash while I
hung back in my fog.

Every time this happens,
it’s like a bill that has come due
for weight not lost and strength
not gained, and all the stress
pushed down and down
to lower vertebrae, unseen

but then screaming,
the ghosts in my machine.

And every time this happens,
I say what I’ll say now:
I’ll do better and live better,
go to Pilates class and breathe,
sleep more and worry less,
and never come this way again

because I’ll be different
from how I’ve ever been.
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Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads is an invented form called an A L’Arora. Also, I was really stupid yesterday and moved many heavy bags of compost when I was recovering from a minor back pain problem, which then became much less minor (as you can see).