Day 24 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 98

Greetings once more, friends! My poem today is #98 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #463, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that takes place at night, and describes something magical or strange that happens but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write an unidentified poem.” Let me do something different today and give you a photo first. To whet your appetite for later. Photo Source Okay, now on to the poems. I'm happy today to combine the two prompts in two poems — both prompts in both poems — which I'm grouping together as a single poem with two titled sections. Strange Night Tankas             “Spring Riddle” Dark flying creature swooping under stars, her long winter sleep done, makes a baby with sperm she saved since fall . . . skin wings swoosh unseen.             “Moon Gardens” Moonflower vines bloom white at night, beckoning bats, Luna Moths, Sphinx Moths, and other mysterious creatures to scatter pollen. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Bat and flower (Photo Source) If not for the "unidentified" prompt, however, I probably would have given the first tanka a straightforward title like "Little Brown Bat in Iowa Spring" and have it be a poem on its own. (A single tanka is usually not titled, though, so that's something to [re]consider.) The second tanka, separated out, would probably still be "Moon Gardens," but it could be expanded later into a multiple-tanka sequence. Actually, maybe both sections could become separate tanka sequences, in which case the presence of the title(s) would be defensible. We'll see. Oh! The info in the first tanka is all true with the Little Brown Bat . . . the delayed fertilization is pretty trippy. Today, Alan has an interesting approach to the prompts with a poem in six-line stanzas (sestets) in tail rhyme or maybe rime couee, both rhymed aabccb — however all in pentameter, rather than the varied line lengths usually associated with those forms. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!     About this poem, Alan told me, "There is really a Mothman Statue in Point Pleasant." And there it is up above, red eyes and all. Go up and look at it again. Be sure to click on it to see it larger. And pinch it wider to see it even better. That's a great yarn, Alan! It is a yarn, right? Photo Source Incidentally, the Elizabeth Bishop allusion that this poem is not, is to her poem "The Man-Moth" (though that's worth looking at for another magical creature — or man?). Thanks for visiting the blog, dear readers. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 22 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 96

Hey hey, friends! My poem today is #96 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #461, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: Write a “poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with him or herself.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a natural poem.” Another successful day combining the prompts. My "natural" element is Mother Nature herself. Mother Nature Talks to Herself             —tanka sequence I was out swirling my ocean water, whistling a tune, enjoying the lofting blue of my sky when I saw the three red chutes like pockmarks dangling their Artemis II capsule. Said “Damn!” to myself. “Goddess Me, I thought for sure humans were all leaving soon.” —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Artemis II landing (Photo Source) Today, Alan is combining both prompts as well — with a speaker in conversation with one of their own body parts, and hence nature. The Intermediate Phalange of My Left Index Finger Tells Me to Take It Easy I mean, it might be the intermediate phalange of my left index finger. It might be the flexor digitorum profundus tendon or the flexor digitorum superficialis tendon. for all I know, it could be the proximal interphalangeal joint. It just speaks up, not like my right wrist when I’ve been at the keyboard for hours, demanding to be kept still, not to be pressed against the edge of a desk, not to have nerves twinging through it, but murmuring a soft complaint, “How can you go for days without playing guitar and then think playing for two and a half hours straight would be a good idea?” “Do you really need to press the ‘F’ key that many times? You’ve almost worn the letter off! What the hell is going on? Are all your students failing?” “Who all are you beckoning? Can’t you just bring yourself to say, ‘Come here?’” —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Thanks for visiting the blog. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 10 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 84

Welcome back, friends! My poem today is #84 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #449, including the poem count from last year's challenge). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, write [a] meditation on grief.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a mini poem.” I'm combining both prompts, as I usually do. This poem may not be as "mini" because I write tanka sequences often, but ten lines is pretty "mini" for most folks. Below the poem is a photo of my dad holding my oldest son Marty as a toddler, probably from 1973. Almost 40 Years Ago and Now             —tanka sequence When my stepmom called to say Dad had died, I felt an abyss open, empty gap out there in front of me. Some days it’s still there. Like in dreams, where Dad is always in the background not saying a word. I yearn for him to talk, long to hear his voice. He just smiles. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Today, Alan is addressing First Lady Melania Trump's statement yesterday on the Epstein situation. The middle stanza is made up of quotations from you-know-who. How to Break Prediction Markets The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. "I don't know anything about that." "We'll make a decision in about two weeks." "I did nothing wrong." "Shut up, piggy!" "She didn't know him." The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect. . . . I was never involved in any capacity. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, another masterfully done send-up. Thanks for coming by, dear readers. See you again tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

National Poetry Month / NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford Challenge

Welcome back to the blog, friends, for a new National Poetry Month. Like before, we will be writing a poem a day and posting those poems here. "We," being Thomas Alan Holmes and I, will be writing from prompts at NaPoWriMo and Poem-a-Day headquarters. I hope you'll keep coming back to read our poems this month. My poems this April are also continuing my participation in the Stafford Challenge, where poets around the world are writing a poem a day for a year. This is actually my second year with the Challenge, and today's poem is #75 this year and #440 over those two years. Okay, here goes . . . Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own tanka – or multi-tanka poem" (technically called a tanka sequence). The tanka is a Japanese poetic form: traditionally, in English, five lines with 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today's prompt, write a seed poem. So many plants start from a tiny seed and (hopefully) grow into something much more substantial, but there are also other ways to come at this prompt. Some people are considered good seeds ... or bad seeds. Some run-down, disreputable places are labeled seedy. Many competitive tournaments are seeded. So take a moment to consider seeds and then write your poem.” Here's my first April poem, combining both prompts, as I always try to do. I'm writing about Artemis II, the NASA mission heading to the moon later today. ’Round the Moon and Back             —tanka sequence Artemis II — seed to revive our space program with crewed flights? Drones sent to other planets seem more sensible, less dangerous . . . but less romantic. Later today, one woman and three men blast off for the moon’s far side we can’t see from Earth. Excelsior! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And here is Alan's poem, also merging both prompts: Sprout “Johnny Appleseed” in elementary school the day I went west, teachers found me blocks away, pants pockets full of acorns. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Back to Artemis II: Good luck and Godspeed to the four astronauts heading to the moon today! Google today is celebrating the moon flight with a Google Doodle: (For more on this Google Doodle: https://doodles.google/doodle/nasas-artemis-ii-mission-around-the-moon/) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 24 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 98

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a time of day poem. You can pick a specific time of day (like the songs "3 A.M. Eternal," by The KLF, or "12:51," by The Strokes), or it can be a more generalized thing (like "early morning" or "lunch time" or whatever). Snack time is one of my favorite times of day, for sure. (And don't forget poeming time!)” Today, I'm fulfilling both prompts with a tanka, untitled, of course. The prompts came in here about 11:00pm last night — midnight, I think, in the time zone where both Maureen and Robert happen to be. I was still up and had written a decent draft by about 12:05am (in the wee hours of this morning) and then finished the poem today. Several times of day in this one. The Bangles sang, “Six o’clock already,” like I do. I wake each morning at 6, take pain meds. Then again at 12, 2, 6, 10, and 12. Just to make it through one more day. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The lyric "Six o'clock already" starts off the song "Manic Monday" by The Bangles (1986), composed by Prince. One of my favorites of The Bangles' songs. Here's a video of them performing the song live in 2011, twenty-five years later. Friends, Alan has "gone rogue" today, meaning he's not working from the day's prompts but instead going with a theme of his own, dealing with the James Weldon Johnson novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. UPDATE: I had misunderstood how Alan was working with the prompts today. He was working with the music prompt and not going rogue. So sorry, Alan! Playing by Ear As a youth, the Ex-Coloured Man in Johnson’s novel learns by ear to play piano, the one his white father gives him when he perceives value his blood has granted the son he has sired by his black mistress. Later reading notes under duress but even then inventing improvisations, later and in love he became entrapped within measured bars while accompanying a girl who could not improvise with his young virtuosity. We think of love as liberating until we have fallen into it. Let it extend us as far as it can, the tie holds, a securing tether, each path becomes reconnaissance and each echoed misstep resonates. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Incidentally, I got some cool poetry news recently. My book Dragons & Rayguns has been nominated for the Elgin Award from the SFPA (the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association) for best speculative poetry book published in the last two years. Wish me luck! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 6 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 80

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today’s prompt (optional, as always) veers slightly away from our ekphrastic theme. To get started, pick a number between 1 and 10. Got your number? Okay! Now scroll down until you come to a chart. Find the row with your number. Then, write a poem describing the taste of the item in Column A, using the words that appear in that row in Column B and C. For bonus points, give your poem the title of the word that appears in Column A for your row, but don’t use that word in the poem itself.” Obviously, you'll have to go to the website to see the chart. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a reaction poem. Your poem can include the action that prompts the reaction, or it can start in medias res at the actual reaction. There are all manner of scientific reactions out there, as well as human reactions to local or world events.” Merged the two prompts again . . . in a tanka, once more. Watermelon glared at me, mocking the butcher knife in my hand. A strange reaction from something I’m gonna splash . . . since soon we’re gonna be one. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Many thanks to my partner Renee for a suggestion that helped me get this last line and get out of the poem! As you may have noticed, I have been striving to write small poems both in the April poems so far as well as in the Stafford Challenge. Well, Alan went whole hog the other way, with a behemoth 71 lines! And merged the two prompts to boot. Banana When I was an adjunct faculty member of the University of Tennessee English Department during the early 1990s, for a couple of years I was assigned a cubicle in the approximate center of campus on the top floor of McClung Tower. From those twelfth-floor windows, we could see the administration building. The internet hadn’t gotten a proper hold just yet— when it did, one of the first things we learned to do was to look up answers to Disney trivia questions in a McDonald’s promotion so we could get free food. It was usually fries and sometimes a sandwich, if we were lucky. Nobody talked in detail about adjunct instructor pay even then except among ourselves, and listening to carefully revealed secrets, and learning not to listen in a large room full of cubicles seemed sometimes like courtesy and sometimes like denial. When I had lived in Tuscaloosa just years before, graduate students had potluck parties in part so we could be sure our friends were eating. For years, I received $626 a month on a nine-month contract as a graduate teaching assistant, about half a dollar more than minimum wage. My wife earned minimum wage for years until she graduated and got a slightly better job with a drug store chain that does not exist anymore. The graduate director of my department, after one of many attempts to get the university to raise the English GTA pay, once told me of a dismissed attempt with the line, “Too bad, so sad, your dad,” which was the punchline of a joke that started by a college student’s sending a postcard home that read, “No mon, no fun.—Your son.” He put a rasp in his voice when he said it, like a tired old guy. He knew I knew that joke. I thought the world of him until that moment. Some of us were mailing checks to meet payment deadlines knowing that our accounts were empty, due for deposits only a couple of days away. It was before new electronic/internet banking systems had come into play. Doing that now would bounce a check. I had grown up when bouncing a check would be unpardonable. I have bounced only one check in my life, buying an engraved name plate for someone who dropped out of school to enter business. I thought my gesture of confidence would mask my quiet disagreement with his plans. It was the 1980s. Some people misunderstood the “greed is good” line from a movie. In the common mailroom of the UT English Department, a graduate student told another she was dating someone mostly because he always took her out to eat. Years later, at my current institution, in the department’s common mailroom I overheard a student worker say the same thing. The graduate students think I’m joking when I suggest they should take a sealable plastic bag with them when they attend events. I imagine a couple of them have figured out an extra cup, kept dry, can hold a palmful of cheese cubes, maybe with some mixed nuts on top. Nobody tries to peek into a cup you hold by its top rim by your side. Often, my colleagues and I bring to work cakes, cookies, crackers, and fruit, and we always overorder food for events so we have extra to bring back to our common room. Some days, it lasts less than an hour. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 5 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 79

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[T]ake the phrase 'After (blank),' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: 'After Hours,' 'After a Good Movie,' 'After a Quick One,' 'After the Encore,' and/or 'After a While.'” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo “prompt is inspired by musical notation, and particularly those little italicized – and often Italian – instructions you’ll find over the staves in sheet music, like con allegro or andante.” The directions continue with three columns of words and phrases where one must follow detailed activities that you'll have to go there to follow (complicated!) Well, let me at least describe the proposed process: Maureen has given three columns. In the first, there are made up musical instructions, like “with a hint of frenzy” or “crazy eyes here.” The second column has musical styles, like "yacht rock" or "muzak." The third column has words like, "butterflies" or "centaur." Now pick one word from each column and "write a poem that takes inspiration from your musical genre and notation, and uses the word or words you picked from the third column." Okay, here's my tanka . . . the musical instruction I chose from the columns is "obliterte the choir," and I'll confess I am not conversant in death metal. Anyway, both prompts mixed. After Cannibal Corpse To play death metal cancellare il coro, and vampires will rise, the choir's undead twitching, fast, melodic, and guttural. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan also merged both prompts in a lovely haiku. After “Lord, Have Mercy” One hymn sung graveside and a handwrought monument, lift hope for Heaven. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Designed by Freepik Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 2 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford Challenge 76

Today is Day Two in April and also Day 76 in the Stafford Challenge. Here are today's prompts: Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a "from where I'm sitting" poem. . . . From where you're sitting (or standing) at this moment, find something, someone, etc., that interests you and write a poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of 'fact,' and something that seems out of place in time (like a Sonny & Cher song in a poem about a Greek myth).” I have been writing quite a few ekphrastic poems of late, particularly of Grant Wood's images. In March, I was the featured Guest Poet in the Stafford Challenge, where I read some poems and then presented several of my Grant Wood ekphrastic poems. Today, I'm merging the two prompts again with another ekphrastic poem on Grant Wood — a tanka again like the one on his Woman with Plants a couple days ago. Doing the "requirements" of the Poem-a-Day prompt and then the NaPoWriMo prompt in order (and staying within the tanka's syllabics!). I really enjoyed writing this one. After Self-Portrait by Grant Wood (1941) From where I’m sitting, I see you, Grant Wood, golden, floateriffical, flesh balloon by farm windmill . . . no, an alien spaceship! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] By the way, I cheated a little: rather than an "odd/unusual simile" I used a metaphor, odd and unusual enough, I hope. "Self-Portrait" by Grant Wood (1941) https://www.wikiart.org/en/grant-wood Alan also did both prompts. He wrote me, "Directly address someone? Yes. Made-up word? Yes (try looking up the title). Odd/unusual simile? Yes. 'Fact'? Yes. Out-of-place something? Yes (see the simile). “From where I’m sitting”? Yes." Also, Alan has written an acrostic — where the first letters of the lines spell out something. Vermicastigational Really, you want chickens sick? From where I sit, I doubt you Know the consequences. Stunned Rural communities need Funds to prevent illness—you Know that. Herd immunity Rarely works in theory, Forget real life. Again, you Know that. Is this suicide Revengeful, like a worm dead From eating rotten brain cells? Kennedy or not, listen, Junior, you’re killing people. RFK would disown you. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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The Stafford Challenge, Days 61-74

Here are two weeks' worth of poems in The Stafford Challenge. The last poem (Day 74) is not only a Stafford Challenge poem; it's also a response to an early-bird prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. On Day 61, 18 March 2025, another dream poem, a real one, from last night. Doing a monotetra again: quatrains in monorhyme, 8 syllables per line, last line a twice repeated 4-syllable phrase. Not Quite a Nightmare —a monotetra In last night’s dream I was on tour with some famous country rockstar, and I found in the stands, my poor broken guitar, broken guitar. We were doing an afternoon sound check. Then someone shouted, “Vin, come see!” That axe wouldn’t play then ever again, ever again. I’d had that guitar since high school. I knew that it was just a tool, but that Gibson was super cool. I’m just a fool. I’m just a fool. Broken into many pieces: firewood and bent metal traces. Gathered up the whole sorry mess, back in its case, back in its case. Schlepped that axe the rest of the tour. The pieces inside the case were rattling, rattling. So weird and rare: a ghost guitar, a ghost guitar. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Photo by Eva Rinaldi from Wikimedia On Day 62, 19 March 2025, I was hoping to write another dream poem again today, but alas, no dream last night, or rather no dream remembered. Instead how about a haiku on today's weather here. Hail: little ice balls bouncing off the car. Nature’s BBs . . . ping! tink! Argh. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by LoraPalner from Pixabay On Day 63, 20 March 2025, back to ekphrastic poems today. Responding this time to a photo of Grant Wood's living room in 1940. A titled tanka sequence. Nan Wood and Grant Wood at Home In pride of place, Nan’s portrait is the centerpiece of Grant’s living room. Brother and sister reading the news . . . domestic life in the heartland. After his death, Nan always defended against people saying Grant was gay. Protesting too much? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo in an article from Sothebys(dot)com: "The Heartfelt Story Behind Grant Wood's Portrait of his Sister" (2018) On Day 64, 21 March 2025, started this one as a haiku yesterday, during the spring equinox, finished today as a tanka. vernal equinox: days supposedly warming . . . still pretty damn cold, but yellow is busting through, soft sunlight out of the ground —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by Grey85 on Pixabay On Day 65, 22 March 2025, Saw a Facebook ad for a Dragon Mug, and voila — a tanka. Fun getting the 5s and 7s with good line breaks. That's why I still stick to the 5s and 7s ... great lineation puzzle game. Drink out of the top of a dragon’s head. That’s how the trouble begins: first, throat burns; second, skin scales; third, eyes glow; fourth, mouth smokes. Yikes. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo from a dragon mug advert. I'm really tempted to get this mug. But how do you drink out of it!? On Day 66, 23 March 2025, trying out a cherita today, thanks to Karen Johnson McCaskey's example yesterday in the Stafford Challenge community facebook. The cherita is a poetic form invented by the poet ai li . . . three stanzas with one line, two lines, three lines, respectively. World Poetry Day was two days ago . . . I missed it the globe spinning with words poems constructed of fire and ice, sweltering summer and snow blizzards, the storms of human entropy right now —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Illustration from Pixabay On Day 67, 24 March 2025, check out today's Google doodle ... an animation in anticipation of cherry blossom festivals. Here's a haiku, 5-7-5. sakura — cherry blossoms — trees blooming bright pink here and in Japan —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Illustration from dandelion_tea on Pixabay On Day 68, 25 March 2025, a light tanka today. Hope you're havingh a wonderful day, everyone! Got a doctor’s “app” today . . . the rest of the word is “-ointment” — salve, cream, unguent, medicinal, balm, herbal, anointment. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by NinaCliparts on Pixabay On Day 69, 26 March 2025, a little late getting to the epulaerya form, related to food: 7/5/7/5/5/3/1 syllable lines, ending with an exclamation. (When I say "a little late," I'm referring to the Stafford Challenge community facebook, where there were a lot of epulaeryas showing up for a few days a couple weeks ago. Hmm . . . epulaeryae?) All-You-Can-Eat Lunch at Izumi Sushi, Des Moines edamame start, sushi (crab, avocado, spicy salmon), beef udon, crisp shrimp tempura, clam nigiri bites, amazing tastes! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's a photo of my lunch from 7 March 2025. On Day 70, 27 March 2025, driving across Iowa today. A contrast in my mind with my hometown, San Francisco. road trip: light blue clouds arc over brown fallow land . . . upside-down ocean —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's a photo of the landscape/skyscape. On Day 71, 28 March 2025, still on the road. Picked these up at an Aldi's in Omaha. Eating them now in the car. And writing this haiku. dried mango slices: sweet bites from the Philippines, mouthfuls of sunshine —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] On Day 72, 29 March 2025, got back from visiting my partner's folks last night. A 5/7/5 haiku again. home from the road trip: our own blankets and pillows, welcome oasis —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] On Day 73, 30 March 2025, a childhood memory ... a 5/7/5/7/7 tanka sequence. Car washing today made me think of my dad’s Ford Falcon Futura in 1964, long time ago, when I was 12. I still love that car’s intense bright blue-green color: cyan, turquoise, teal, aquamarine, electric blue nudibranch sea dragon. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] On the left is a photo of me at 12 with my dad's 1964 Ford Falcon Futura. Since that pic is faded, on the right is a photo that shows the color better. On Day 74, 31 March 2025, a 5/7/5/7/7 tanka based on NaPoWriMo.net's early-bird prompt on the eve of April poems: "try penning a portrait poem ... inspired by an actual painted portrait." Here's an ekphrastic poem on Grant Wood's portrait of his mother. After Woman with Plants by Grant Wood (1929) Madonna with plant, not a plump baby savior . . . stiff spine ramrod straight like the upright stems she holds, strict, unswerving, heaven-bound. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Grant Wood, Woman with Plants (1929) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

The Stafford Challenge, Days 54-59

For 6 days in The Stafford Challenge, I've written a tanka each day. The tanka is a Japanese poetic form — 5 lines with syllable counts of 5/7/5/7/7 (think of it as a 5/7/5 haiku with a 7/7 couplet. Here's a description. Untitled, though if you have a tanka sequence (linked tankas), that is often titled. On Day 54, 11 March 2025, here's a poem about my mom. I haven’t written about Mama yet this year: soft sweet musky scent, steam in the kitchen, sizzle, crisp brown chicharon. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Chicharon—Philippine snack made from pork rinds or pork belly. Descended from Spanish chicharrón. On Day 55, 12 March 2025, a tanka on childhood memories again. my nights as a child were filled with the distant cries of a lovelorn beast through thick San Francisco fog . . . sad foghorns moaning —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in fog Photograph by LinaHeps on Pixabay. On Day 56, 13 March 2025, a tanka from Robert Lee Brewer's Wednesday prompt for 15 January: a dream poem. In my dream I rise into soft air like bright fire: fly, soar, swoop . . . I wish. I can almost feel the wind sweeping me up. Oh, I wish. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by Fionatusche_24 on Pixabay On Day 57, 14 March 2025, a tanka about a missed opportunity in the sky. Missed the blood-red moon last night: the lunar eclipse. Instead, my eyes turned inward, eclipsing themselves in sweet, dreamless sleep. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo from an NBC online news article about the lunar eclipse on 14 March 2025 Day 58, 15 March 2025. Day before yesterday, I wrote a "dream poem" which was actually about a dream I wish to have. Today, I'm writing about my actual dream from last night. A tanka sequence with title. Weird Dream In my sleep last night on some beach in Africa, I’d set up sound gear to splice and compile mixtapes: strange, rhythmic, spacey music. I wasn’t sure why I was there, or even who I was. Just some guy with a spaghetti bundle of wires and boxes on sand. And that weird music like a thick cloud around me: a hard pulsing beat, invisible instruments played by aliens. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by emirizzi on Pixabay Day 59, 16 March 2025. Back to a single tanka today, based on an art photo by my friend Eric Garcia-March. thin tendril of white rising into a dark room, calla lily blooms, just a wafting plume of smoke that vaporizes, like life —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by Eric Garcia-March Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Ingat, everyone.  ヅ