First, make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting, etc. Now, for each word, use Rhymezone to identify two to four similar-sounding or rhyming words. For example, if my word is “salt,” my similar words might be “belt,” “silt,” “sailed,” and “sell-out.”
Once you’ve assembled your complete list, work on writing a poem using your new “word bank.” You don’t have to use every word, of course, but try to play as much with sound as possible, repeating sounds and echoing back to others using your rhyming and similar words.
Random words:
Bulb
Blade
Lumpy
Insult
Mint
Adamant
Book
Knot
Chain
Swell
Rhymed words:
Pulp
Grayed
Bumpy
Cult
Flint
Amulet
Shook
Naught
Reign
Quell
Flipping to the End
3 April 20 1114 hrs
Today’s sun is like a solitary bulb
Reminding us of the forbidden zone
Driving our eyes downward, maintaining prescribed distance
Scribbling away the madness on wooden pulp
Feeling my face
The children ask me to apply the morning blade
Standing in the shower once there were black flecks
Alas, they have all grayed
Obsessing over the belly that has grown lumpy
My first request once our containment has been released
Is to shower, under scalding waters
Removing the last bit of hair on a head that has grown bumpy
There is no forgiveness given
To those of the denial cult
For their stupidity is a childish insult
And we are damned by their obtuseness
My teeth have been grinding, bereft of the taste of mint
Personal grooming loses its importance
Once depression sets in
But the eyes still sparkle, there is fire caused by flint
Pushing through these days
My will remains adamant
Stubbornness against collapse I wear like an amulet
There will be no surrender today
My regrets during this time could fill a book
Wishing I read more, created more
But being more for who
So my dreams of being stoic have been shook
My physical and mental health are under nonmedical inspection
But my bonds with my chosen have tightened into a knot
The first week I wish to remember it naught
Once we put this nightmare to rest, I will live as if it were my last week
We may realize that holding hands strengthens us like an interlocked chain
I was never a solitary force
Realizing now how I crave touch
And now the microbes temporarily reign
Don’t be so fast to exit this plane
I’m learning stillness, allowing my heart to swell
Intimating inaction is the way to make the static quell
We will all find our demise to swift to comprehend
