Poetry Prompt April 11, 2023

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espresso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

For 2023 I am not going to be just writing poems in April, I will be writing poems all year round. Also, since I will be writing all year round, I am using a different source for my prompts. There is a blog called Think Written and you can find it here. I will also be performing these works at Katora Coffee House here in Fredericksburg Virginia on their Friday Night Snaps Open Mic Poetry reading. Some of the podcast episodes you will hear will be a live recording of me reading the poem to a live audience, other times I will be reading it in the comfort of my home studio. I do plan on posting my work to the NaPoWriMo site and interacting with the poets there and see if they want to read their work on this podcast.

Weirder Than Fiction: Think of the most unbelievable moment in your life and write a poem about the experience. 

Greyhound Pimpin 

5 April 2023 

The cheapest way to see the country 

With people, you probably will never meet again 

I was on the East Coast heading out west 

To the city of Sun Phoenix to visit a friend 

After pushing off the homeless guys 

Begging for smoke or spare change at the depot 

I got into the bus where all the seats are coach 

Towards the back, near the bathrooms 

The slight smell of antiseptic and piss soaked into the cloth seats 

We pulled out of there 

Just to stop again, and again, and again 

Gaining more and more people  

Dropping off others 

The miles crawled by 

We got to Atlanta that night 

Time to switch busses 

Time to find my bags 

And tote them over to our new driver 

The same bums begging for change followed us 

Like there was an ATM on board 

And naturally, we were all well off 

Seeing the country the cheapest way possible 

There was a couple already occupying the back seats 

And I sat in front of them 

The smell had changed from cleaner and piss 

To sweet sweet rotgut 

With a hint of patolli 

So, I gave them my spare pack of smokes 

And at each stop, we stood off from the others  

And huffed our way to bliss 

The driver came to the back more than once 

Complaining about the smell and noise 

I could play straight easily 

But they were true amateurs 

By the time we got to El Paso 

The cops were waiting for them 

As we left the bus for another round 

They were taken in 

And I puffed on a smoke a stones throw away 

They waved goodbye 

And I said till we meet again 

I got back on that bus 

And changed seats 

Trying to outsmart the driver 

When we were stopped at the border security station 

I thought they were coming for me 

They pulled off a few who looked darker 

Than those in the land of the free 

They didn’t wave at me 

And I didn’t say goodbye 

They were lost in that New Mexico sky 

We pulled into Phoenix 

The heat was still on high  

The city didn’t care if it was the middle of Fall or Summer 

It was hot all the time 

And there was my friend waiting in his Mercedes 

The bums from Richmond and Atlanta followed us 

And started to beg again 

When they tried to wash his windows 

He pulled out his gun 

They scurried off like mice 

And we headed to the nearest strip club 

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