Poetry Prompt for April 4th, 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.

Life Didn’t Go As Planned: Write about a recent or memorable experience when nothing went according to plan. 

The Last Time I Cried 

14 March 2023 

It wasn’t too cold that day 

My car was starting, sporadically 

It was a Friday, and I was forgotten in the waiting room 

The nurse had me type in my information 

She was unable to hold a thought for more than five minutes 

Then back to the waiting room of forgetting 

The resident came in 

Way younger than me 

Way more handsome,  

Probably was having a threesome that night 

He wanted to get out of there 

I wanted to get out of there 

Friday at 4 PM, both of our minds were elsewhere 

He brought in his teacher, the real doctor 

His accent was probably not as thick as I perceived  

Between the nurse, the resident and this doc 

I am surprised any of them hadn’t been sued or assaulted 

And that’s when they told me 

Welcome to the world of MS 

And they ushered me out 

The receptionist had left an hour ago 

So, the head nurse practitioner had to check me out 

He was the only one with an ounce of kindness 

I made it through the hospital in downtown Richmond 

I had been here before 

Had the ticking timebomb removed from my brain 

And I remembered how shitty I was treated back then 

And I wondered why I came back 

Oh yeah, I’m a De Sade fan 

The car didn’t start.  

I lit a cigarette 

The car didn’t start 

I am not sure why I thought it would 

I walked around the car 

Smoking another cigarette 

Underneath the sign that says don’t 

Just as I was about to call home 

The car started 

Driving up I95 on a Friday before Spring Break 

There was a lot to time to contemplate 

Making my way home 

I said no, No, NO 

5 years of frustration 

5 years of MRI’s MRA’s, CT Scans 

Spikes pressed 5 times in my back 

Blood tests galore for every known disease 

Finally understanding why so many things happened 

Finally realizing that I was never lazy 

Finally realizing that what was wrong had a name 

It wasn’t me all along 

Making it through the front door 

The children were asleep 

The wife was on the couch 

I knew we would be there for awhile 

Talked till her yawns couldn’t keep her eyes opened 

And then we slept 

Saturday with the children didn’t cause the waterworks 

It was when my wife got back from errands 

That it all hit me 

And my kids wonder why Papa doesn’t cry 

They’ve never seen it 

And I know it’s bad to think, but they may never 

Even then I couldn’t weep for myself in front of them 

Retiring to our room 

As she followed close by 

I made it in, shut the door 

And heard my dead mothers voice calling me selfish 

And selfishly I cried 

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