NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 24 prompt: Write a poem that takes place at night and describes something magical or strange that happens, but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.

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When the veil is thinnest it is night.
While little good happens, claim many humans,
natural phenomena, atmospheric nighttide
appear, and magic becomes quietly real.

Marvelous spectacles few have ever sensed:
shadows without daylight, a unique quiet wonder,
and the staggering luminescence of galaxies.
Like a parallel universe of perceptions unknown,

even ardent skeptics find serenity in the stillness
and nod to the natural and the folklore of mystery.
Picturesque drama wraps us in enhanced wonder
as we marvel, as we think deeper than before.

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NaPoWriMo 2026, Day twenty-three prompt: Write a villanelle poem that ends with a question.

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Emergency Hope

Into ER they come looking for hope.
Sometimes with madness, sirens, and lights.
Seeking pain relief, they need us to cope.

Some walk, some roll, at the end of their rope.
Here we are vulnerability on a gurney with rights.
Into my ER they come looking for hope.

Triaged by a nurse and the aroma of soap.
Help is in scrubs of blue, green, and white.
Seeking relief from the pain, they need us to cope.

Today hospital was not part of my horoscope.
“Doctor, doctor, that nurse really bites.”
Into the ER they came looking for hope.

Soon she’ll be home playing like a happy antelope.
Do not ask for a priest to give me last rights.
Seeking relief from the pain, they need us to cope.

Do we find relief with the stabbing colonoscope?
The Emergency Room has so many sights.
Into ER they come looking for hope.
Are you seeking relief and need us to cope?

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NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 22 prompt: Write a poem in which you are in dialogue with yourself.

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Let it Be

You always pulled it off.
In some strange and lucky way
you were slicker than they thought.
You’d turn and away you would walk.

I was just playing the game like everyone else.
I placed my bet and took my share.
You should know,
you were there.

You never cared about right or wrong,
only if you might get caught.
The trick you said was to never stay too long.
Every love you had you would forsake.

I am not the same and you know that.
That part of me has gone away
and now I wonder who I was.
The guilt and shame, I’m not the same.

It will catch up with you someday
And I’ll be standing in your way.
We will have to take the stand,
You’ll have to choose who’s in your band.

Maybe. But some things will never change.
My life I’ve worked to rearrange.
And now is the time to end it all.
And you’re too late to make that call.

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NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 21 prompt: Write a poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given.

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I never met maternal grandfather, William,
nor do I know any nicknames he had.
Mom named me after her father,
a Welsh Presbyterian, born there.

If my sex was female, likely given
mother’s family history, I was to be
Wilhemina — a moniker mom and sisters
liked to (teasing) call me growing up.
I never cared though.

Billy worked throughout high school,
classmates still use it,
but was later made Bill. I don’t know
for why or by whom. A few friends used
Scratch (as in pool), but it didn’t stick.
That’s a nickname for the devil, Old Scratch,
it could have made a good story.

Nicknames given in military (my career) are often
uncomplimentary and teasing. Obi-Wan
was pinned on me when I was a B-52
crewmember during the Star Wars
craze (1977), the Alec Guinness role,
not Ewan McGregor.

Such names do not often transition
outside the military. I was the oldest member
of my crew (as is Ben in the movie), but some
thought me “lucky” and that “the force”
must have been with me. Maybe so.
I’d rather be lucky than good any day.

Nicknames like Maverick, Iceman, Goose,
Rooster, Phoenix, and Hangman* are assigned by peers
from personalities, mistakes, or play on last names.
“Buffalo” liked to call me “RJ,” my last name is Reynolds.

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Look both ways at the names we’re called.
Mind the gaps and don’t let the humor hide the respect hidden under the **mayonnaise.

• Nicknames from the movie, Top Gun.

**From the movie, An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).

NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 17 prompt: Write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet. I chose “If” by Rudyard Kipling. I did not paste that poem here, but HERE is the link.

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When I am a human man and I question,
doubt others, and also myself,
when I move on and forgive the lies
with a smile and a wink,
but I will trust never again.

Then I have lived past my thoughts and felt
an imposter, when my song survives
as I suffer fools, then I’ll find
just the right tools.

When, win or lose, I become all
that I can be and I learn from the past
and question the future. Then, maybe.

When I write the poem that defines me,
when I walk away from fools and pain,
when I see Earth as humanity’s home,
then, Rudyard, I am the man I am.

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Look both ways. Mind the gaps. Take what you like and leave the rest.

NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 16 prompt: write a poem that describes something that cannot speak. Include what it has taught or told you.

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On the Wall

I have seen you hanging around,
always there. My first 40 years you hung there
on Mom’s dining room wall and reflected
all who passed
so many times each day.

Antique photographs display gilded age design
flanked by sconces on grandfather’s wall
a hundred years ago.

Now old and tarnished,
repaired but not the same,
my reflection in you
calls forth ancestry I never knew.

Did they look into you and did you
hold likenesses of my past,
the good days and the bad
as you help us wonder,

How do they see us?

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Look both ways because the mirror knows.
It sees the past and the future secrets.
But it stirs the mind to wonder what it saw and when.
Mind the gaps for seven years bad luck.