Age

Mack the Knife – NaPo 2025 Day Thirty

For the final day of April and to close out the 2025 version of how I do National Poetry Month, I was to pen a poem that describes various times in my life when I have heard the same band or music.

Congrats to all participants. This may have been my best NaPoWriMo year because the prompts seemed to be in my poetry writing lane. One a day for 30 days, on prompt.

Thanks to Maureen for another fantastic April.

Composed

Melody and lyrics done separately
twenty years before my birth
in a language I did not speak
never intended for my ears
for the Threepenny I’ve never been

Thirteen-ish me,
a maligned Catholic school kid
discovering hormones;
Friday night dances (nun-chaperoned),
and un-churchly music we loved;
songs like The Battle of New Orleans,
Mack the Knife, Personality, Venus,
Lonely Boy, and a hundred more.

The year another paper boy
and fellow music lover, Don M. said
was when the music died.
But it had not. Not yet. Not ever.
My music may die with me. But not today.

Not until Bobby Darin — did Mack the Knife
find me with five up-key modulations
bring marvelous darkness to musical light
to make us feel a special song
in a special time. Then and since.

Wonderful covers, pre and post, but
back then I didn’t know about
someone and something I liked so much,
music that would change with me,
year after year, never the same old song.

Look both ways
“Now on the sidewalk…lies a body just oozing life, eek!”
Mind the gaps cuz,
“someone’s sneakin’ ‘round the corner—could that someone be Mack the Knife?”

Interested in more? Check THIS out—especially the video of Bobby Darin’s version, if you’re not familiar with the song.

EXTRA – EXTRA – EXTRA —- A friend and classmate of mine just let me know about this new, hot, Broadway production honoring Bobbie Daren.

 

 

 

Write me a Song – NaPo 2025 Day Twenty-Nine

Today I was to compose a poem mused by the life of a musician, poet, or other artist.

Then Sing It

What is it like? I will always wonder,
to know at age fifteen or sixteen
what you will do for the rest of your life.

And five or more decades later,
to not only have made it,
but to be at the top,
to still be doing it—still creating.
And to be
a star, a celeb, a household name.
Can you count the awards?

To have your picture
from the covers of several of your many albums
on Mr. Bill’s wall,
to have fifty-thousand plus strangers pay
to hear you sing, to play, what do you say?
To sing it while making your day and theirs.

For a lover of your talent to think of you immediately
when prompted to write a poem about
an artist, a singer, songwriter, both,
and you knew it before I knew who I was.
How does it feel?

Sure, life was not always wonderful,
not as charmed, perhaps awful at times. I know.
I care. But for me there were days
when your music was everything.
Often, it was all that mattered to me.
Maybe it saved me.

Look both ways. Some of us are still trying to figure out life
and who we are and were we are going.
Mind the gaps, the majors, the minors,
and thank someone who doesn’t know who you are.

I did not use a name in this poem because there are so many.

Rock Poem Metaphor NaPo 2025 Day Three

Day three of NaPo prompts me to follow the easy style of Frank O’Hara and to write a poem that obliquely explains why I am a poet and not some other kind of artist.

I looked. Oblique means not straightforward: indirect, obscure, devious, or underhanded. Perhaps metaphorically?

Poemhenge

Like most,
as a child I found rocks and stones interesting
to see, to hold, to gather, and to throw.
There were cool ones for holding
and some for skipping on water.
Some were hot rocks. Jocks protected stones.

I didn’t know any of the names.
Fools gold wasn’t gold or diamonds
but was filled with glittery sparkles.

Rocks had formations.
Many were famous.
Rocks and stones were even in songs.
And in idioms like rock solid
or your stone-cold heart,
or the millstone around your neck.

Eventually, old stone makers interested me
and new stone makers challenged me.
And the colors and cutters of gemstones
like emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds.

As I grew, my view of stones got more solid.
Famous rock formations attracted me,
I wanted to imitate the creators.
In the gym I used soft rock like talc
as I listened to the rock music and dreamed
of the rock candy mountain.

Rich people wore and collected rocks.
They called them jewels and gems
but I could not always tell you why.

Later, maturity took ahold of me
and I found my fit, even as a fossil,
to make rock and stone creations of my own.
Polishing stones. Stepping stones.
Stumbling blocks are rocks.
My mind one stone quarry among many quarries.
I walked the limestone line on cordoba cream—
noticing colors, styles, and finishes.

One day I collected some of my stones.
I trimmed and polished them. I included
abrasive stones, message stones, smooth stones,
and made them ready for display to the world.
And I named them all poems.

Look both ways and if you see Frank O’Hara, tell him I want to be a painter too.
Mind the gaps, especially as you traverse the rocks, then stop, sit, have a “J.”
Mind what the poets have to say.

Note: “J” is from the Paul Simon song “Late in the Evening.”

Sammi’s Weekender #367 – Party

What Matters?

I envied parties.
Younger me wanted something,
or was it concern about missing out?

My last party,
a high school graduation overdone deal
for a grandson, with whom,

I exchanged five words.
People I didn’t know,
went mostly unnoticed by me.

Many lacking in the social graces
except for some like me
so many names with unfamiliar faces.

I talked to his other grandfather,
and to my twin step-granddaughters
who seemed to like me better,
after thousands of words, I felt likewise.

Small intimates are for me now.

Look both ways because the life of the party is not who it once was.
Mind the gaps when you soberly tell me about your life and what really matters.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 21, Overstated

I don’t think I’ve ever had a real favorite color (or colour). But I needed to answer the question: what is it? So, I used to say it was blue. I like green, too.

And while I don’t like yellow cars (think lemons), pants, shirts, or journalism; Motorcycles, flowers, and mellow yellow songs all do well in Amarillo yellow. Also, I liked Jay’s pumpkin colored, semi-yellow-orange Porsche, which was kind of sweet.

Today’s Prompt-areno (it’s been three weeks, folks) is to write a poem that repeats and/or focuses on a single color. While any color would do, I went ahead with ubiquitous blue. It meets prompt.

Overstated

I thought I was cool, or at least being so,
like I would know the trick,
but I was advised
that I looked more like a fool,
the colors were a little bit sick.

My shirt, pants, and shoes were all shades of blues
but shade makes the difference, thus I donned—
a lighter shirt in a bland shade of green.
That was yesterday.

Now at home, I write a blue poem about my casuals,
while wearing a two-tone blue top
and mixed-up blue bottom that is not to be seen.

Long ago, my eyes were blue, but now some say green,
depending on the day,
my shirt,
and my blue-eyed soul.

We dance to the Blue Danube waltz,
and we swim in blue waters,
we pine for the bright blue sky,
then in August we wonder why.

Blue Ridge Mountains take me back,
a Blue Duck sits on my desk
or maybe it’s some Lonesome Dove’s
dark psychotic character.

Like red and yellow, blue is primary.
Mixing gets us shades of green or purple
or a midnight-something.

Blue nose or blue toes, blue jeans on blue teens,
blue men in a Vegas troupe.

Blue moods and Mondays
are both downers but not the blues of bennies,
and blue shaved ice is coconut flavored on blue tongues.

Navy blue is almost black, and baby blue is much too tac.
So blue is good, and blue is bad, and blue can even say
that we are in a mood or feeling sad.

But I thought it through and through
and I must admit,
if I did have a favorite color,
it would probably be something like
a deeper shade of blue.

Look both ways but try not to see red when looking at blue.
Mind the gaps in mismatched tops and bottoms, but blue is the truest of the cools.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 17, At Seventeen

Today I am to write a poem inspired by a song, and to share its title. I confess to being influenced by song lyrics, especially the well-told stories in ballads.

Earlier this year I read “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian (1975) as a poem at an open mic event. I’ve always loved the song and somehow relate to it, as do many people around the world. Janis explains how that affects her and sings her song in the video below.

At Seventeen
When she called
I couldn’t hardly talk at all,
and when she sings
I remember high school things.

The words, the tone,
together talking on the phone,
her memories, at seventeen,
were mine at home alone.

“It was long ago and far away,”
do I wish it was today?
What has changed in how we are,
in pickup trucks or borrowed cars?

At seventeen when boys like me,
Sad Sacks outside for all to see.
“Come dance with me”— because
that couple we will always be.

She said,
I pity boys like you who serve,
you only get what you deserve.
My broken heart sang obscenities,
to the one I loved but never pleased.

At seventeen I was that man,
a boy holding a gun over there,
I stay alive as best I can, but
of angry me I must beware.

At seventeen a boy like me—
at seventeen, too young to see.
And ugly boys like us do care.
At seventeen, when I was there.

Memory is a strange, unreliable thing; so, look both ways and don’t assume.
Mind the gaps in song and poem, you’ve been only human all along.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 16, My Bufferina

Today’s prompt is a revenant from 2016. I was to describe an object or place in a poem that ends with an abstract line.

My Bufferina

In the lower-deck belly
of the B-fifty-two-dee bomber,
two downward shooting ejection seats,
held two-thousand hours
of my youthful ass.

Whatever was bad outside—was worse inside,
oven hot in summers;
meat-locker,
freezing-cold in winters.
All jets, or airplanes, had the same putrid odor:
burned wire insulation, fried electronics, old dry puke,
and piss. Add oil and JP-4 jet fuel.
No shit!

Navigation and bombing, our job, done there.
Twelve-to-twenty-four-hour missions
(mixed with moments of stark terror);
we worked, wrote, drew, set-and-checked,
and double-checked;
we ate our meals sitting there,
sometimes
one napped during deadhead times,
a home where liquid oxygen was life,
and the noise—
literally deafening.

Service ceiling nine miles up,
nuclear
low-level missions
dodging hills, towers, cows,
and Nebraska farmers’ turkeys;
sweat and stink;
then, after debriefing,
it was beer-thirty time.

Happy Days was a great TV show.

Look both ways because perspective is everything.
Mind the gaps on the maps from when GPS was a dream
called, “what do you need me for, now?”

 

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 15, How Things Change

For halfway day, for the fifty-yard line of National Poetry Month (US and Canada), for the late bunt that moved me to second base, for Day 15; I was to be inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. I assumed my poem was in the offing.

Technically, I’ve been, or was, a collector of stamps since around age 11. Over the years that hobby dwindled and failed to hold my interest, although I am still interested in stamps, especially the lovely old ones, from the US and other countries. I have acquired entire collections simply because some collector had lost interest. Click here for wiki on plate blocks.

How Things Change

When I was quite young,
too young,
my aunt gave me her
well organized, large collection
of used postage stamps.

My sister’s boyfriend at the time
(she was 13 years older than I)
collected new plate blocks.
He gave me some and encouraged me
to abandon used stamps for new
with printer plate numbers.

I did. He helped. I traded
my aunt’s collection to enhance
the upgrade. Eventually,
I put my collection away,
although I have acquired
other collections over the years.

I’m different now. Sister’s BF
has gone to the big Post Office
in the sky. I am not a collector
of anything. I’m an accumulator
(books, rubber ducks, some
stuffed animals and dolls).

But for many years I have
regretted my decision to part
with my aunt’s collection. Those
old used stamps would mean
more to me now than all the
many collections I have
stored and ignored.

Look both ways and appreciate the past,
but if wisdom comes with age,
accept it without regret, if you can.
Mind the gaps because memory is a strangely alterable thing.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 14, When You Know

The NaPoWriMo, Day 14 task is to write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word: an anaphora.

When You Know

You know when you’ve had enough
When hopes and dreams are done and gone,
When your dog might outlive you,
When you can’t pass a bathroom,
When your hair is a memory,
When all your friends seem new,
When you wonder if you still can,
When someone says you’re harmless and they’re right,
When pain, not darkness, is your old friend,
When all your plans have come and gone,
When regrets and memories are the same
— if you have either at all,
When walking is workout,
When a game of pool is high impact for you,
When your favorite song is sung and gone,
When cooking and cleaning
— are aerobic exercises,
When grumpy, old, or sweet apply
— like names to all the people you meet,
When “I don’t care” answers every question.

Some of us have more past than future, but we look both ways.
Mind the gaps, ignore the aches.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 7, Bro, WYWH

Today I was to write a “poem” titled “Wish You Were Here” (WYWH) that takes its inspiration from the idea of, and the abbreviated format, of a postcard. My poem should be short, and should play with the idea of travel, distance, or sightseeing.

Okay. But since some folks have no idea what a post card is or does, and others only know texting with its abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms, I made a post card poem written by a texting generational.

Hint: Listen to audio as you read the poem.

 

Bro, WYWH

Cos, I got seasick
And the food sux
and I bored 2
IDK WTF WYD

IRL is NBFD but hey
we on FTW, right?
NVM, Ima ROFL
Cos Mail person wonders,

If we are FUBARd RN
or doing a GG. IDK.
CU in 2wks, right
IYKYK.

TC, Duddo

Ps: FWIW – ILY

Look both ways and look up everyone if YC.
Mind the gaps and the language of the text machines.