April 2024 Writing Com Dew Drop Inn Prompts:

Previously posted from March 31 to April 9

March 31 Warm-Up Cage

April 1—Be a fool in a poem!
April 2—Focus on a leaf or a flower…
April 3—Look at the sky!
April 4—Personal grooming…
April 5—Get a sport into a poem!

April 6—Beverage, libation, liquid…
April 7—Figure something out in a poem
April 8—Delay (any kind)
April 9—The animal world
April 10—The plant world

April 11—Eclipse/d
April 12—Make a dire prediction you hope doesn’t come true
April 13—Discovery
April 14—Complaint
April 15—Lament

April 16—Rain
April 17—Prove something
April 18—Question something
April 19—Define or celebrate a word or concept
April 20—Standup comedy

April 21—Salient image (poem based on one concrete thing you remember at day’s end)
April 22— Serio-comic dilemma
April 23—Let Shakespeare be your inspiration
April 24—Unexplored desire
 

April 25—TV series
April 26  - Noise

April 27    Beauty

April 28  - Secret

April 29—The sense of an ending…

April 30 – Poem about Poetry
 

Begin Poems

April 10—The Plant World -Green Trees Don’t Make It

Everyday
I look out and see
 

The ugly green trees
Standing guard

in front of my house.

And I think to myself
Who owns the trees?
And what do they think of us?

Are we their friends?
Are we their enemies?
What do the trees think of us?
 

Do they silently watch us,
Spies to the celestial emperor?

I have pondered this question
Many a morning,
 

Who is the owner of these trees?
And why do they silently watch us?

I wonder if the trees don't hate us
And why they don't protest.

Every day as we drive back and forth
Emitting poison gases from our mechanical asses
Right into their unprotected faces.

And every night we eat our dinner
And then give the trees
Our polluted leftovers

And laugh as they silently die
From our acidic fallout
Constantly floating down on their skin.

Yes, I wonder about the trees
And the birds and the bees
And everyone else.

What are they thinking?
Are they plotting revenge?
Or are they merely there

Silently, watching, plotting,
Designing fiendish plots of revenge
Dreams of vast nuclear destruction.

Cosmic diseases wiping out everyone in the ass
Oh Yes, I wonder and dream and ponder
What is the meaning of those silent green trees?

Standing on the corner
Quietly condemning us
With their quiet tears, and falling leaves.

In the winter they stand
Naked and alone
Covered with ice-cold snow
As we drive by nice and warm.

And we don't care
As they stand out in the cold
Shivering, plotting
warm plans of cosmic revenge.

Is it too late for us
To become friends with the trees?

Or will the day come
When the trees will wake up
And gather together
All the other slaves of humanity.

I have a vision
One morning I will open the door
And see an army of wild things
Coming to arrest me
For crimes against nature.

And I will plead, I did not know
And they will laugh

and turn me all of my kind
Into silent tombs,

And we will stand out in the cold
Like the green trees
Plotting dreams of revenge
For ever and ever.

Until our day finally comes
And we can go out
and kill all the wild things
Perhaps we already have.


A revised poem based on a poem I wrote in 1976.

April 11—Eclipse/d

two Lunatic Lune Poems about the Eclipse

Title: Final Solar Eclipse

the solar eclipse

ended life

massive solar flare

Title: Howling At The Eclipse

howling at the moon

full madness

solar eclipse time

April 12—Make a dire prediction you hope doesn’t come true

Civil War 2.0

Reading the latest polls

Showing that President Biden

 And Ex-President Trump

Tied in a dead  heat

In the polls

Particularly in the swing states.

. I realize there is

Real possibility

 That Donald Trump could

 Be elected president again,.

 Again, and if so, what would he do?

These nightmares keep me up

At 0 dark hundred.

Nightmares that President Trump

 Ending American democracy

Replacing it with Hungarian-style

Neo-fascism overwhelms me.

Another factoid in the news

Is that 25 states,

According to the Texas Independent Movement,

Would likely join Texas in seceding.

From the U.S. in the event

That Biden is elected president.

 The proponents of this Great Divorce

 Call it Civil War 2.0.

 And in most cases, it's led by Texas.

 Leading the Red States

And California leading the Blue States

Including the entire West Coast

And NE America and Chicagoland

Out the proverbial door.

And if Trump does not make it

He would call it rigged

And announce he would be happy

To serve as the President

Of the Christain States of America

Immediately Texas and 25 states

Succeed and hold a constitutional convention

To enact Constitution 2.0

So if Trump wins Christain Fascism

Followed by Civil War 2.0

If he loses Civil War 2.0

Followed by Christian fascism

In the Christian States of America.

 These are some of my nightmares

That I hope will not come true.

 

April 13—Discovery First Contact Ship Shot Down!
 

In the movie, the” signal”

An Astronaut receives

A signal from an alien spaceship

Heading to earth

The alien repeats the word

Hello in multiple languages

While heading to Earth.

The discovery electrifies

And terrifies the world.

All  the world’s governments

Decide In secret.

To shoot down the spaceship

Before it could land

As it could be either a probe

Of the beginning of an invasion.

When they enter the ship

They find the original

Voyager data discs.

Which the aliens

Were returning to earth

As an opening gambit

To establish communication.

April 14—Complaint  Computer Blues (revised) Sometimes I think My computer is plotting against me And only me! Trying deliberately to drive me mad. My computer knows When I am busy, Then it throws a hissy fit. Here are some of my pet peeves Constantly Crashing It often refuses to boot up, And crashes constantly. It loses data it had the day before. Or five minutes before. Or refuses to save the data. Just messing with me. As it loves toying with me Making me yell and scream On my computer screen. Can’t Open Files Often when trying to open A document in Word, The Word open file button Fails to respond Sometimes you have to wait Five minutes for it to respond. Or when trying to open a file The computer opens a random file Instead. Or when trying to open a document It kicks you out Often several times Sometimes you can Open a copy Sometimes not. Sometimes you can save the document Under the same name Often you have to save it Under another name. Sometimes it refuses to open A document saying There is a dialogue Box open. Which is a lie There is no Dialogue box Visible. Random Blue Screen of Death Cursing up a blue stream of blue curses As the blue screen of death Marches across the dark blue screen Smiling at me. Years ago my computer converted everything to the number 6 endlessly scrolling down the blue screen of death. as it did not like that I had spilled coffee on it! Endless Non-Response Spinning blue wheels Open the document once Not twenty times! Quit with this Endless spinning blue wheels. In endless loops Until I have to reboot the computer. Computer error Haiku Codes Don’t give me computer haiku error messages That only makes sense to a computer geek. Such as general error reading files Who is this general Failure And why is he reading my files? Or can’t save the file Or can’t save the “An open file” When it just did ten times in a role, Or kicks me out, while losing my data. Copy and Paste Wiping out document text Or when doing a simple copy-and-paste function The computer defaults to the last command Making you have to do it again and again Up to five times sometimes And on a random basis The copy and paste function Wipes out all data In the document And to add insult to injury Deletes all previously saved version Sending the data Into computer limbo land Never to be found again All without warning Just zip it's gone! Frozen Num Lock Another thing My computer loves doing Is on a random basis, Turn the numbs lock on Without warning Turning text into numbers. Requiring you to manually Turn off the number lock. All Caps Pops On a Random basis Once in a while The all-caps button Mysteriously turns on Turning everything into caps. Fortunately Usually, there is a warning flash. Defaulting to Foreign Languages A very annoying feature Is that when you log in from overseas Everything defaults to a foreign language Usually without the ability to change It back to English Despite the fact Your settings are all in English. There may be a hidden button To change language Written in the language Used in that country. AI hallucinations AI is a great tool But sometimes It gets things wrong Or it makes stuff up! Google Bard Once tried to convince me The US Embassy In Seoul had moved Five years before To a new location Outside of Seoul. Only problem was That was an AI hallucination Based on a proposal almost ten years ago. Mission Accomplished And all the other gobbledygook messages That pops up every five minutes, it seems As the computer slowly drives me mad. Flashing the final insult User-driven mad Mission accomplished.

April 15 Lament Watching the News

While watching the news
I am constantly lamenting
The sad state of political discourse
In these increasingly
Disunited United States of America.

Where we have retreated into enemy tribes
Blue, red, and purple states
With each convinced their tribe
Is righteous, patriotic, and pro-American.

Accusing the other tribe
As anti-american fascists
plotting to set up a dictatorship.

Some talking darkly
about Civil War 2.0.

That is my daily lament
Particularly when insomnia
Steals slept from me
At 0 dark hundred.


"O Dark Hundred" is military jargon for the time two hours before dawn when operatives get up for dawn operations. I use it to denote the hours in the middle of the night I have nightmares.