April 2024 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 16—Rain No Rain

In 2025, the world ended
With the collapse
Of the worldwide climate system.

Monster storms of the century
devastated half the world.

But the other half of the world
Had no rain or snow
For almost a whole year
The once-green grass was dying.


Crops failed everywhere
And baked in the unrelenting
Blastwave furnace-like heat
Heatwave after heatwave.


Military coups took place
Fascism re-emerged
The public demanded action
The politicians played
The blame game.

With the collapse of trade
And travel restrictions
People stayed home
Making do the best they could.

Home-grown gardens
Proliferated.

Feudal townships grew
As people walled themselves off
To save their communities.

The rich build underground cities
While the poor starved
And civilization crumbled

Wildlife proliferated
As did neo-savage
cannibal gangs.

By the year 2030
It was all over
And the rains
Never came out west.

The prompt was "Rain"

April 17—Prove Something - God’s Demented Sense of Humor

I sometimes think

That God if he/she/it exists

And created the Universe

It must have a demented

Sense of humor.

How else can you explain

Why he create a parasite

That hides in your system

Inert but if you take

Steroids for any reason.

It blows up like a basketball

Bursting out and killing you,

In thirty minutes.

Leaving the doctors

Wondering WTF

Just happened.

Recording your death

As a medical mystery.

Very few doctors

Have ever encountered

Or heard about

 This weird parasite.

 Based on a true story. Back in the day, I contracted this parasite in Thailand. A few years later, I was in the hospital battling an MRD staph infection and underwent 14 operations. Almost lost my life and my leg. The internal medicine doctor said that there was something else going on and finally told me I had this weird parasite that is inert, but I should take some medicine to kill it because if I ever took steroids it would blow up to the size of a Basketball and kill me in 30 minutes. I always said Thank God for that doctor. Nine months later, I developed a frozen shoulder because of excessive antibiotic use and had a steroid shot.  If that internal medicine doctor had not found the parasite, I would have died a medical mystery.

April 18—Question Something The Basic Decency And Sanity Of Americans Trigger warning – anti-Trump Rant!

These days I wonder about

the basic decency and sanity

of the American people.

How can 40 percent

Of my fellow Americans

Still, support him?

Still believe he was

The greatest President ever.

I  just don’t understand it

Why he is polling at 40 percent

And not 4 percent

Is beyond me.

April 19—Define or celebrate a word or concept -Scumbagology

Scumbagology

is the study

Of the actions of a scumbag.

A scumbag is a narcissistic, sociopathic

 Self-center person willing to do anything

to get ahead.

No loyalty to those who serve him

it is all about me!

The greatest person

in the world.

Unfortunately, there are so many

Scumbags in the world,

In a position of power

In business and politics.

Don’t need to name names

You know who they are.

April 20—Standup Comedy – The  Insult Comedy Tour!

How and why he

Remains so popular

With some Americans

Remains a mystery.

He remains me

Of an old-time insult

Comedian, Don Rickles

Who was infamous

For insulting his audience

Who loved his edgy comic styling,

As he cruelly mocked

everything and everyone.

But, over time,

people got tired of his routine

And his style of humor faded away

But the former President

has resurrected the insult comedy routine.

Going to his rallies

Is akin to a religious revival

For some people.

They delight in being

Part of his whole mad

Carnival scene.

But for many of us

the T comedy tour

is no longer funny

if it ever was.

The End