Poetry Prompt for April 4th, 2023

History of National Poetry Writing Month 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. My History with National Poetry Writing Month 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. What I am doing differently for Poetry Month 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. Todays Poetry Prompt Life Didn’t Go As Planned: Write about a recent or memorable experience when nothing went according to plan.  Todays Poem 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  Reaching Out To The Podcast To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. 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