April Is Upon Us: 2025 Version

 

Free use image from Gordon Johnson on Pixabay

Hello, fellow poets. I will be participating in NaPoWriMo, the April PAD Challenge from Robert Lee Brewer at Writers Digest, and the Writers.com 30-day poetry challenge this year, but I won’t be publishing my poems here because I am submitting them to Dragon Soul Press for consideration in the forthcoming Soul Chaser anthology from Dragon Soul Press. You can find out more about the anthology on this page.

https://dragonsoulpress.com/poetrycalls/

Here are links to the sites mentioned in the first paragraph.

https://www.writersdigest.com/2025-april-pad-challenge-prompts

Napowrimo.net

https://writers.com/napowrimo-prompts-for-national-poetry-month

One of the prompts for the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge from Long and Short Reviews asks what books I’d like youths to discover.

https://www.longandshortreviews.com/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge/

I think young people should be introduced to poetry in all its forms. Classic poetry, modern poetry, world poetry, it’s all worthwhile. 

I feel that some people concentrate too much on perfect form. For me, poetry is a way to express certain emotions and concerns that I otherwise can’t. I don’t want to censor the story my soul wants to tell. There’s a time for concentrating on form. However, most of the time, poetry is catharsis, it’s therapy, it’s a way to bleed out without dying. 

I didn’t realize until I was in my fifties that the way I behaved as a teenager and even well into my adulthood was a trauma response. I don’t know if I would have survived without poetry to help me express what was happening inside me. I didn’t understand it. I just thought I was crazy. I had a lot of unhelpful labels put on me, but nobody doing the labeling was interested in helping me heal. They wanted compliance from me, not peace for me.

I don’t go on about this sort of thing as much as I used to. In some ways, it’s water under the bridge. I also got tired of not being heard or understood. That’s just the way it is. The people who will get you, especially if you’re an odd specimen like me, are rare birds. The ones who get and like you are rarer still.

So, the cool things I’m doing this month are poetry and creating some sort of weird hybrid mess for a Camp NaNoWriMo replacement project. Everything else involves crap like taxes and Medicaid renewal. Blech! Yuck! Suckville!

The thing about Medicaid renewal is that if we had a national health system, everyone would be on it, so there would be no need for Medicaid renewal. I have believed we should have a national health system in the US since my youth, and I will continue believing it through my old age. I wonder if we’ll get one before I put my other foot in the grave.

Anyway, I want young people to be exposed to poetry from the time they can write. I want them to not only learn about other people’s poetic masterpieces but to learn to create their own. Being able to express one’s pain in a positive way is essential to mental and spiritual health. There isn’t enough focus on the importance of the arts. Engaging in creative activities not only leads to inner peace, it leads to greater understanding of oneself and one’s place in the world.

A world with Medicaid for all and poetry for all would be a much improved place in space.

Ornery Owl Has Spoken

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 30

 

Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay

This will be our last daily prompt for a while, Poetry People. I decided to end on a fun one, writing a silly limerick about a smack-talking Cyclops and a cheating golem made from bread running a race.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-30

This final Twofer Tuesday prompt of the challenge asks poets to write a beginning poem and/or an end poem.

My poem has both a beginning and an end.

It doesn't end well, but if you enjoy twisted dark humor, you'll like it.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-10/

This year's final NaPoWriMo post invites participants to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.

Hence, the Cyclops and the bread golem.

I believe this is the first time anyone has written specifically about a bread golem. In fairness, the infamous gingerbread man is also a golem made from foodstuffs. 

I was up until close to three in the morning preparing my submission email for Dragon Soul Press. It's flown to its destination and was swiftly acknowledged. 

This is the link you require if you're interested in submitting to their forthcoming horror drabble anthology (submission deadline 31 May). 

https://dragonsoulpress.com/drabblecalls/

Don't direct further questions to me 'cause I can't answer 'em! I'm just the messenger.

I hope one day soon I come to a place of peace with this damn CPAP machine. I fare better when I keep it on, but I don't like having things on my face. I usually take the mask off while I'm asleep. 

I really do wish society, including the medical community, would stop shaming people for not being perfect specimens of exceptional health. I feel like a failure for having diabetes. I feel like a failure for needing a CPAP machine. I felt like a failure when I had to have an emergency C-section. I feel like a failure anytime one of my old fillings needs replacing. Telling people they're failures if they have health issues doesn't lead to improved outcomes, and this ineffective method of "encouragement" needs to stop. 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 29

 

Image by Nanne Tiggelman from Pixabay

Good afternoon, Poetry People! I must admit that my first thought on seeing today's NaPoWriMo prompt was, "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-nine-10/

The prompt asks participants to use one of ten words from a list of words used in Taylor Swift songs, then include the word in the title of the poem.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/taylor-swift-words

I have a quibble with the reference to these as being "Swiftean words." She did not invent these words any more than I invented the words ornery, sarcasm, or snark. She just used them. 

I'm pretty sure Lemmy invented the word Orgasmatron. Lord Iffy Boatrace's butler Butler invented a rather horrifying sex machine called the Pelvotron in Bruce Dickinson's naughty and nutty novel The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace. So, Orgasmatron may well be a proper Kilmisterian word, while Pelvotron is a Dickinsonian (as opposed to Dickensian) term. Bruce Dickinson, or at least his band, Iron Maiden, will figure into this post again at a later point.

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks poets to pen a proper Until Blank poem.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-29

Scanning the list of words used in Taylor Swift's songs, I found Albatross and Elegy, and things started to click.

Read here for some myths and legends about the albatross.

https://truespiritanimal.com/albatross-symbolism-and-meaning/

One of my favorite songs is Albatross by Judy Collins. However, I also recalled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a lyrical ballad written in 1797 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in 1798 in a collection of lyrical ballads by Coleridge and William Wordsworth. 186 years later, Iron Maiden recorded a 13-minute tribute to the ballad for their 1984 album Powerslave, and lo, a nineteen-year-old me was grateful yet again for Steve Harris and his love of history and literature.

I used the word elegy in today's poem, which touches on the topics of my pig-headed persistence until the day I go tits up, whether anyone will be inspired to write an elegy for such an ornery cuss, and the fact that I would prefer to listen to the songs of Judy Collins or Iron Maiden over Taylor Swift. This actually isn't done in the manner of a dig at Taylor Swift, it's simply factual information about me.

I honestly don't care much about Taylor Swift one way or the other. I find it ridiculous that some man-children who either frequent incel forums or use religion as a cudgel to keep women in their place have their tighty whiteys in a bunch about the fact that a thirty-four-year-old woman is unmarried and childless. I find Ms. Swift's reported carbon footprint rather outlandish, but I don't have any vehement dislike for her. 

I'm no Swiftie, but let's give Taylor a fair shake. The Lakes is a pleasant enough melody with rather evocative lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8tF0yRl8-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVNlQ3ajqFk

Albatross was first released on Judy Collins' 1967 album Wildflowers. I've always felt like she could have written this song about me. I had overly romantic ideals for much of my life. I learned the harsh lesson that fairy tales aren't real. No prince is coming to your rescue. You have to save yourself. 

The lyrics also speak to my struggles with sometimes debilitating depression and extreme loneliness. I've learned over time that being an outlier like I am means that I will never fit in with other people. It's taken most of my life for me to be sort of okay with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXSZk_EpDio

Two things you can always rely on:

Bruce Dickinson never mincing words.

Iron Maiden kicking ass and taking names.

Ah, the good old days of men in tights playing shredding riffs! If Heaven doesn't have music like this, I ain't going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1raSUYAr0s0

And now for something completely different.

No, not a man with three buttocks.

It's Sir Ian McKellan reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Baksua0As

This is an orchestral rendition of Iron Maiden's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with some illustrative AI images. Some of these are pretty cool, but the pirate in a dress at 4:01 and 5:00 is just funny. However, if a pirate wants to wear a dress, why shouldn't he?

I hope you enjoyed this extended penultimate post of prompts and songs. I'll be back tomorrow for the grand finale!

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Saba Bibi from Pixabay

I'd rather play chess with an octopus and a bunch of weird mutant aquatic squirrels underwater than sail on a cursed ship with a dead albatross around my neck.

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 28

 

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Hey Poetry People, only two more days left in this year's April PAD Challenge/NaPoWriMo set! 

I wrote a gloomy little Sijo. The NaPoWriMo prompt will tell you how a Sijo works.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-eight-10/

The April PAD Challenge prompt asked for a dead poem.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-28

I also utilized a prompt from Carpe Diem Haiku's archive.

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-65-winter-rain-fuyu-no-ame.html

Winter rain and memories of those no longer in the corporeal realm. That's about as melancholy as it gets!

https://netherworldwritersguild.tumblr.com/post/749023884235472896/weekly-roundup-april-28-2024

I've got clever designs on using my writing Tumblr as a vehicle for a weekly recap as well as for other promotional posts and interesting stuff. Check it out if you like!

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Anja from Pixabay

"Dang! That was close!"

https://odysee.com/@GamingAmbience:6/mass-effect-andromeda-tempest-music:b?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

I realized that the acronym for Mass Effect Andromeda Tempest is MEAT, and now I can't unrealize it.

April PAD Challenge and NaPoWriMo Day 27

 

Image by 12019 from Pixabay

Good morning, Poetry People! Just three more days and we'll be wrapping our prompt session for the year. I'll start publishing poems to promote Soul Ink 2 when I receive word which if any of my poems have been selected to appear. 

I haven't been doing a very good job of promoting my books lately. However, I have been working on bringing my anxiety under control so I don't wake up every morning feeling like I'm about to pitch a panic attack. Marketing and networking are very stressful for me and sometimes I have to take a step back. That being said, let's get to it!

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks participants to pen a remix poem. I always save this prompt until the end of the challenge.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-seven-10/

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt invites poets to create an American sonnet. The American sonnet has fewer rules than a traditional sonnet. NaPoWriMo suggested the following site for inspiration on writing your own American sonnet.

https://www.write253.com/american-sonnets

My sonnet was about my father and his thoughts on elm trees. He was fond of the American elm but disliked the Siberian variety. 

There is a Siberian elm outside my window. It isn't a pretty tree, but the birds like it.

The tree in the picture at the top of the post is a Camperdown elm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmus_glabra_%27Camperdownii%27

I've enjoyed learning how many elms there are. I'm sure I will never remember all of them.

May 31 is my father's birthday. He would have been 88 this year. 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Lubos Houska on Pixabay

"A tree is a tree is a tree."

https://odysee.com/@Deep-House-For-The-Human-Race:e/%E2%99%AB-Best-Progressive-House-Mix-2024-Vol.-1-%E2%99%AB:c?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Here's the house music I was listening to while looking out the window at the cloudy skies and the Siberian elm in front of my house.

April PAD Challenge and NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 26

 

Image by Prasert Taosiri from Pixabay

Hello, Poetry People. After yesterday's long, drawn-out prose poem answering the Proust Survey, I opted for a short and sparky Haiku today.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-26

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asked for a Persona poem.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-six-10/

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt asked poets to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. 

Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-63-charcoal-sumi.html

I needed a persona promptly, so I chose a chunk of charcoal and penned a volcanic (or at least fiery) verse.

There will be no sitting back basking in the glow of my cleverness, however. I need to edit the story I'm submitting to Dragon Soul Press for their fairy anthology. I need to begin composing my query letter and selecting which poems I'll submit to the Soul Ink 2 anthology. I am also planning on releasing a drabble memoir for your 60th birthday next year, so I want to lay the groundwork for that.

It can't be my 60th birthday coming up. Therefore, it has to be yours.

~Old Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Peace,love,happiness from Pixabay

Everything old is new again.

Except for this car.

It's just old.

https://odysee.com/@edouardvonshaeke:a/benjamin-cities-501-curitiba-deep-house:f?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo Day 25

 

Image by Rheo from Pixabay

Today's combination of prompts made for a unique poem. It would also be possible to turn each of the lines from this poem into a suite of poems.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-25

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks participants to pick up their pens and pen a homonym poem. The host also provides examples of both homographs and homophones.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/homographs-examples-for-writers

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/homophones-examples-for-writers

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-10/

Meanwhile, today's NaPoWriMo prompt suggests that poets base their poetry on the Proust Questionnaire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proust_Questionnaire

I steamily stewed while fishing through queries to stew up a questionable kettle of steaming homographic and homophonic phish...er...fish.

Then I noticed the immersive questionnaire at the end of the NaPoWriMo post.

Back to work with me!

I may turn these questions into a series of essays or just drabbles. I may do the same with the Proust questionnaire. Maybe I'll get a jump on next year's A to Z Blogging Challenge.

I'll be finishing the April Camp NaNoWriMo today. There's another Camp NaNoWriMo in July, and because I'm a masochist who hates myself, I'll join in. 

Before wrapping this session up, I wanted to take a minute to tell you about AutoCrit. I rely on this program for self-editing, but they also provide numerous writing workshops every month, and many of these are free for members.

https://bit.ly/SelfEditEasier

I am a lifetime member of AutoCrit. I will earn a small commission for any new memberships initiated via this link.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

https://odysee.com/@DeepHouseMix:e/Rhythm-of-Dance-Mix---Deep-House%2C-Vocal-House%2C-Nu-Disco%2C-Chillout:e?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

I always love these deep house mixes. I'd rather they featured images of the ocean or boats or something rather than an endless flow of scantily clad young women. At the very least they could throw in a little phantom man-ass, though admissibly, the men they chose would all be too young for me. I prefer my phantom man-ass well seasoned and tough enough to handle a salty old kitchen witch like Yours Truly. 

I've yet to find the right man for the job and am pretty well convinced he doesn't exist outside of my imagination. Plus, in fairness, this kitchen witch is an untrusting old bitch. How's that for an unabashedly honest revelation?

Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay

Forget the slinky seductress nonsense. It always felt false when I tried to play that role. This is the real me.

I'm feeling generous. Here's another deep house mix for you.

https://odysee.com/@deepprogresivehouse:4/Beautiful-Music-_-Deep-House%2C-Vocal-House%2C-Nu-Disco%2C-Chillout-_-Soundeo-Mixtape:6?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024: Day 23 & 24

 

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Hello Poetry People! I fell down a Norse and Slavic mythology rabbit hole yesterday. We'll get to that as we go along.

First, I used this Maximum prompt as the inspiration for taking my poetry ambitions to the Maximum and writing a sweet suite of four poems instead of just one poem for each day.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-24

Let the prompt take your poetry to the Maximum too!

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-23

The final Twofer Tuesday prompt for this challenge asks for a Heart of the Blank and/or a Blank of the Heart poem. I went with Heart of the Rage and Rage of the Heart.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-three-10/

The NaPoWriMo prompt for the 23rd suggests participants create a superhero poem. Well, nuts to that! Go big or go home, I say. I went full-on Goddess. 

I probably did a search for an angry goddess and was given Skaði, a lesser-known Norse goddess who just can't catch a break and is pissed off about it. Don't tell her I said so, but it's probably best to choose your husband based on criteria other than having good-looking feet. Skaði thought she was getting Balder, but she ended up with the sea god Njörðr, and they were a terrible match. She didn't like the sea and he didn't like the mountains. 

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-61-plovers-sandpipers-chidori.html

I brought in this plovers and sandpipers prompt to create a Rage of the Heart Tanka to describe Skaði's dismay at being stuck on the beach in her husband's domain.

Making my rounds through the goddesses, I learned about the Western Slavic goddess Marzanna, who is drowned in effigy every year on the first day of Spring. I wrote a Heart of the Rage Tanka with this ceremony in mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morana_(goddess)

I used the following prompts to write a cheeky Senryu in which I compared a mistake on my mind to bed bugs on a summer night.

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-62-bed-bugs-watamushi.html

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-four-10/

The NaPoWriMo poem asks poets to begin with a line from a well-known poem and then go their own way. I started with "shall I compare thee to..." and went straight off the rails!

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-special-10-mandarin-duck.html

Lastly, I used the above prompt to write a Haiku about mandarin ducks migrating in autumn.

Come back tomorrow to wax poetical with me again.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Lilawind from Pixabay

An owl for all seasons

https://odysee.com/@thymeandplace:9/2049vibes:d?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 22

 

Image by Dorothe from Pixabay

Good morning (or whatever it is where you are) Poetry People. I dragged my worthless ass out of bed at 5:40 AM, took my pills, stabbed myself (with an insulin pen), put drops in my eyes, and came back to my computer to write one of those brief, hard-hitting Haiku about how the human race selfishly harms the world that gave us life. 

We need to stop behaving like a cancer. One person may not be able to make much of an impact, but together we can make real changes. One of the most important things we can do is hold corporations accountable for their actions.

To construct my take-no-prisoners Haiku, I took inspiration from the following prompts.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-22

Write an Earth poem.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-two-10/

write a poem in which two things have a fight.

We are in the fight of our lives against the very world that gave us life. If the world is to survive, we need to be on its side. We must listen to the Earth and hear what it is telling us. We must work to heal it rather than doing further harm.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by 165106 from Pixabay

Change can only begin when we co-operate.

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 21

 

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

Good Gawd, Fingers, not Day 201. I would have a complete mental breakdown if I had to do this for 201 days in a row. 

The poem today's prompts inspired made for much lighter subject matter than yesterday's brief, sobering verse.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-21

The April PAD Challenge prompt asks for a trope poem.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-one-9/

The NaPoWriMo prompt asks poets to focus on a single color in today's work.

I used this prompt in an oblique way when creating today's Haibun entitled "Dear Author."

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-60-winter-shower-shigure.html

I utilized this prompt to create the Haiku portion of the Haibun.

I had an experience last month which made me consider giving up writing entirely.

Admissibly, I was struggling after last year's NaNoWriMo. I started out strong but was burnt like toast by the time I finished, and I didn't recover well. I had gotten into a pattern of writing monthly anthology submissions and I was pretty proud of that. However, I was starting to feel like a typing monkey and the ideas weren't flowing freely. 

I was planning to create stories to submit to three anthologies. One was an Old West themed horror story, one was an erotic romance, and the other was a sweet romance.

I ended up with several false starts on both the horror story and the erotic romance. I took myself out of the running with the sweet romance.

I finally found plots I could commit to with both the horror story and the erotic romance. I'm still waiting to hear back on the horror story. With the erotic romance, I got one of those nebulous, frustrating "this isn't directly a rejection letter, but yeah, it's a rejection letter" communications, which included such phrases as "good bones." 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but, fuck me. Just say this one isn't your cup of tea and have done with it! They basically said "we aren't telling you to rewrite the story, but, yeah, we want you to rewrite the story." 

They wanted me to make such changes as somehow referencing ethnic differences between the characters without describing the traits of those ethnicities. No saying such things as "Sunny was a fair-complexioned young woman with curly blonde ringlets flowing over her shoulders," or "Ellie was a tall, full-figured Latina with dark frizzy hair, eyes the color of black coffee, and a warm, golden complexion." They wanted me to describe the characters' defining traits in a way that doesn't focus on their defining traits. 

It was so fucking nebulous it gives me a headache just thinking about it. It sounded like they wanted me to say something like "Sunny was Caucasian and Ellie was Latina. Meanwhile, their boss Zara was a black South African." I thought I was supposed to write an erotic romance with a friends to lovers trope, not a strictly fact-based piece. 

While a few of their suggestions weren't entirely maddening and I will actually take them into consideration when giving the piece a final rewrite before self-publishing it, this incident was the last straw, and I had a bit of a mental breakdown. I'm still not good at heeding warning signs that I'm trying to do too much and need to take a different approach. 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free use image by HG Designs on Pixabay

"That's it, I'm completely out of fucks."

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 20

 

Image by Shahariar Lenin from Pixabay

Remains of a concentration camp in Poland

Good morning, Poetry People. Or whatever it is wherever you are. 

Today's poetry prompts converged to inspire some grim subject matter. Add to that the fact that I woke up at 3:30 this morning. I don't know what it is about the 3 AM hour. It's like the veil between the worlds is thin or something.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-20

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks for a six-word poem. 

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-11/

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt asks poets to recount a historical event.

One of history's worst dictators was born today in 1889.

I summed this event up in six words with an acrostic.

I believed this brief work would be more impactful if I stuck to facts. It's easy to spiral into hyperbole where people such as the subject of today's work are concerned. 

There is no need for me to directly point out that Adolf Hitler was a monster or that his actions and attitudes inspired destruction. History speaks for itself.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about Hitler is the fact that much of the time he didn't appear monstrous. He loved animals. If he believed he had offended someone, it would trouble him to the point where he couldn't sleep. People who knew him described him as being charming and dignified. During the war, he visited hospitals to offer soldiers comfort and encouragement.

Indeed, the most terrifying thing about Hitler was the fact that a person embodying all the above positive attributes was capable of ordering the imprisonment and murder of millions while believing his actions to be completely correct.

In today's climate of intolerance towards anyone whose opinions differ in the least from prescribed political correctness, it is important to police our own behaviors and beliefs while keeping the following advice in mind.

When fighting monsters, be careful not to become one yourself.

"I think we have got to learn to disagree without being violently disagreeable..." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by G.C. from Pixabay

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 19

 

Image by Enrique from Pixabay

Hello Poetry People! Here are today's prompts for your poetic pleasure.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-19

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt invites poets to create an emotion poem.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-nineteen-9/

The NaPoWriMo prompt suggests the following intriguing idea.

What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.

That certainly sounds like my kind of poem. Adding in the following prompt from Carpe Diem Haiku

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/12/carpe-diem-59-withering-wind-kogarashi.html

I went with the quick, hard-hitting approach, creating a two-verse Haiku about being both haunted and hunted by the withering wind. We've had some really wicked winds out here on the Lone Prairie over the past couple of weeks, so the subject matter seemed poignantly appropriate and also appropriately poignant. 

I hope you enjoy creating your own work using one or all of these prompts should the spirit move you.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

"You're a flipping penguin, Lennox! I'm the one who should be wearing the rain slicker!"

"It's too big for you, Ornery. It fits me just right, and it looks super snappy on me too."

https://odysee.com/@GamingAmbience:6/destiny-2-the-dreaming-city-bay-of-3:9?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Enjoy some music and visual inspiration.

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024: Day 18

 

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

This one reminds me of the Public Enemy logo. They remain one of my favorite rap bands of all time. They call things like they see them and don't hold back from speaking up about difficult issues.

I created another Haibun today. I try to address in only 100 words the fact that I've never liked being me. 

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-18

Today's April PAD Challenge prompt called for a pessimistic poem. I think my poem is more realistic than pessimistic because I never state that there's no hope. I simply state that I have never liked myself.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-eighteen-10/

The NaPoWriMo prompt asks participants to write a poem about wanting to be someone or something else. I always wanted to be any number of wonderful characters or the actress who played the character. I later learned that many of these actresses had very difficult lives.

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/11/carpe-diem-58-indian-summer-koharu.html

I used this prompt to inspire the Haiku portion of the Haibun. In this case, I think it's easy to see the relation between the prose and the Haiku, although the correlation may only be easy in my mind. The Haiku expresses a hopefulness that never transpired into reality. I always thought one day the other kids would lose interest in bullying me and then I'd at the very least be left alone.

I read once that wanting to be famous is a sign that you were traumatized. This makes perfect sense to me. 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Laura from Pixabay

As an owlet, I always preferred to sit in the back of the class.

https://odysee.com/@GamingAmbience:6/destiny-2-the-dreaming-city-aphelion%27s:f?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 17

 

Image by Shafin Al Asad Protic from Pixabay

Hello, Poetry People. Today, I went for brevity and wrote a Haiku for my April PAD Challenge/NaPoWriMo poem.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-17

The April PAD Challenge prompt asked participants to write a Not Blank poem. I gave my Haiku the title Not In the Mainstream.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-seventeen-10/

The NaPoWriMo prompt suggests that participants create a poem inspired by a piece of music. For my own part, I chose a timeless classic: the music of nature in the form of the sound of falling rain. 

It's not mainstream pop, to be sure. The unspoken portion of the poem is the fact that it's being written by someone who will never be in the mainstream.

I've learned something about myself that doesn't surprise me in the least. In fact, it explains a lot about my hypersensitivity and how frazzled I feel when my routine is disrupted. It also reinforces my anger and sadness over the way I've been treated like I'm a bad person and/or weak for something that's part of my neurological makeup. I will spend the rest of my life trying to learn not to hate myself and to try and get along in a world that hates people like me. 

Nobody is going to try to understand people like me. I'm used to that. It would be nice, however, if medical professionals were taught to treat all their patients with common decency rather than disdain, even the "difficult" ones. 

I'm not trying to be difficult. It's not like I intentionally decided to have this shit show of a body. Who the hell would choose that? The truth is, I'm fucking terrified of you. I don't want to be here. I can smell the disdain coming off you. You don't try to hide it at all. 

To condense all that, the unspoken message in the Haiku is this:

Working through this shit show of a body and this weirdly wired brain is a soul who loves the sound of rain, just wishes everyone could be happy and live peacefully, and will never be part of the mainstream in any way. I don't want pills, injections, and surgery to force my disobedient body to look like what you have deemed it should look like. (I swear to whatever gods there may be if I type "whould" one more time, I'm gonna cut off my fingers!) 

I don't want pills or shock therapy or surgery to rearrange my brain till I fit into your definition of sane. 

I don't want injections or surgeries or other expensive treatments in a desperate attempt to make myself look younger or closer to what you deem attractive. 

It shouldn't matter if I don't conform to your idea of what the perfect woman looks like or acts like. You should treat me with respect and kindness all the same. You have no idea what I've been through or what it's like to be me.

I'll probably go back to being stoic tomorrow. Today, I felt like this needed to be said. I'm sure all five or six people who read this blog really give a shit anyway.

This was the first day in many months that I woke up without feeling like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Learning what I did recently makes certain things finally make sense.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by c from Pixabay

https://odysee.com/@sayitright77:e/rain-sounds-for-sleeping-13:9?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

I could literally listen to this sort of thing all day.