Poetry Prompts and Inspiration Day 10 April PAD Challenge and NaPoWriMo

 

Image by 849356 from Pixabay

This image absolutely sums up what Donald Trump is about; himself and money. Greedy narcissists do not make good leaders.

Greetings, Poetry People! Today's NaPoWriMo prompt asks participants to create a sea shanty.

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

With the Stormy Daniels situation recently resurfacing, I knew my mission was clear, so with sincere apologies to the author of Greenland Fisheries, I wrote a snarky shanty using that innocent wee tune as its basis.

In response to today's April PAD Challenge prompt asking participants to write a How Blank poem, I named my snide shanty How Cataclysmic.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2023-april-pad-challenge-day-10

Just for shits and grins, here is a tutorial on ship directions.

Directions commonly used on ships are as follows; • Bow: The forward part of the ship is called the bow. • Stern: The name given to the back of the ship. • Shoulder Brace: Corner parts of the ship are called shoulder pads. • Starboard: The right side is starboard, and the left side is Port. The left side of a boat grew to be called “port” simply because ships used to dock (or port) on the left side. Historically, ships needed to dock on the left side so that the steering side (starboard) was open to the water, which would allow a sailor to steer the ship in and out of port.

Info from http://www.sometimessailing.com

That's all for today, Mateys. Happy sailing!

~Admiral Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Jim Cooper from Pixabay

Here is what I was listening to while crafting this post.

https://odysee.com/@GamingAmbience:6/cyberpunk-2077-disasterpiece-scavengers:8?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Helloween 2021 Day 13: Political Wasteland (Haibun)

 

What it feels like dealing with SSD's bullshit rules

Image by Caters on One Big Photo

http://onebigphoto.com/sitting-above-times-square-new-york/

Content Warning: Profanity

(If you know me, you are unsurprised.)

💣

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”

Like history, politics is an agreed-upon set of lies.

Sometimes policies that benefit people rise from the copious bullshit proliferated by Congress.

Sometimes it’s hard for the lot that believes in trickle-down theory and no billionaire left behind to uproot said policies once put in place, but they’re damn well going to try.

Whether on the right or on the left, I don’t trust any of them damn crooked vultures, but I vote blue because sometimes that bunch manages to push through legislation to help the downtrodden a bit.

If you must utilize welfare programs, you quickly realize they care more about catching a handful of fraudsters than benefiting those in need. Everyone is guilty until proven otherwise.

I do not believe

that you give a single fuck

sugar-coated lies

144 words

Ornery Owl is Angry

Free-use image from Pixabay

Prompts

Prompt: Politics

https://thesaxophoneplayerswife.com/

https://dversepoets.com/2021/10/11/prosery-the-waste-land/

Prompt: Write a work of prose incorporating the quote from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, capped at 144 words.

I rolled with a Haibun, which is primarily prose finished with a Haiku, Senryu, or such. I feel that my snarky and profane Senryu adds a nasty icing to the distasteful cake, but if this format is a hardline no-no, the team at D'Verse Poets is welcome to eradicate my link.

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2021/10/12/photo-challenge-386/

Prompt: The photo at the top of the post.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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NaPoWriMo 2020 Preview Poem: American Breakdown

Image by moonzigg from Pixabay

America, America, alas

the cracks in your facade are on display

how many dead when all has come to pass

how many dead because of the delay

addressing a disease that came to stay

you told us it would all be over soon

deluded jackass braying at the moon

~Sly~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Sly and Snarky

notes

This Rhyme Royale was penned by my snarky political alter-ego Sly Fawkes with love to the village idiot currently occupying the White House--as much love as he deserves, anyway.

The prompt was to write a poem about my favorite birds. The bald eagle is one of my favorite birds. This one looks angry.

Happy Xmahanukwanzyule 2018

Image copyright Annalise 1988

(This post was written on the Deliver Me blog and cross-posted)

Happy holidays if you celebrate them and best wishes for prosperity in the approaching year!

It has been an eventful and not terribly lucrative year here in the World of Nether, but many of our efforts are still in their infancy and I like to think that things are looking up and that perseverance still counts for something. To a degree, these are uncharted waters that we are navigating with the rise of the gig economy. So, what can we do to make this unprecedented situation work for us?

For my own part, I have a knack for speaking my mind, such as it is, and for telling it like it is from my point of view. This has tended to get me in trouble, but the older I get the less fucks I give. 

However, I do not intend to use this so-called skill only to bitch about everything that pisses me off. I would also like to use it to help others. 

For many years, I worked as a nurse's aide and then a nurse. I helped those who were too infirm to care for their own needs. This included the elderly and special needs children. However, my own constitution declined sharply in the past couple of years, and I can no longer do the physically demanding jobs that I had been doing since 1988.

My income declined sharply when I was no longer able to work as a nurse. Between 2015 and 2017, I was pulling up to $1000 per week if I worked 60 hour weeks. However, I was constantly exhausted and always in a mental fog working this many hours. In some ways I'm amazed that I never made any critical errors.

I am unable to work full time at this point, and my disabilities put me out of the running for most "normal" jobs. Because of my health issues, I need Medicaid. But if I make more than $1100 a month, I lose Medicaid. To me, it seems as if I'm being punished for being disabled. I think that punishing people for being disabled is one whole steaming load of crap. I also think that Charles Dickens would have a field day writing about the current political climate in the era of Lord Dampnut. In fairness, being British, he might be more inclined to write about Brexit and Lord Dampnut's British soul twin, Boris Johnson.

In any case, I am trying to piece together a life that works. Other than being broke and physically unable to do certain things that I used to be able to do without issue, there are many ways in which I like my life after disability better than my life before disability. I like not being enslaved by a time clock. I much prefer soft deadlines to Draconian ones.

Overall, I am a creative rather than a practical person. If I could, I would spend my days writing, learning to draw, engaging in Photoshop Phucquery, hand crocheting, loom knitting, woodworking, making soap and candles, and whatever other artsy fartsy crafty wafty pursuit happened to strike my fancy. I attempt to keep my artsy fartsy side separate from the Deliver Me blog, but there is inevitable bleed-through, and I'm not going to fight the tide too hard.

If you are interested in opportunities for writers or occasional shares of poetry and prose, visit the Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood page.

If you are interested in WAH opportunities, recipes, and suggestions for saving money, visit the Deliver Me blog.

If you are interested in reading high quality Kindle smut, visit the Naughty Netherworld Press blog. This blog is safe for work, but some of the places it links to aren't. 

If you are interested in obtaining a Tarot reading to help you kick-start the new year, click here.

May you and yours have a pleasant holiday if you celebrate, or a good day in general if you don't.

Best wishes,

Cie

This offer is valid through December 30, 2018

This offer is always in season

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 13: National Disgrace

Copyright Geralt

Being kind is

What everyone should do

Do you?

You do not

Not do right

Right is might

Might you consider

Consider the absolute

Absolute power

Power corrupts

Corrupts when misused

Misused to abuse

Abuse those you see

See as less

Less than nothing

Nothing is what

What you discover

Discover within 

Within your rotten

Rotten, shriveled heart

Heart hard as stone

Stone over graves

Graves of those

Those who died

Died in vain

Vain sacrifice

Sacrifice for what

What but ambition

Ambition of soulless

Soulless rich men

Men who don't care

Care for anything

Anything but money

Money to buy

Buy the best tomb

Tomb to commemorate

Commemorate their lives

Lives full of lies

Lies always bellowing 

Bellowing forth

Forth from your mouth

Mouth always open

Open like a sewer

Sewer spewing waste

Waste of words

Words of deception

Deception of the masses

Masses left wanting

Wanting

Masses

~Sly Has Spoken~

Note:

Written by Cie's civic-minded alter-ego, Sly Fawkes.

Dedicated to the crook in the White House

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

30 Days of Haiga: Day 14: Lament for My Flag

Original background image:

Copyright: milena1234 / 123RF Stock Photo

Fighter planes image (upper left corner) source NPR News

Racist graffiti image source: Olean Times Herald

Misogynist quote source: Donald Trump

Notes:

I like to think the piece speaks for itself, but I will include a little personal history. 

When I was a young child in my early school years, I was very proud when it came time to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I sprang to my large and far from dainty feet, puffed out my scrawny chest, put my hand over my stalwart young heart, and spoke those hallowed words in my biggest voice. 

I was born in 1965. I didn't go to Kindergarten. Many years later I had a nightmare that Ronald Reagan ordered me to go back to school starting with Kindergarten. Initially, I attempted to comply, but then I realized that there was no legally binding reason for me to do this and I said "I quit," and walked out of the classroom to the sound of Mr. Reagan's voice berating me as a loser.

From first through third grade, the Viet Nam war was still taking place. I believed that the United States would eventually see that the war was a bad idea and would end it, so I said the Pledge proudly because I believed that my fine country would eventually do the right thing because we were the Good Guys.

During the next several years, the country was healing from the aftereffects of the Viet Nam War. I believed that we were headed in the right direction, and I thought that Jimmy Carter was a fine president and would continue to take us that way.

The Reagan era began when I was fifteen years old and I came to believe that we were all doomed to either eat flaming death in a nuclear holocaust or freeze to death in the nuclear winter which would follow. The Pledge of Allegiance lost its former wondrous appeal to me, but I still said it because I felt it was my duty as a patriot to try and believe in my country.

As my son says, the United States is still one of the best countries to live in, but we have a lot of problems. The election of Donald Trump brought a plethora of pathology boiling to the surface. 

We are not post-racist or post-misogynist and we are severely intolerant of anyone who isn't a God-fearing American "Christian." I put Christian in quotes because I don't think the behavior of those who subscribe to the ideals of American religious fundamentalists is Christ-like in any way. There is a frightening new wave of nationalism, and free speech is under fire. There is normalization of bigotry and intolerance.

This is not the America that young me believed in when she put her hand over her heart to proudly say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school and even at home in her bedroom on Saturday and Sunday because she thought it was the right thing to do.

This America brings tears to the eyes of middle-aged, working class me as I write these words. I despair for the loss of innocence in the heart of the child I once was and fear for the future of who I have become, for those I love, and for my fellow citizens of this world.

~The Real Cie~

As real as it gets

NaPoWriMo 2017: Day 22: Sad State of Affairs

There once was the worst politician

Who obtained the highest position

T'was a sad state of affairs

Instead of making repairs

To destroy everything was his mission

Cie

Writing as her pundit alter-ego Sly Fawkes

Notes:

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today was to write a Georgic.

This is not a Georgic.

It is a limerick.

Nonetheless, it was inspired by that prompt.

Cross-posted to:

Dark Hearts Love Too

Sly Fawkes

Sly's Free Speech Space

The Great State

The following poem inspired by the article linked below, which is also the source of this image

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/16/how-trumpcare-will-crush-millennials-and-their-boomer-parents.html?via=desktop&source=facebook

On a splendid day

In the nation that was great again

The homeless and jobless milled about hopelessly

As the sun shone sickly through the pollution

The ill and infirm 

Curled up in a cozy alley to die

While skinny stray dogs and cats

Chewed on the remains

Of those whose struggling families

Could not afford to bury them

~Cie~

F.E.A.R.

I’m tired of adulting, it’s not working out for me

I hate this ugly alt-right, Brexiteer reality

I’ve developed coulrophobia with all the clowns around

Everyone’s a chatbot since the humans all left town

I’ll never climb a glass cliff, and I’ll never know how hygge feels

In a post-truth, reactionary world, only hate is real

They hate the Latinx, Middle Easterners, Asians and Blacks

Once you’re woke to the truth, you can never look back

I’ve never found hope to be in great supply

But these days it takes all I have to stop myself

From giving in to my urge to abide
By the old acronym

Fuck

Everything

And

Run

Cie

Far from hopeful for the future

There are more than 70 words in my poem

Kill the link if it, or the swearing, is a problem

Adulting - The practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks
Alt-right - An ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content
Brexiteer - A person who is in favour of the UK withdrawing from the European Union
Chatbot - A computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet
Coulrophobia - Extreme or irrational fear of clowns
Glass cliff - Used with reference to a situation in which a woman or member of a minority group ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high
Hygge - A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being, regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture
Latinx - A person of Latin American origin or descent, used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina
Post-truth: an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.
Woke - Originally in African-American usage meaning alert to injustice in society, especially racism

OctPoWriMo 2014: Day 8

Copyright: audiohead / 123RF Stock Photo

The True Madness:

A Set of Acrostics Addressing Extremist Attitudes

Full Moon 

Freedom is one of those words that people like to bandy about

Until they are confronted with thoughts different from their own

Love between two people of the same sex, for instance, or

Liberal political agendas

Madness sets in when those who close their minds to

Opinions other than their own

Opt to try and destroy the one they've deemed their enemy

Negotiation is the furthest thing from their mind

Moon Madness

Madness prevails in today's troubled world

Obstinate fixation on a set of twisted values

Oppressive values that leave no room for variation

Not values designed to protect people from harm

Moral depravity is decried

Atheism is said to be the worst of immoralities

Deism speaks to me more than atheism

Nonetheless, I believe in freedom to believe or not

Extremists would take away the freedoms of others

Satan may be something whose existence could be argued

Sadism, however, certainly exists

Creativity

Certain factions would like to limit creativity

Reactionaries want to ban certain literary works

Evil has its roots in ignorance

Absolutist ideas never served any population

Terrorism exists on many levels

Ignorance and intolerance are twins

Vain hopes of controlling even the very thoughts of others

Ignite a passion for power in the souls of those with small minds

Terrorism is not only guns and bombs, it is also

Young people whose minds have been filled up with hate for others

Water

Wish upon a star

Ask the heavens to bring peace; however

Take it upon yourself

Ending hate must be your primary priority

Reactionary agendas never served any population

Nostalgic

Nostalgic wishes for bygone eras

Only soothe those who fail to realize

Some things look better when they are behind us

Tragedy has existed throughout history

All times have had certain aspects needing improvement

Love has always been the answer

Greed has always been the deceiver

Ignorance has always been the match

Catching the tinder of hateful ideas afire

Impulsive

If you think it might be empowering

Meeting with terrorist organizations

Plotting to destroy those who do not follow your agenda

Undoing anything that does not suit your narrow view

Laying waste to those that you would subjugate

Strewing dead bodies wherever you set foot

Incinerating the homes of those you call enemy

Vandalizing, terrorizing

Evil is the only word that can describe what you are

Dynamic

Death comes to every being

Yet why be in such a hurry to dispatch another living soul?

Nothing gives you that right

Atrocities are being committed every day

Murderous individuals

Ignorant ideals

Cruelty reigns supreme

Bold

Be the change you want to see

Only sow kindness

Let others be who they are

Dream of and create better days

~Wanda Psycho~

Wanda's note:

I am not trying to target any religion as bad or wrong. I am targeting extremist attitudes. 

In my time in this world, I have met kind people who are Christian in the truest sense; they want to behave in the pacifist and loving manner modeled by Christ. I have also met people calling themselves Christian who are anything but; their souls are rotten with intolerance and hate.

 I have also met kind and tolerant Muslims. Following the 9-11 attacks, I listened to a talk by a man who stated that the Greater Jihad is the war fought against one's own lower impulses; the lesser Jihad is acts of war within the world. Such acts of war, he stated, were to be in defense of one's homeland; not attacks against other nations. 

The actions of ISIS are horrific, and I was certainly dismayed to learn that people from the U.S. have seen fit to join in aiding this terrorist organization. I feel that these misguided souls are seeking some sort of glory in a world where it is difficult to feel that one's actions have any meaning. However, I most assuredly do not feel that the members of ISIS represent the beliefs of the majority of Muslims. I would say, in fact, that the opposite is true.

I have come to identify as a Buddhist; however, I by no means claim to be an expert or adept of any kind. I haven't yet been able to achieve full vegetarianism, for instance. However, I have become more conscious when I do eat meat about choosing meat fro a source where the animals are treated humanely.

Nobody is perfect; however, if we all try, even a little to take more right action, the world can become a better place.

A Political Haiku

 

A Political Haiku

 

U.S. Government:

Just cut it out already

Love, Your Citizens

 

~Wanda~

 

The prompt from yesterday is to write a poem based on a news item. Since I already wrote a long poem, I was running out of gas and decided to keep this one short!