Apr. 1, 2025

Day 0 & 1 -- Day Zero prompt -- Portrait Poem --
https://www.napowrimo.net/ -- (not fully edited)

Unmasked - a monster with 2 heads

a living contradiction
crave order but cannot maintain it
want precise & neat space but struggle--
chaos reigns                        not good enough
can’t quite ‘get there’

get things done? need a schedule!
but too strict                       what a conflict!

like wanting to take my time & be perfect but
not having the attention          span                    to…
It’s like 2 brains of 2 people in there
& 1 signs me up for more than the other can deliver

unique & creative outlook on life
hard worker & good with details
big picture, quick connections
can see to the heart of things
when I’m outside the box
(because I don’t even know where the box is)
and safe in my own space
I can create intricate plans & get shit done

Nicola brain is very logical & controlled
wants the ducks lined up in a row
mask held tight (they all thought I was green AND so organized at work)
Miss Nikki brain is ‘Yay! Just do it                do ‘all the things!’
Hey, where are my ducks? What ducks?!
It is an exhausting tug of war

I am a slave to my own brains &
it’s so tiring & I can’t quite sleep
with all that noise

hey guess what? I interrupt constantly overshare
spin tap & fidget where is my favourite rock?
hum & utter while I look
oh I found that book
amongst lost keys, missed appointments & a cluttered home –
nay it’s piles of ideas!

pardon me while I appear inattentive
distracted by balls of chaotic thoughts
bouncing around inside my skull, behind blue eyes
retreat to untangle

didn’t always like myself
being so weird                so quirky
that Freaky girl from mars --
trying to blend into the wall
or thinking about how strange I am
as I try to chat & sound normal

now                I don’t want to be like other people.
I may be odd but I am also clever fun & unforgettable
with age comes wisdom - or simply less fucks to give -
finally found the right people & job
becoming the me I was always meant to be

a living contradiction — unmasked

(By Miss Nikki vs. Nicola)
Tues. April 1, 2025

​Follow the Topples (or how to find lost things)
 
Markers topple off a precarious pile
in haphazard sprawling style.
Colour sticks spread out --
I’ll pick them up; no need to shout!
 
Science says that atoms can’t be
where others already exist.
Thus, the box shifts tape off table
onto the floor it went.
 
I reached far back behind
to see what I might find.
Aha, the tape! And –
the coveted birthday present!
 
I wish I could say that this story was a rare occurrence,
Alas, it happens oft enough that I knew just what to do.
When trying to find a thing, just give up. Move on.
Oh, the things to find along the way, things long forgotten… like the cutest ghosty jammies discovered under bed – aw!
(I know!)
​
Edited after a TPS Workshop Nov. 9, 2024 by an Inchoate poet, Nicola Schneider 

​Soundtrack: The Tragically Hip “No Dress Rehearsal”, Ep. 3

Thank you, all, for some of these tips from workshop:

• Tighten up/get rid of non-vital words
• Replicate the movement of the first stanza through out
• Perhaps change to present tense could help (I think it did?)
  
• Sometimes you gotta just ditch the rhyme and focus more on the emotion
  
• You gotta work the rhyme so it doesn’t interrupt rhythm
  
• Show rather than tell 

​“It’s really, really tough to be honest with people without scaring the hell out of them.” 
 
Too much of our world in too much pain as we crawl out of pandemic hiding into an
Apoplectic wasteland, the speed with which fiction overtakes fact is astonishing;
but the speed at which fiction becomes fact is      unfortunately
even more astonishing     and dire.

2 degrees too many for too many years. Too many burning balls of fire rein
down on too many no-rain days; a million days too many.
Was this what happened to Mars?

Too many garbage piles. Too many rising oceans overturning too many lives.
Too many droughts inciting too many fires               and riots,
over too many injustices. Not enough water for too many every-bodies.
Good thing our Economy is healthy; Nothing is free.
Using the pool water to put out the forest fires as wildfires rage on                 
every continent.                 And there is not enough pool water,
or streams or rivers or lakes or puddles, and not enough                      space
or clean air or food.          Fuck Hope!

Let’s build more -- amidst a time of crisis                   &             environmental displacement;
Build more towers and parking lots and malls and condos,
and pack in the herd like tins of sardines.  Why haven’t we done something?
Too many people doing too many nothings –
until there is nothing left to save, and no reason left to bother.
2 degrees will cook our planet      will cook us all.
Too many             couldn’t be bothered to act         for too many reasons.
 
It’s time to be tough. It’s time to scare the hell out of people.
This is our only home. There is no Planet B.
 
I want to know nothing. I want to know everything.
And        Corporate’s getting nervous.
No more elephants and only 1 humpback whale.
Too many summer hearts from too many orange days.
If it turns yellow, you must mellow.
If it turns red, think happy things instead.                   Red means dead.
We’ve all became lost,   and we’ve fallen away                   off course;
We’re running out of time.
​
“And whenever you feel sad or lonely,
just imagine Gustav Mahler communicating with you from another
place and time before this one” she said                 once
when the Earth was vibrant & hopeful.
I’m sure you’d do the same for me             wouldn’t you?
Do we understand that we can die from a sunny day?
Broken heart days – The world makes us sick
because we made the world sick.
If you are receiving this, please respond                   please                   respond –
in this place         in this now.
We, who are us, share the world; when it becomes less, so do we.
1 for yes, 2 for no – Are you in heaven? Is there heaven? When Earth is hell?
 
It’s time to be tough. It’s time to scare the hell out of people.
This is our only home. There is no Planet B.
 
(April 28/29. 2023)

​ONCE UPON A TIME
     there was a world built out of hope & faith.
Dead crabs on beaches;
     Dead souls in streets;
Flooded churches falling over crumbling cliffs
into rising oceans from melting glaciers.
     Oh, do you know there’s a future?
Are you certain? Because I’ve not heard good things.
The sanctuary is a swimming pool;
Everyone’s leaving.
We’re good. Surely they aren’t going to let us disappear?
     Radioactive sun and poison mosquitoes;
It’s too hot out to hate people these days.
It’s better to be on the first boat out of town than on the one that never left.
     A spiritual first responder taking care of people who are drowning in a riptide of magma and great despair – Why is God doing this to us?
And, if it is not God, then what lies have we been fed to believe
by leaders who want us complacent and unknowing?
Look at how badly they’ve fucked everything up!
     There’s always hope…
But the sun has seared my skin.
I’m blistered and broken;
I’ve come undone.
     Politicians run amok; politics –
nothing you’d ever want to get involved in;
Nobody wins if we were to sink beneath the waves.
Why isn’t God stopping this? Or the better question is –
why aren’t we stopping any of this?
Maybe it’s because humans suck.
Who cares? – another shelter shut;
Not to be a dick, but the homeless where already homeless… can’t
they do that anywhere?
     Not everything can be saved.
For someone to win, another must lose, soooooo……?????
I did what needed to be done.
For all of you. (But not you or you or you.)
Our cities now float on the bodies of the poor.
Even the privatized rich bitches need to evacuate;
Hurricanes and floods don’t care
who has found higher ground and who is floundering
in the current that is stronger than faith & hope.
     Should we maybe just silently sink below the waves?
At this point, what more is there?
None of this makes any sense to me.
     But I’m glad I’m alive.
I’m glad you’re alive.

It’s up to us to choose to save our world.
There is no Planet B.

​(May 5/6, 2023)

​Imminent Danger/ The Face of God (from an Internet Café.)
There are decisions that we are asked to make in our lifetimes.
Decisions that in previous times, would have been left to the Gods.
Where are the Gods, now?
Population
Control
Oh
(It’s Father’s Day.
Can’t imagine why he isn’t here.
Because he’s a goofball.)               And, speaking of fuck ups…
 
They don’t know how badly we fucked it up.
Climate change is like a bear, and
we’ve all been in the ring               with the bear
for quite some time…
Oh, pssst, by the way… the bears certainly know how badly we fucked it up.
 
None of this makes any sense.
I’m erasing all of it.                            If only
If we could turn back time…
We’d probably do it all over again.             Oh         
 
Leafs are losing.                  Oh
yeah, they would be…
 
Oh, she’s not answering.
Oh, It’s hot outside.                           Let’s have a BBQ.
 
Could use a friendly face;
I know that if we work together, we can sort it all out.
There are better ways – even you must see that?                                                                  Oh, there are
And if the billionaires this century gave birth to would have focused on them             Instead
of proving their manhood by shooting (their) rockets into space,
then we would not be here now.                 Oh,
the problem is bigger than the weight of the sun.
 
We’ve treated this planet like an all-you-can-eat buffet for 250+ years and now we have T-250 to live before we implode in on our very own stupidity vomit.                               Oh.
“You alone – up there –  not going to solve the problem,” says the Problem…
Our trusty Leaders will simply set another goal & oh              sign another treaty &       then
move the goal/ignore the treaty. Oh. It’s fine.
The real reckless experiment is the one civilization is wrecking – and nobody can claim they didn’t know – many science fiction novels are as accurate as Nostradamus -- they have predicted our present wreck-full predicament.                                                                                                                  
Are we going to solve the problem or are we going to sit        IDLE       idling          until the problem solves us?

• BOOM! -- What was that?

Don’t know.
Maybe it was the sun and we’ll all be dead in 8 minutes?!
                It wasn’t us:
Russia’s blaming India, India’s blaming China, Iran’s blaming Pakistan, and everyone blames the U.S.
(O Canada says, “Sorry, eh!”)            It seems it’s all gone tits over peach baskets.
Oh             The world is a fine place &
worth fighting for.
 
But you can’t fight for the world if you’re not here.
And we’re not Gods.
We’re just parents & children.
 
What’s going to happen now?                     Oh, I don’t know.                 Nobody does.
               
There is NO PLANET B
(Fading image of Permanent Oh Face – Botox face - Hollywood actress on HD TV because I’m s-O watching too much Apple TV)
(Also, Oh, h-O-pe)

(May 12, 2023)

What is happening, right now?
     Something exploded in the sky.
     And crashed on the Queensway.
     The 403 is jumbled,
     and the Skyway is squelched.
     Can’t breath                       drive into oblivion;
     Not breathing is the new normal -- It’s just the way we are now.
 
                (At market in the not-so-distant future)
               “Come get your drought-resistant seeds…”
               “Pay for your clean air Hookah – only twenty-five dol-lar!”
               “Rice for you, for only 50!”
 
And it’s not even real rice; it’s that synthetic crap,
but you can eat it, so, it’s good.
Is it?                        Everyone I know has some kind of cancer
and half are dying.
 
People end up storing away parts of themselves
until they are non-existent.
Storage reduction. Lost Memories.
Don’t worry – you won’t even notice they’re gone.
                                                   That’s the beauty of forgetting.                    What?!
Nothing.

     Happily, ever after                            like the movies.
     It won’t go the way you want                       it never does.
     We’re each so insignificant that no one even knows that we exist;
     Except Karma          balance.              
     I aim to do more good; carrying on the mission.
 
                    “What? Why?”  
​                
                    Fuck you, man. I believe in things, alright?!
                    Rains could come back. It might snow.
                    The world isn’t necessarily going to end, okay?
                    You gotta believe in possibilities – I believe in a happy ending.
 
Magic Beans.

What if it’s not what you want?
It’s great.             
                    Is it?
It is a Great Mess.
 
Even if They don’t acknowledge it,
it’s still going to cost trillions of dollars;
And that will decimate Human Society
 
forever.
There is no Planet B.
 
There’s just no way to repair the loss of brain cells.

​(May 19/20, 2023)

International Haiku Day – “a day to celebrate the width and depth and breadth that can be enjoyed when words are limited but imaginations are allowed to soar.”

So….

** Write a Haiku Poem
​
Get out a pen and paper, wander in and out of nature, and wait for something to bring a little bit of inspiration! Haiku Poetry is about the beauty that can be captured in short, simple stanzas.
With its unique style (five syllables on the first line, seven on the second, and five again on the third), anyone can write a Haiku poem. However, it sometimes takes a true master to capture the heart and mind in the space of 17 syllables.

​** Read a Book of Haiku Poetry
​
For those who are feeling less inspired to create their own poetry, reading Haiku written by others is a great way to enjoy the day. Here are a few to get started with:

• Japanese Haiku Poems (2003) by Peter Washington
• The Haiku Anthology (1974) by Cor van den Heuvel
• The Essential Haiku (1994) by Robert Hass
• Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry (2010) by Judith Patt

From https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/haiku-poetry-day/

I don't tend to write a lot of Haikus, but I've dabbled; usually when it's a prompt, like for NaPoWriMo. Without further ado, here are a few I've found from before...

​What? 30 poems in 30 days...
​
NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April. Read more here: https://www.napowrimo.net/about/

​My NaPoWriMo Experience…
I have dabbled with NaPowriMo for 10 years (2013, really?! Wow!). Have I ever managed a poem a day?... Well, only once. April 2020, the first official month of COVID, and I suspect many folks were actually able to do this one. What else were we doing?! Plus, there was no better way to deal with the turmoil of those crazy times. Sometimes, when April has been too busy, I’ve done another random month, like Poetember in 2018. I have always started NaPoWriMo all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but sometimes I don’t make it further than that (I’m looking at you, 2019!). Usually, I make it through about half a month. I’ve learned to go with the flow. If not writing an actual poem each day, I might work on editing, or pairing an old poem with media, or doing Word Work activities (like Wordle). So, more accurately, I aim to spend at least 30 minutes on poetry work for 30 days. (In a perfect world, I do that already, but lets just say, I use Poetry Month as a much-needed poetry push in the right direction😊

Check out my other post, here: https://towerpoetry.ca/blog/towerpoetry.ca/blog/

Another prompt (from somewhere & sometime) — walk a mile in another's feet: an exploration of rhythm and nonsense... based on Poe's, "the Bells"...​

BASED UPON POE
 
fear the witches with the spells
evil spells!
what a thrill of detriment their remedy so smells!
how they, wrinkle, wrinkle, wrinkle,
in the mighty flare of light!
while guitars, that smoke and sprinkle
all the questions that dream to giggle
with a byzantine punchline:
feeling fine, fine, fine,
in a court of ironic time,
to the insubordination that so foolishly fells
from the spells, spells, spells, spells
Spells, spells, spells-
from the wiggling and the mingling of the spells.
 

At the start of Pandemic Times, I started watching “Dickinson” on AppleTV… and was inspired to delve deeper…. I read poems watched the series and was inspired to write this poem after seeing this random picture...
 
SHE & ME
                (Honouring Emily Dickinson)
 
Notions niggle and needle at the edges 
of restlessness — nibbling.  
She, in her white gown, gazing out, 
absently rubbing the silky-smooth surface
of her newest stone
that only earlier she’d seen surfaced 
amongst the sprouts, 
sparkling in the sunlight --
beckoning like her words,
trickling and dripping down, 
tickling the paper,
shiny as the diamonds that dot 
the midnight skies.
 
Truly awake now, she relents.
The poem gushes forth, flowing 
from her soul made of stars --
And of dirt from the Earth and 
of all the spirits that stir in the night.
There was no rest for the poet — 
Until she closed her eyes for good.

** Published in 2 poetry publications, some time in the last 2 years (Tower Poetry Society and The Ontario Poetry Society - but I suck at record-keeping, remembering stuff, and finding stuff, so ...)

I found a journal from way before... talk about a time machine!