After the music fades
when we receive
our final evaluation
and the eternal verdict
based on the audition
that was the story of our lives
The last thing
we need hear
from the booming voice
sitting beneath
the blinding white light
is
"Try it again once more
This time with feeling"

I've known truth intimately
from a varied variety
of levels and angles...

I have molded reality
into the lithe commodity
required to accommodate
my always pliable needs...

Some less creatively enlightened
act all indignant and frightened
that I have opted to live in denial...

I choose to mute them
and their persistent brand
of factual contradictions
that run contrary
to my reassuring
self serving narrative

Jasmine blossoms sweep
jangled nerves pulled too tightly -
seconds of respite.

We were lucky enough to publish two poems by William Woolfitt, both involving a personal documentary ecopoetics of family and Appalachia, in the current issue of @ReckoningMag.

Today's poem is "Track Four: Cumberland Gap."

https://reckoning.press/track-four-cumberland-gap/

Earlier in the year we published "Turquoise Circles."

https://reckoning.press/turquoise-circles/

Let me be
who I am meant to be..

Resist the urge
to alter me
into your version
of an upgraded model..

For you see
I am hardwired fully
and now completely
uniquely me..

Flaws and all
is the human condition
we all gotta learn
to roll together with

[…]
I am not a Botero painting,
because I don’t have the weight of history
anchoring me to the canvas,
[…]
NaPoWriMo 2025, #7 Lightheartedly exploring identity and existence. #Poetry
https://www.caroehenry.com/p/i-am-not

Always Fight For Freedom

Touched by unimaginable touch of time
that monitors mutation of my soul,
I climb corruptive scale of anxious care
to meddle with avarice of my mind
expressing hidden passions of my heart

https://surazeus.blogspot.com/2025/04/always-fight-for-freedom.html

"A fox axes red through the forest. An ox foxes the plough. Badger, you bade me bide time till spring when the buds burst, small fists punching pollen, knocking bees into honeyed senselessness."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
The Sum of my Badgers by Gary Barwin and Lillian Necakov (2025 periodicities) https://tinyurl.com/3eh7n2av

Caveat: Poem #3167 "Falling asleep, and then"

#Poetry

ㅁ
Those hypnagogic moments when
the brain zaps flourish: not quite "zen"...
I jolt awake, as if the gods
had poked at me with cattle prods.

- a quatrain in iambic tetrameter.

https://caveatdumptruck.com/index.php/2025/04/07/caveat-poem-3167/

“I wanted to do something that would amplify and support poets across the state and amplify and uplift poetry for everyone.”

From Lise Olsen in our magazine: How Amanda Johnston, the state's first Black poet laureate, is using her craft to elevate unsung Texas heroes ...
https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-first-black-woman-poet-laureate-praise/

#poetry #poem #Texas #culture @poetry

Eident indwaller o that wilderness
Reddin and guidin it fir your domain:
Smaa pioneer, makar miraculous,
Frien beaver: tak this haun’s-turn o my ain…

—Tom Hubbard, “Beaver”
published in From Soda Fountain to Moonshine Mountain (Akros, 2004)
#InternationalBeaverDay

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/beaver/

last night's dream tide
brought right whales
to my desert door

#dailyhaikuprompt - high tide #WritingCommunity #poetry #haiku #micropoem

Poem of the week: A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth by Ben Jonson

"A strategically flattering tribute to a pioneering female writer is lifted by authentic warmth and admiration"

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/07/poem-of-the-week-a-sonnet-to-the-noble-lady-the-lady-mary-wroth-by-ben-jonson

Ben Jonson at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1269

And now
the end is near
as we face
the final curtain..

The barbarians at the gate
were invited in
that much is certain..

The carnage they will bring
can not be overstated..

Now comes the tragic irony
to our little horror story..

Seems our ruination
as a functioning nation
was self inflicted
by ignorant fools..

Hey.. It's majority rules..

The tyranny of the stupid..

But we of the now pissed minority
are not absolved of blame..

Our apathy and arrogance
to the threat we knew was there
makes our collective #death
a case of suicide by mass negligence..

So let our epitaph say
when historians sift though
the rubble ashes of the U.S.A.

We imploded our way

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause…

—“A cairn”, by Gael Turnbull (1928–2004) – born #OTD, 7 April
Published in WHILE BREATH PERSIST (The Porcupine’s Quill, 1992)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cairn/

The #MastoPrompt for Monday 7 April 2025 is:

#quiver

The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.

@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.

If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.