Sorry, left it too late, but NaPo must be fed…

24.4.2026 Watts for Dinner

Sunday Dinner

As a child, I always knew
what we were having for dinner
each day. Sundays were definitely
the worst. At mid-day, a roast dinner
followed by tin fruit and custard.
My strict mother stood over me
making sure I consumed every morsel
on my plate. The older me rebelled.
A roast dinner is unusual
except on Christmas and Easter Day.

(Sorry I am giving my prompt a day before, since I will be quite busy tomorrow morning.)

And it is this: Please write a poem about something you missed, something you weren’t there for, something that happened without you.

Are You Eating Properly?

in later years
she would tell him, that
‘yes’ she was 

having ‘once around the fridge’
which usually meant
an out-of-date sausage

set with a rescue of blackened spinach
and the scraped butt-end 

of an expensive festive cheese – 
or some such
avoidable collation – he thinks

though, not now 
so dissimilar to this 
evening’s

butter-heat of new potatoes 
and a bowl 
of refried chilli con carne

before that long-savoured scrape 
of rhubarb with far, far
too much cream

Is it raining? he asks

no, you must have tinnitus
he is told but I can hear something
I think it’s rain

she looks out but there’s nothing
the ground is dry she tells him
but I’m sure I can hear rain

she knows what it feels like to hear
sounds in her head the continuous swishing
she would just like to hear silence

More ears

Listen to the empty space

Sometimes, listening to the waves
it seemed as if I could lose myself –
could live a lifetime in the pause, the drag
the inhale before gravity inevitably falls.
It gets me thinking of that line, is it Blake?
Is it Shakespeare? It so often is –
a universe in a grain of sand
and how, if this could be true
the whole of eternity might be
the silence between crashing waves. 

Now, what shall I have for dinner?
How about a faggot of tripe and onions
orbubble and squeak with corned beef 
if I can open the tin
I want to save my coupons for Christmas
don’t-you-know-it’s-wartine ?
Or a pennorth o’ chips and a fish for ninepence 
from the chip shop on the corner 
<span claim the penny back on the Tize bottle
or Sunday salad in the college canteen
wash the greenfly off first
or the remains of the chicken In onion sauce
there’s the mortgage to pay
Or year-old hogget and pawpaw in Oz
or kumara and mutton bird hot from the hangi
Or whitebait fritters followed by pavlova
or hokey pokey ice-cream piled high in NZ
Or egg and sausage sizzling in the billy
by a midge-infested Scottish stream 
Or shall I choose a homemade dinner 
defrosted in the microwave.?
Yes.. </s

I kept thinking about Patrick and his plums writing this..A very enjoyable prompt!

WHAT

Sights and Sounds of Women’s Ice Hockey

The glass is always surrounded by young girls with signs
cheering on their heroes skating by
not as fast as Hayley or Sarah,
but as accurate as Marie-Philip,
hoping to trade a duck for a puck and a smile.

As the crowd stands for the National Anthem,
young skaters join the team waiting on the blue line
proud to see uniforms they hope, one day, to wear.

Clapping, cheering, DJ Tom’s music fills the rest breaks,
then she shoots, she scores, and the crowd goes wild.

Then before you know it, the final siren signals that hostility
can be replaced by friendships everlasting, hits become hugs,
and fans applaud both sides as it is the game that matters.

Arranged

eyes
pick at the sky
with sparrows, in sun-textured stone
lined below torn clouds
brittle 
on the wind
and I lick my fingers 
to turn the page
of the moors
hard on the horizon
the fluttering call of the curlew,
a distant, guttural sound of geese

trees, filling with this length of days
where a great tit stutters 
and trills
a hedgerow, some well maintained fences
near some houses,
squat 
and a broken barn
a small, green enclosure
for some lambs – such tenuous 
bleats
without response 

23.4.2026 Eyes and Ears Are Old Hat

The Sewing Basket
 
In a flat in London, I became acquainted with him.
My grandfather’s friend, Mr Pollard,
whose eyesight was blasted by a firework
when he was twelve. I don’t remember
the colour of his eyes, the features of his face,
or whether his ears were well-shaped. But I still have
the willow sewing basket his nimble fingers
wove for me. A sensible gift,
well-loved over the years.

WLTM

probably, you thought I’d never know
you were looking around for a stop-gap
until I came to my senses, after all
I didn’t read the local paper, unless
it was to find when strawberry picking opened

friends of mine did and were curious
thinking they knew you from your small ad
you left a voicemail and I’m very good on voices
I also know when it’s prudent to keep quiet –
so now you know I can see for miles and miles

Fitting in, being wanted
conforming to the norm
meeting  expectations
while having the ‘wrong’ accent
the ‘wrong’social background
the “wrong”colour
these kids look in from outside
and wonder why they are ignored
not invited, don’t have a voice
 or worse, are the subject of abuse
Verbal or physical.
 We try.  
 start from scratch
With the very young
share culture
art, stories, drama, dance
education, education, education.

( I used to work for the Schools‘ Intercultural Support  service with dance, drama, arts and crafts, mostly in first schools.  We  all had a fabulous time and the. the children performed, in costume,  in schools and on the public stage  in inter-school festivals, getting to know the parents in the process,. I firmly believe this is the right way..)l

inheritance

Don’t start me on this.
An everyday frustration.
The hearing loss is my own.
The eyesight nuisance
Is an heirloom
Handed down mother to daughter
for eho knows how long.
Thanks, Mum, auntie, sister,
Great aunt 
and however many grannies
ThatI never knew 
In the dim and distant past
before the  .thing was identified,
This afternoon I have my eye injection .
I have. lost count, approx 29th,  
My afternoon out.
Can’t wait.

(They don’t hurt, much, and the staff are lovely)

This was a good prompt after yesterday’s Stephen Laurence Day prompt..Maybe there is a continuation in the theme..

RAINBOWS ACROSS THE SKY

What I wish for all the Stephen Lawrence’s on this earth

To live with dignity

To have your chance at survival

To not be beaten down by those

who hate, who belittle, who only

know how to destroy not create.

To try, to fail, to try again at work

at play, at love. To look up at the sky

at night and see a million stars

and not be afraid but be astonished.

Tragedy: the definition

being in the wrong place at the wrong time
being the wrong colour, the wrong sex
wearing the wrong clothes, dark makeup,
black dreadlocks, with red ones and piercings
meeting the wrong people in the street
being in the wrong part of town, someone else’s turf
meeting a gun, a knife, a boot
being seen as the outsider, being different
being left-handed in a right-handed world

After…

After the dinosaurs decompose
After the fossil fuels burn
After CO2 increases
After the earth’s temperature rises
After the ice cap melts
After the ocean levels rise
After the Pacific Islands disappear
After coastal cities are damaged
After the crops are flooded
After the diseases take over
After the world’s population dies,
the remaining animals and vegetation thrive,
but will humankind survive?
We like to think so.

Unusually for me, I started with some free writing; and then the thought came -‘what about a pantoum?’

22.4.2026 Built

Posting early as phone & WiFi are intermittent here. Sorry I’ve been absent, back home soon.

Other

My son
went to school, that day
though he didn’t 
visit the shops
or his uncle, who also didn’t
live nearby
and he didn’t take
the bus home, or change
for a quicker one
the one he did not look
to see 
if it was coming
and didn’t spot the six
people crossing 
the road
with intent
towards him – 
my son came home.
 

I picked tragedy. Yesterday was the birthday of my neighbour’s daughter. Sophie died two years ago after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Sophie
 
She takes a cake to the beach,
to celebrate her daughter’s
34th birthday. She can’t
hold back the darkness
for grief is ugly, ungainly.
She remembers the month,
two years ago, when
high-tech wires soft-soaped
her daughter’s heart and her brain
turned to dust. She wishes
they could celebrate the day together.
Instead, she cries, hello
to a beautiful mermaid-like woman
who satisfied her ache for the sea,
its depth a door,
Sophie had to enter.

I wrote a poem about racism.

UNNAMED1

Freed From The Operating Table

I fell and twisted my ankle on Monday. This came from the new BMJ protocol i discovered.

A protocol for healing twisted ankles and broken worlds

Protect, refrain from movements that exacerbate pain. The world does not need more bombs, more drones, more destruction.
Elevate above the heart. Raise your expectations higher. Dream the world a better place and manifest it every day.
Avoid anti-inflammatoires, they reduce healing. Sometimes you have to burst the boil, let the gruesome gunk gush before you can move on. But not randomly, on a clean and controlled environment.
Compression contains swelling, but not too soon and never too much. The world’s anger, it’s injustice and it’s suffering needs to be held but neither too tight nor too hard.
Educate yourself, remember your body knows best. Never forget we are animals first, one species amongst a myriad of sisters and brothers.

&

Load. Let pain guide your return to normal activities. Listen to your body it will tell you when to stop. If we all did this more, most of the above points would become so much easier.
Optimism, condition your brain for optimal recovery by being confident and positive. We can be better than we have been, look at how far we have already come. Remember the moon!
Vascularisation, increase blood flow to repairing tissues. Things that are broken need resources to mend. Broken limbs, broken hearts, broken people, broken souls. Give them time and space and the necessary funds.
Exercise, adopt an active approach to recovery. This world won’t heal itself on its own. 

Catherine has suggested Earth Day. I am happy with that, either to combine or as a separate prompt.

A prescription from the doctor

Go outside
Breathe in the flow of receding tides
Tread softly along the bay dyke path
Absorb the drumlins
Feast on the sight of bald eagles in their nest with new babes
Observe your elders holding hands
Approach the shoreline directly
Stop and watch the heron, standing, fishing,
Forget the time of day
Ignore the agony of battles far away
Close your eyes and merely be at one with
yourself

21.4.2026 we need a cure for this

I thank Alan for this very original prompt.

TO CURE THE MADNESS OF WOMEN IN THE ATTIC

Panacea

You ask my advice,
‘ My curee-all
my old-wives ‘recipe
my crystal ball
ny mother’s remedies
my magic wand
the phone number of my doctor
the Marriage Guidance Councilor…
I am. sorry
 none of these
can cure that from which  you suffer
except time
and time and time and time
and time………..

Taking The Cure

cinnamon buns
beside chocolate digestives
conversation
and the resonance of wind-chill
still fresh in the face
the hand-cut vagaries
of a jigsaw puzzle
with its view
of a different season
the silence
of completeness
and a glass of wine

Turn down the noise

do not shout
lock the megaphone in the cupboard

only ask one question
and allow the answer to come in its own time

reduce the number of people
allowed in until nervousness is reduced

do not expect tasks to be performed
in parallel if they should be completed accurately

be patient
everything is there and will come in the end

do not lock up the toilets
but allow phones unless used for social media

Rough interpretation of the form.

I first heard of you in a song

I’d seen your sunflowers of course

bursts of yellow joy only someone

who has known sadness

more intimately than any lover,

could ever paint onto canvas.

You had probably been mentioned

in school, on the television, glimpsed

on bookshelves or in encyclopaedia,

but it was only when I heard, this world

was never meant for one as beautiful 

as you, that I sought you out. Sought

your starry nights and your serious

self-portraits. It was not easy to face

your palette of suffering, to see you

all of you and not turn away. And still

in the midst of darkness you painted

the light, an ink blue world drenched

in the promise of a thousand stars

A Flood 
(Sir  John Everett Millais – 1870)

they are floating
the old wooden crib looks well made
the child remains calm but
the cat meows

the old wooden crib looks well made
it’s riding high
although the coverlet trails

the child remains calm but
is focused on distant birds perhaps or
how high is the sky

the cat meows
this world is unsafe
and the water is devoid of fish

Under an arch of swords

I sit and wait,
and gaze upon this photo of you and me,
where we walk together
among the giant cedars in graveyard,
watching over us as gods,
protecting us from harm
(and there is so much harm in the world these days),
and we will walk together
as we have these past 41 years,
hand in hand,
remembering the swords and gravestones
from that April 20th,
remembering that white limousine,
its comfy seats, its wide expanse,
that took us from the church to dinner far too fast,
not giving us the needed time to pause and to reflect
on all that was before and would be in the future,
a future when I am still with you.