(with apologies to ED)
Read another Emily Dickinson poem.
Check which household appliance is beeping at me.
Continue reading ED as I kick the fridge door shut.
Walk to the gate to check today’s mail.
Save a couple of envelopes on which to write short poems like ED did.
March on Parliament House to protest that the powers that be
are too slow to act on Climate Change.
Occasionally I dwell in Possibility –
Check the clock in the hall as to last weeks Daylight Savings change.
Dust the mantel in the lounge. And watch as –
A Bird came down the Walk –
Check which appliance is beeping at me.
I taste a liquor never brewed –
(If you believe that!)
and again I kick the fridge door shut.
I shall know why – when Time is over –
And that damned appliance has stopped beeping.
It was not Death for I stood up
knowing at the end of the day
my To-Do List was done
and the Liquor Fridge was now empty and I was about to find
I cannot dance upon my Toes
and tomorrow I’ll find another poet –
to distract me from a To-Do List.
Benita H. Kape (c) 9.4.2021
Notes: And this is soooo me with my head in poems every day, every week, every month; not just for April each year. And setting the record straight: I can’t remember when I last tasted alcohol of any sort. But a To-Do List might be the right time to tinkle with the sacred. Dear Emily, I do love you. This poem is also to record that Schools in New Zealand went on strike today and marched to Parliament.
Day 9 NaPoWriMo 2021:
Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character. For example, what’s on the Tooth Fairy’s to-do list? Or on the to-do list of Genghis Khan? Of a housefly? Your list can be a mix of extremely boring things and wild things. For example, maybe Santa Claus needs to order his elves to make 7 million animatronic Baby Yoda dolls, to have his hat dry-cleaned to get off all the soot it picked up last December, and to get his head electrician to change out the sparkplugs on Rudolph’s nose.
benitakape 