April Fools' Day

This is the start of NaPoWriMo, and the first day this week that I really didn't want to write poetry. I had a few ideas kind of come to me, but as I worked on them the lineation fell apart, or I felt like the idea needed a lot more work before I could show it. Still, writing is not something that just happens, it must be worked at, it's a craft, a skill that must be honed, so I sat and thought and wrote for an hour or so, and came up with something that hopefully is half decent.


One year, on the first

April day, I called home

from college

at 4 am, and told

my parents I had

not known lighting

fireworks in suburban

neighborhoods in Illinois

could lead to jail –

bail was $500,

small price compared

to the immensity

of the lesson I had learned

[pause]

April Fools’!

***

Being young and thick,

next year I called

home to announce

my life now had

direction, meaning, purpose –

I had joined the marines,

4 years in Iraq

would pay all my bills!

[pause]

April Fools’!

***

Now much wiser,

I called this year

saying my life was going

well, nothing to report,

smooth and glassy seas.

[pause]