Last November, instead of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I created NanoRhymo, where I wrote a tiny poem every day inspired by a random rhyme from my rhyming dictionary, rhyme.science. April was GloPoWriMo (Global Poetry Writing Month — NaPoWriMo/National Poetry Writing Month to people from unknown nations who think ‘national’ gives their invented holidays a more realistic sheen) so I decided to do the same thing. Here are the poems I wrote.

Day 1, inspired by the rhyme propounds and zounds:

I see the news, and holler ‘Zounds!
That’s downright nuts! That is not cool!’
To see the thoughts that he propounds
I *hope* it’s all an April fool.

Day 2, inspired by the rhyme shenanigan and Flanagan:

There once was a rascal named Flanagan
who magnified ev’ry shenanigan
and when they were caught
repented, quite fraught,
then made their escape and and began again.

Day 3, inspired by the rhyme excavations and replication’s, and also a line from Jurassic Park:

After careful excavations,
came some reckless replications,
running rife, now run away!
Cunning life, uh, finds a way.

Day 4, inspired by the rhyme mutuality’s and theatricality’s, and the idea that the then-imminent Brexit needs to be summarised as a comic opera:

As now we face with Brexit
an end of mutuality,
I need theatricality
to show what’s going on.

It’s really quite complex, it
must be faced with joviality;
I can’t take the formality
or show-stopping fatality…

Before my poor brain wrecks it
by facing the reality
I need some musicality —
the show’s still going on!

Day 5, inspired by the rhyme asylum and subphylum:

This spineless chipolata
brings disgrace to Vertebrata!
I wish to seek asylum
in a different subphylum.

Day 6, inspired by the rhyme while I and styli:

Some scoff at using styli.
I’m not so highfalutin’,
so please excuse me while I
tweet from my Apple Newton.

Day 7, inspired by the rhyme lawmen and for men:

There’s no need to call the lawmen
and exclaim “Oh no! Us poor men!”
when things aren’t tailored for men.
Cast aside “misandrist” strawmen.
Watch how much you hold the floor, men.

Day 8, inspired by the rhyme airway’s and their ways:

I don’t agree with their ways!
Why can’t they learn new skills?
Their ‘breathing’ thing is hokum!
I won’t pay for their airways!
Why can’t they just use gills?
They’ll learn to if I choke ‘em!

Day 9, inspired by the rhymes ineffectually and intellectually, deficiency and inefficiency, and ineffaceable and untraceable:

If you’re ineffectual, although you’re intellectual,
then your inefficiency might stem from some deficiency —
memories ineffaceable which should be made untraceable,
ineffable reverberations crowding useful thought.

Day 10 (a day late), inspired by the rhyme detectable and connectible, and of course the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration’s announcement of the first image of a black hole:

Eight radio telescopes, made connectible,
made a black hole’s light detectable.

Day 11, inspired by the rhyme mending’s and endings, and of course the Beresheet lunar landing:

One small stop, and mission’s ending.
One giant lapse, no lunar mending.
Look at what you learn and hail your
huge success you earn through failure.

Day 12, inspired by the rhyme unlabelled and disabled:

While some propound that we transcend
ignore the boundaries to end
discrimination: life unlabelled
as woman, Asian, bi, disabled,
how you see me, and I myself,
still have myths attached we fell for,
still affect what we expect
to be, or see, and left unchecked
this blinding to the groups we see just
lets those stealthy fictions lead us.

Day 13, inspired by the rhyme reupholstering and bolstering and definitely referring to gunshot rather than immunisations:

If the shot in your arms is a killer,
you’ll find yourself bolstering the holster,
but if what’s in your arms is a pillow
you’d best be reupholstering the bolster.

Day 14, inspired by the rhyme planetesimals and hexadecimals (best read in a non-rhotic accent):

Previous dates say you’re lesser? Miladies,
we all start out infinitesimal.
Growing from dust we become planetesimals;
now you’re sixteen out of ten, hexadecimal.

Day 15, inspired by the rhyme deSitter and bitter:

I’m just very old; I’m not bitter.
I don’t care I can no more transmit a
request that will pass the de Sitter
horizon and get to your Twitter.

Day 16, inspired by the rhyme cassava’s and guavas, and a true story involving Joey Marianer and I hearing Beth Kinderman’s ‘Stop Covering “Hallelujah”‘ at MarsCon, visiting a ball of twine but not a furniture shop, noticing many other phrases that could scan to Hallelujah, and later writing a song to that tune about the ‘purple guava’ meme on JoCo Cruise. This poem is, of course, to be sung to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah:

At MarsCon just before the cruise,
we heard some Hallelujah blues,
saw Minnesotan places, but not Marva’s.
Beth Kinderman was in our head,
but thanks to Paul we wrote instead
A song like Hallelujah about guavas.
Purple guavas, not cassavas, purple guavas, not cassavas.

We ended up writing and rewriting many songs to that tune, and Joey has been going through our growing list of Hallelujah parodies and singing them on YouTube.

Day 17, inspired by the fact that it was National Haiku Day in some nation or other, and I indeed wrote a Haiku Detector app for macOS a while ago:

Haiku detector
is an app that finds haiku.
I wrote it myself.

Day 18, in reply to a friend who was surprised to have missed that I wrote a haiku detector:

And a robot choir,
a rhyming dictionary,
and an insult app.

Day 19, inspired by the rhyme surviving and depriving:

Let us watch the rich contriving
ways they can continue thriving,
cunning tricks to keep deriving
profits from their deeds depriving
others of the means of striving
for a life above surviving.

On day 20, I considered my post on unintentional haiku in the Mueller report to be my poem for the day.

Day 21, inspired by the rhyme nonvital and recital:

Some may say that art’s nonvital —
mere indulgence for the idle.
But while we breathe with no recital,
without reprieve, we’re suicidal.

Day 22, inspired by the rhymes (in non-rhotic accents) Larousse’s, nooses, and seducer’s, and some of the dictionary brands in my language bookcase:

In my bookcase of seducers:
Collins, Van Dales, and Larousses.
Some who judge not right from wrong,
Some who tighten grammar’s nooses.
Come to my Chambers, Roberts, Pons,
and I will Reed you all night long.

Day 23, inspired by the non-rhotic rhyme PDA to and cater:

Avoiding PDA to
abstemiously cater
to those who’d subjugate a
self you’ve not revealed
may further make the straighter
subconsciously equate a
same-sex love display to
a sin that’s best concealed.

Day 24, inspired by the rhyme dipterocarpaceous and veracious, to be sung to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:

My dictionary says some plants are dipterocarpaceous,
even though it sounds like that is doubtfully veracious.
Lots of plant clades sound like this; it’s really not fallacious!
Caryophyll- amaryllid- hamamelidaceous!

I then got distracted by life for a while and wrote more poems in May, but let’s pretend they correspond to days in April.

Day 25, inspired by the non-rhotic rhymes intersected, unexpected, and sectored:

In a culture split and sectored
sometimes came the unexpected
when two groups who both were hectored
saw their interests intersected.

Day 26, inspired by the rhyme anaphylactic and intergalactic:

In an immune system intergalactic
dark energy swells in repulsive analogy
for self-versus-self, a matter of allergy,
and the Big Rip apocalypse anaphylactic.

Day 27, inspired by the rhyme subsistence and coexistence:

Species risk extinction and your
stocks deplete if you seek grandeur.
If instead you seek subsistence,
you might sustain that coexistence.

Day 28, inspired by hearing about someone being asked this question, to be sung to the tune of Tom Lehrer’s song L-Y:

You love with your minds and hearts
but also have matching parts.
“How do you two have sex?” acquaintances pry.
Consensually, consensually, consensual-L-Y.

Day 29, inspired by the fact that May 12 was both Mother’s Day in America and the first Women in Mathematics Day:

Today’s the day we stand beside
the women who have multiplied,
divided, added, and subtracted,
extrapolated, and abstracted
such that all of us were raised
to heights and powers that amazed.

Day 30, written as I was compiling this post, inspired by the rhyme mallets and ballots:

Some pound pavement swaying ballots,
Some pound foes, build walls with mallets
Some pound notes are worth less… well it’s
some pound of flesh to buy and sell us.

∎