NaPoWriMo Day 26: "An Evening Song"

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a word, or phrase. You can even repeat an image, perhaps slightly changing or enlarging it from stanza to stanza, to alter its meaning."

Today's PAD Challenge prompt:  "For today’s prompt, write an evening poem. A poem about or during the night. Or take evening a completely different direction and think of evening the score or making things more even (or fair or whatever)."

I determined I wanted to do the repetition by writing a pantoum, and thought about what tends to repeat itself in the evening for me. Well. I assume a lot of people out there will relate to this. Not a deep poem, but it was fun and the pantoum wrote itself really quickly and easily.

An Evening Song

Tonight I really want to go to bed early

and read for a while before I sleep.

But first I need to finish my poem

and I have to check some facts online.

I need to read for class before I sleep,

or else I’ll have to get up at 5:00

to prep and check some things online.

But first I should wash that sink of dishes;

I hate to see them when I get up at 5:00!

Which reminds me, I need to scoop the litter--

right after I wash that sink of dishes

since my dog will wake up and want to go out.

As soon as I’m done scooping the litter

it seems I deserve to just sit for a minute,

at least after I’m back from taking the dog out,

and check Twitter to confirm the world’s not ending.

It seems I deserve to lie down just a minute,

and look at Facebook to relieve the tension

since it seems the world might or might not be ending.

Can it really be that late already?

Just a little more Facebook to relieve the tension--

wait, damn, I still need to finish that poem!

How did it get this late already?

Tomorrow night I’ll plan to go to bed early.

--Draft by Anne Myles. Please do not copy, cite, or quote without permission.