by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 14, 2026
Day 14: National Poetry Month
About a thousand (maybe 35) years ago, I wrote a poem that is still one of my favorites. Once upon a time, it was considered, and ultimately rejected, for publication as a children’s book. Apparently, the publisher had concerns about its lighthearted and cavalier attitude towards the burning of a house and they worried that it might encourage a whole generation of budding arsonists.
Adults are weird.
Rowan Murphy, a long-tme online friend from pre-internet GEnie days, read the poem and made a black and white illustration for it. Such a marvelous illustration it was! Recently, she has been doing digital art, AI art, and animation. I teased her and asked her if she could give me an updated, animated version of the “dancing dragon” she created from my poem:
Dancing Dragon
When I awoke this morning,
at the first cold light of dawn,
I looked outside, and found
A dancing dragon on the lawn.
He did a soft-shoe shuffle,
Then he doffed his hat, you see.
I’ll believe in you,” he said,
“If you’ll believe in me.”
Well, little did the dragon know
That I was predisposed
To trust in anything with wings.
But now I’m sure he knows.
A dragon’s laughter brightly burns,
And cauterizes pain.
For when a dancing dragon laughs,
Dark thoughts cannot remain.
The neighbors think I’ve lost my mind.
Perhaps I have, at that.
My mother wonders why
I’m not content with just a cat.
They say they wouldn’t let
A dragon on their lawns to graze.
They fear he’ll set the house afire
Amidst the games he plays.
Well, if the house goes up in flames,
There’ll be a wienie roast.
We’ll warm ourselves before the blaze,
And drink a friendly toast.
Fine houses are on every street,
But dancing dragons, well…
When you’ll find another’s something
You can never tell.
I wouldn’t chain him if I could,
He’ll wander where he will.
But I can hope when next I look,
He’s dancing out there, still.
Sure Enough, He IS!
Thank you, Rowan!
Other National Poetry Month Posts
Your Turn!
Who, aside from family, are your “oldest” online friends? (Not in age, but in longevity of the connection.) I have many online friends from almost 40 years ago. Some, I’ve met. Many, I have yet to meet.
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 13, 2026
Day 13: National Poetry Month
Quadrille Quaiku
My friend, the poet and photographer David Hoffman, invented a new poetry form, the Quadrille Quaiku. The rules are deceptively simple. According to David:
The Quadrille Quaiku consists of four linked haiku or senryu. The four linked poems form a single poem. Each of the four stanzas is a Quarter Quadrille Quaiku [which David previously invented].
Each of the four poems meets the following format:
- Each stanza may be either a haiku or a senryu
- 3 lines per stanza
- 5/7/5 syllable count
- The total word count for each stanza is 11 words
- The four stanzas combined total 44 words.
I thought this sounded diabolical, but of course I had to try it. I didn’t realize I beat him to the punch! The following is, apparently, the first-ever Quadrille Quaiku, but David quickly responded to mine with one of his own.
Mine
sesquipedalian
forms on tiny feet, each beat
kicks my ample ass
poetry puzzles
plink, plunk, words fall into place
silent, gracelessly
senryu’s a sin,
but worse to mangle haiku —
unnatural crime
shun me, lock me up
let me return to sonnets
pentametrically.
David’s Response (“SENRYU 0494”)
words I have not even heard—
to shun me— then lock me up
senryu swooning
© Copyright David Hoffmann 2026 – All Rights Reserved
Other National Poetry Month Posts
Your Turn!
Can you resist a silly challenge when a gauntlet’s thrown at your virtual feet?
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 12, 2026
Day 12: National Poetry Month
One of today’s prompts is to write a “set” poem. There’s a lot of elbow room in the word “set.” Until 2007, “set” was the undisputed leader in the dictionary for the number of distinct senses listed: 430. “Run” overtook it in 2007, but this is not entirely fair – “run” got a nine-month long overhaul, whereas “set” was last revised in 1989.
Down the rabbit hole. Words like set, run, get, and take accumulate unrelated meanings with ease. They do this by “hooking up” with words from other domains to form new phrases and concepts — a kind of semantic promiscuity. Johann-Mattis List uses that term in a more technical, cross-linguistic sense, but the metaphor fits words like set, run, get, and take as well. Technology, especially computing, has played a major role in the explosive growth of senses for run.
Another prompt calls for “a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.” The two together triggered a visual – let’s see where it leads.
One Special Cup
Conversation, coffee
after dinner—adults’ delight,
but for the child, there’s
no respite from the dullness.
No recourse but slipping,
surreptitiously, below
the laundered damask cloth.
Pretend to be one of the dogs—
navigate chair legs,
human feet—escape.
Dogs crave attention,
care what children have to say.
Until at five or six, or maybe seven,
Grandma reaches out
to still, mid-slide, the child,
offering a choice:
one special cup
from the high shelf where
no two cups are quite alike.
No table scraps, no milkbone—
call it training for a day when coffee,
endless cups and conversation, must
be endured. No winding, now,
through grown-ups shuffling feet.
O, temptation’s trap is set—
A cup from which to sip
a sweetened brew
of coffee, sugar cubes,
and cream. This
is how they get you
bit by bit.
Other National Poetry Month Posts
Your Turn!
What moments do you remember from childhood that started the descent into adolescence and adulthood? Or that marked the moment you started to feel like you were really one of the adults, even just a little bit?
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 11, 2026
Day 11: National Poetry Month
Posting this from Day 12. How did I lose Day 11? I think I pushed it off to 10:00 PM and fell asleep. It was a long day. A good day! But six hours of back-to-back Zoom meetings and I don’t remember much from after 4:40 PM. Dinner, mindless scrolling, TV (nothing much on, on Saturdays), and…sleep. Somehow, it wasn’t quite enough.
This is what happens when an introvert tries, for six straight hours, to fake being an extrovert. Nobody’s buying it, you know that nobody’s buying it. I mean, they’ll say they were buying it, that they never guessed how much you’d rather be backstage, making sets and sound effects, or something. And yet…you know they know. And you know most of them are just glad it’s not them.
Can I call that last paragraph a prose poem and move on to Day 12? No? Fine.
I Got a Ticket from the Language Police
I used to believe that “he who stoops to profanity first, loses.” To some degree, I still do. Lately, I’m losing the battle against the nightly news and I’m not proud of that, but it beats throwing bricks at the screen. I do feel quite strongly that if one’s objection to “strong language” is greater than one’s concern for the rape and abuse of women, the denial of healthcare and housing to the poor, the bombing and murder of thousands of civilians (innocent or not – I mean, none of us are saints, right?), the exploitation and waste of natural resources and public lands by greedy corporations, the destruction of our planet, and so on ad infinitum – then I do not give a fig about your precious prudery.
I am inclined to respect everyone’s right to worship as they please, provided they don’t use their religion as a weapon or disrespect anyone who does not conform to their particular religious doctrine. I do not want to live in anyone’s theocracy, any more than most would want to live in mine. I believe it was a nun who, years ago, likened “taking the Lord’s name in vain” to “prank calling God.” The admonition makes more sense, when viewed that way. When I understood the prohibition against making images of Muhammad as a way of preventing Muslims from idolizing a man, that also made more sense than the idea that a man was so special one dare not caricature him in a cartoon. Funny how we all get things twisted and end up doing the very thing the “rules” are meant to prevent.
But I cannot imagine an omnipotent God who’s overly concerned with a few “naughty words,” even disrespectful words, so long as we’re not being abusive towards one another. Running around cursing and damning people. Isn’t that one of the things He reserved to Himself?
I once worked for a man who wouldn’t hire a writer who couldn’t spell “fuck” without asterisks. While I don’t think profanity-as-filler-words is good writing, and I’m not inclined to profanity often in my own work, it’s hardly hurtful. It’s words. Words, words, words. See? If you overuse any word, like “shit” or “fuck,” then eventually it loses all meaning. It has no power. So maybe we should reserve it for when we really mean it — when shocked attention is truly called for. When we want to bring it down like an anvil on a church bell and break the sound barrier with its resonance.
The seeds of today’s poem sprang from recent discussions on language, profanity, free speech, and knowing one’s audience.
Deadheading the Dictionary
Hothouse words, tenderly curated
to conform — now
bled of first blush —
ruthlessly deadheaded,
swept from sight.
They’ve lived
too long.
Bright little weedy words pop
yellow — mischief makers
easily dispatched —
a withering spritz of spittle,
poisonous glare,
an eyebrow raised —
crushed.
Others, wild, fiercer grow
a tangle, tendrils tearing
at the rotted relic
of a trellis.
Straight-line winds
wrench roots dug deep
to die in violence
with a purpling scream.
Other National Poetry Month Posts
Your Turn!
What do you think about free speech, effective language and “audience appropriateness,” censorship and self-censorship?
