The 411: The April Desert Sun Does Not Quit

 

One hundred degrees

and I’m feeling raspy

 

like Tommy Tutone

Jenny, Jenny-ing—

on and on

 

like the two-toned wrens,

spring sprung, playing house,

from dawn to dusk—

who won’t quit singing,

 

ringing

like my number

is on the wall

 

for a good time

call.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

NaPoWriMo Day 11:  a poem incorporating song lyrics

PAD 11:  nature

What’s Going On?  Feeling in April

 

Song lyrics reference:  “867-5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone.

House wrens sing from dawn to dusk during the mating season.

A female house wren is nicknamed a “Jenny Wren”—and also the title of the 2005 Paul McCartney song.

I am feeling raspy (hoarse, literally and figuratively) due to the dry/heat and my attempt to write a poem a day this month!

 

Blackjack Sparrow

 

 

When I was 21, I was in love

with someone I shouldn’t have been.

 

Rummy

on that mysterious Aztec-gold smile,

 

and featherlight promises

of pieces of eight—

 

until I got savvy by getting my sea legs

shanghaied on a dead man’s chest.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Poem-A-Day:  write a number poem

NaPoWriMo

Nine-killer

 

In the flutter-storm

of your indifference,

 

impaled and hung up

on your shrine—

 

your one mistake,

you missed my heart—

 

I found my footing,

one toe, one claw—one, two, at a time.

 

Now, I’m sending you a message

by your own barbed wire—

 

an epitaph to call, to cry your own,

“Here lies

 

your lies”—your blacks, your whites,

gray no more of my skies.

 

I was your patient zero,

but not one of your nine.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Shrikes impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire fences to save for later and to hold while tearing apart to eat.  They often have black and white plumage and their nicknames are “butcher bird” and “nine-killer,” which refers to folklore that they must kill nine victims before eating one.  And since it’s Day Nine…

 

NaPoWriMo 9  challenge:  use both rhyme and uneven line lengths

Shay’s Word Garden Word List:  epitaph, shrine, skies