⏳NaPoWriMo 🫖April 🌱2023🌺Day 27

#NaPoWriMo #April #2023

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem “The Lobelias of Fear.” Now write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.

Happy writing!

❤️❤️Sorry, this took me down a very dystopian path! But I did write a poem to the prompt.❤️❤️

The Daisies of Deadliness 

They pop up everywhere 
Innocent looking flowers,
Pretty white daisies, but beware 
For they are poisonous to the touch.

Your fingers swell, boils appear 
Wherever you have touched.
Then they burst and the pus gets 
everywhere.
Then you die, because the pus is a poison.

We live in a strange world since The nuclear war, there are few 
of us left and we either live underground,
Or in caves and tunnel systems.

We all take our turn scavenging for food.
Even the old ones like us, we look for tins.
They are the safest, plants that grow in the polluted soil 
Are poisonous to everyone, they kill us off.

We are always armed when we scavenge. 
Guns are best if you can get the ammo, 
But swords or long knives can do as well.
We fear the strange creatures that have appeared.

Dragons fly in the sky breathing fire, a fearsome sight.
We don't know where they have come from.
We suspect the Russians or the Chinese.
Of course, we don't know if there are any of them left.

Packs of wolves also scavenge for food.
If we shoot one of them we can use the fur, 
Skins to keep warm as well as eat the meat.
When not looking for food we look for fuel.

We need to burn what we can to keep warm 
The post-nuclear nights are so cold and windy.
The days are hot and dry and we cover up against the sun.
Life is just about existence and survival.

We have had to find water in deep wells 
Or deep natural springs, the surface water 
Is fatally polluted as are streams and rivers. 
We are always finding dead survivors near water.

Sometimes, I defy the dragons to burn me 
Or the wolf pack to tear me limb from bloody limb 
But it would be much easier to pick the flowers,
The Daisies of Deadliness.

©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2023