I know that I should have been there,
For, although she knows that I care,
I’m not often found;
I’m seldom around,
And there’s ever less time I can spare.
There’s more to come. Maybe some of it can be for you?
While many are hopping around,
Delighting in what they have found,
I sit. I look on
And hope to be gone
From where others’ smiles abound.
I’m happy to write for you, in short form or long!
Getting crabs: that, I do not regret,
Since it never was really a threat
Given how I have acted;
I have never transacted
Such as would incur that kind of debt.
Don’t be left standing on the sand; get your writing well in hand!
To list, too, the things I’ve not done
And wish that I had, I would run
Beyond my life’s time,
Pass all sense and rhyme,
And, again, would’ve barely begun.
I’m keepin’ ’em comin’, but it ain’t too late to get your own in!
To list all the things I have done
I wish I had not, I would run
Far past all my time
And exceed my rhyme,
And still, I’d’ve barely begun.
As ever, I’m happy to write to your order; place that order below!
To take as a topic regret
Is a thing I have too much done, yet
I must go on again
And a sequence begin,
Almost as if I had lost a bet.
Want more of these? Lucky you; they’re coming all month!
Want your own? Fill out the form below!
Not too long ago, I wrote about my intentions for this year’s iteration of National Poetry Writing Month. As I have promised, so do I deliver; based on such results of polling as I received, I will be writing a series of limericks centering on the theme of regret. (Alas that none thought to sponsor my endeavors–although I would still dearly welcome patronage!) It should prove an interesting challenge; limericks typically run to the humorous and ribald (as I’ve commented elsewhere, such as here, here, and here), although I have had some experience attempting (with less success than I might have preferred, with an example beginning here) to apply them to other notions. I welcome the chance to stretch myself again, and I hope to find better success this time than last.
Some other comments about the endeavor need making. For one, I do still intend to press ahead with my regular projects. Hanlon will only go through the end of April, so far as I know, so it matters to me that I keep it going here, as well. The Robin Hobb rereading is not quite at the stopping-place I had thought was coming, so I will continue it until the end of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy before taking a short break from it (unless I get caught out even more than I seem to be already and it does, in fact, take me through the end of April to get to that point). I’ve also got a couple of conference talks that will need addressing; I know, more or less, what I want to say in each, but I do need to prepare the more formal notes for them. Going off on tangents is…not helpful in presentations, although it does very well in discussions afterward. And there is the matter of my day-job to address, as well, especially in the next couple of weeks as things grow particularly intense in it; it will be taxing, indeed.
As before, I mean to have a poem post each calendar day. Also as before, I think I will make multiple posts on the days when I have “normal” content coming out. That is, I will still have my commentaries and rereadings and the like come out Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; I will supplement those days with poetry posts, and I will have the poems post at a set time each day. Maybe in the morning will be good, so as to spur me on a little bit more vigorously…or possibly to give me something else to regret; I am already amply supplied with source material, but more about which to write is not a bad thing to have.
Even as I work on other things, I am happy to write to order for you! Get your piece started by filling out the form below!
Last year, I made a stab at National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo. In reflecting on the experience, here, I note wanting to give it another go, which remains true enough despite the amount of things I need to get done between now and the middle of April. (I need the creative outlet; there’s only so much of each day I can spend staring at tax forms.) I note also that I want to move ahead with a bit more structure, aligning the poems to a single style and to a single theme. So much remains true, and I hope to be able to compile the results into a chapbook that I can send off to contests or print and try to sell myself.
So, in the lead-up to NaPoWriMo 2026, I’m offering a couple of polls in which my readers have the chance to steer my work on the project. Results will be discussed on 30 March 2026–and I reserve the right to do something else entirely. I am aware of what the internet is and how it can act at times. I’ll also note that I’m much more likely to consider responses from those who chip in to fund my delinquency artistic endeavors, with those persons sure to receive public thanks. Just so you know.
As with last year, I do intend to keep my regular things going while NaPoWriMo is ongoing. Hanlon will continue through the month, and I will continue making my comments about it. I am coming up to a break-point on the Robin Hobb rereading, though, so that might go on a bit of a break while I address NaPoWriMo and one or two other things. I’m not abandoning the project; there’s a lot yet to do. But I would like to address this one, as well.
Do you want a poem, a poem of your own, whatever the polling might say?
Then fill out the form; I’ll get on the horn, and we’ll talk ’bout what you’ll have to pay.
A month or more has once again passed by,
And in that time, they have not ceased to cry,
They whom the Stupid God’s cult would deny
All grace, all mercy, kindness, aid, and weal.
The wounds the Stupid God inflicts will heal
But slowly if at all, and no appeal
Would seem to set that sentencing aside
For which the cult had all too often cried–
Not even when its own please are denied
As they not seldom are. They suffer, too,
The members of that cult, but do not rue
That they so suffer if their others do;
In others’ pain does that foul cult delight
So much that they care nothing for their plight.
If you like how I write and want me to write for you, you know what to do!
Not autumn by any stretch in these parts
But the leaves are still falling in abundance
And people scoop them into sacks
Push them into piles
And hope that cold winds don’t bite too deeply when they blow
For me
They are insulation and compost
What I need to keep me warm
What I need so that my fields will fruit
And I can eat for the rest of the year
If you’d like your own piece, written to order and with no AI slop, fill out the form below!
Elliott RWI 