NaPoWriMo 2026 Today: Thursday 30 April 2026

… faerie master control …

as if tinkling bells do break silences, 

with their surprise of a shattering glass 

dropped by their meddling interferences 

onto a chessboard floor: one count alas 

scattering their pieces of shard-danger, 

as the faerie folk break up in terror 

at being found an out-of-place stranger 

not in a dell-ring assumed in error; 

nor in the depths of overgrown gardens 

those faerie sprites use more knavish logic 

as human fools ignorance is hardened 

through shrewd ruse of interfering magic— 

lightness and deftness their master control 

a world meddled by this fairie patrol

This year’s final prompt. In his poem, “Angels,” Russell Edson speaks of these spiritual warrior-messenger-guardians as if they were a type of endangered animal. Brief as it is, the poem is disorienting in its use of flattened diction, odd similes, and elliptical statements. Today, try writing your own poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession (demons, firefighters, demonic firefighters) with the same sort of musing yet dispassionate tone. 

Photograph by the poet of part of Christmas exhibition of fairies at Chatsworth House, December 2025