Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Linger (Poetry Month 2012: Day 3)

The coffee filter
pulls out grounds
bereft of flavor,
just as my mind
retains words
whose meaning
I've forgotten.

 Hirsute
       Brisant
Persiflage


They linger,
tangible and scented,
staining everything
that I touch
for days.

National Poetry Month! 2012!

It's April, which means poetry every day! I'm taking the challenge again, and I hope you do too. Even if you aren't much for writing poems, I encourage you to read one every day. SavvyVerseAndWit is again hosting the NPM blog tour, so check out what those great poets are composing.

I will be adding links to sites and poems I discover or use this month, but see also my previous links and my wrap-up from last year. There were some great ones!

Happy Versing!

A Shoulder (Poetry Month 2012: Day 2)

A shoulder where I lay my head to sleep
secure beneath the stars that stir the sky.
A shoulder on which it is safe to cry
surrounded by the scent of kindly pines.
A shoulder strong enough to shrug away
the careless burdens that I daily make.
A shoulder is the truest kind of friend.
Living on the shoulder of the mountain.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Lovely Trees (Poetry Month 2012: Day 1)

I thought that I would never see
a poem lovely as a tree...
but for any tree you care to name
there is a poem much the same.

A bud that glows a verdant hue:
a simile you've heard anew.
Discarded leaves upon the ground:
a thousand words piled all around.
Rough bark that rasps against your skin:
off-rhymes worse than cliches worn thin.
Graceful, sweeping, arching boughs:
the poem that you're reading now.

And then there's that arboreal trait--
poems, too, cross-pollinate.
The weedy form will allergize,
hence runny nose and scratchy eyes,
but these same symptoms can proceed
from thoughts you inhale as you read.
So e're composing verse again,
consider taking Claritin.

Inspired (on April Fools day) by Joyce Kilmer's famous "Trees"

Sunday, January 8, 2012

January 1

To improve myself
I'll set some resolutions--
Last year's are still good.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

A Man of Sorrows

The favorite phrase of Christmas hymns
   of greetings, cards, and pondering hearts:
   Good will, good cheer and peace on earth!
A time of joy and caroling,
   a time to smile and celebrate.
   Be merry! Think of Jesus' birth!
He comes to us in our happiness.

And yet did not the prophet say
   A man of sorrows, known to grief,
   undesired, despised, oppressed,
Stricken, smitten, turned away,
   He died to bring us peace on earth,
   and we hid our faces from Him
He comes to us in all our pain.

Let us seek Him in the sad
   and lonely, peaceless places, too,
   bind up the griefs as He would do.
Let us not forget that He
   carried our sorrows, bore our griefs
   and with His stripes brought healing.
We'll come to Him bearing the same

   and to us He will bring peace.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Trying to describe my feelings on my wedding day: fifth attempt

Words are a shallow dish
into which we pour the clear stream
that flows through the mountains of our hearts.
We hold the dish
and call what it holds poetry,
when what we really want
is to capture the beautiful, bouncing droplets
that shimmer in the air
and mist our eyes.