National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[lisaeagle65]

Day 12

Touch someone
whose color
is not yours.

Invite him over,
share a Coors.

Hear his stories,
grieve his losses.

Celebrate his dreams.
Calm his fears.

awww, I really like this Vaughn..
 

[lisaeagle65]

April 12

But I Repeat Myself

The best poetic writing addresses youthful passion:
what am I to do?
Sagging flesh and flagging minds is cliché among my kind.
How unseemly it would be to relive my lusty days.

What am I to do?
I could revisit summer nights fifty years ago,
how unseemly it would be to relive my lusty days
but I'm not ready to subside into aged platitudes.

I could revisit summer nights fifty years ago
and shock the senior writing group,
I'm not ready to subside into aged platitudes.
Besides, I noticed Able Johnson sneaking looks at me.

I'll shock the senior writing group
and confess my early life:
encourage Able Johnson sneaking looks at me--
there's one more go-round in me yet.

I will confess my early life.
a scintillating expose,
there's one more go-round in me yet.
I think I saved my white fringed dress.

A scintillating expose
ripe with suggestive messages
and I think I saved my white fringed dress.
Browning says the last is best.

 

haha. i must admit, it's familiar. very clever
 

[lisaeagle65]

#12


Hailstones Plinking

My head becomes a birdhouse.

The sides are fashioned from a tamarack
harvested to serve as a new mast
for my canoe when lake waters join,
overflow their banks – to splash
happy in rivers down to the cities.

The roof holds back hailstones plinking,
plunking like the last hurrah of a spring storm.

Bluebirds pop from the hole, grasp the perch
and ascend to a sky which
opens to a world
without words.


~

Dang Tracy!!! There's so much in this piece, so few words.... nice
 

[lisaeagle65]

NAPO 13 - 2019

Session Man

He has four wives.  One of his own
who loves him deeply and forever.
Plus three who are wed to others
but cheerfully 'shag the backlist'
if he's in town.

He never expects it, 
but never declines either.
A man has to sleep somewhere
and a sweet tumble before,
without strings, brings peace.

He has music theory in his DNA
branded deep on every cell,
like the name in seaside rock.

He plays many instruments
in any style they ask.
All the chords,
any rhythm or tempo,
perfectly produced.

Has a secret love for the hidden notes,
accessed when he removed the frets 
of his battered and stickered old Gibson,
modified as he sees fit.

In others' hands it's as responsive as a plank.
In his, an extension of his soul.

He walks like a crab, lopsided
without his guitar as ballast.
Wears out passports like socks
and avoids 'artistic differences'
with world-weary diplomacy.

He's a journeyman musician,
who never wanted to be a star
with all the hassle and hoo-ha.

And somewhere deep inside,
beneath the skill and casual competence,
a man, always slightly bemused,
just going with the flow.

Gyppo

LOVE this. Very, very well done.
 

[ajduclos]

OOPS!

Was misled by lack of familiarity with French names, and by this... 'Unfortunately you get my less than deep voice - this song needs Johnny Cash, RIP
Enjoy!!!'

Sorry about the accidental gender bending, AJ.

Gyppo

Hey Gyppo - that's fine, sorta normal.  Spent lots of my days in the "My name is Sue, how do you do, now you gonna die" days.  Aimé is male, Aimée is female !!!  deal with it !!!
p.s. did you like the recording, the music?
 

[Colm Roe]

30 ways to die. 
#13

Death can shush our breath
in ways so subtle
they go unnoticed. 


We are dandelion seeds, adrift
suspended by the lightness of being,
our courses can't be plotted
but we sense our directions.

Anything, heavier than nothing,
that passes close
can alters poles,
confine us to fewer paths
or send us spinning.
And beneath
the world revolves.

Death can shush a whole family
before the dying.
Two for the price of one
and
he'll get them again
later!

[Deb]

April 12

But I Repeat Myself

The best poetic writing addresses youthful passion:
what am I to do?
Sagging flesh and flagging minds is cliché among my kind.
How unseemly it would be to relive my lusty days.

What am I to do?
I could revisit summer nights fifty years ago,
how unseemly it would be to relive my lusty days
but I'm not ready to subside into aged platitudes.

I could revisit summer nights fifty years ago
and shock the senior writing group,
I'm not ready to subside into aged platitudes.
Besides, I noticed Able Johnson sneaking looks at me.

I'll shock the senior writing group
and confess my early life:
encourage Able Johnson sneaking looks at me--
there's one more go-round in me yet.

I will confess my early life.
a scintillating expose,
there's one more go-round in me yet.
I think I saved my white fringed dress.

A scintillating expose
ripe with suggestive messages
and I think I saved my white fringed dress.
Browning says the last is best.

haha. i must admit, it's familiar. very clever 

Exactly what Lisa said. Linda. If we are ever in the same place at the same time, we must go out and paint the town together. We're only a few hours away from each other.  I'd drive down to SD for some fun in Little Italy. We could eat pasta, drink Chianti, and try not to go broke. Maybe they'd write songs about the two of us. Certainly not nursery rhyme material. 
 

[Deb]

AJ, your "Darling" is a deeply moving poem. It's worthy of publication and really does, in my mind, need to be shared. It made me cry. That's what you want, right?

Lisa, you have a graceful way with words. "SUNDAY" is spectacular!

Gyppo, aside from the polygamy, I could have had a crush on your musician. Great read. I remember your specter in red from before. Still haunts.


Tracy, I love your, "Hailstones Plinking" poem. The last S is wonderful.

Dave, you never disappoint, well, no-one here does, but your offerings are rich and vivid and I have enjoyed each one.

Colm, right after I left this site last night, I learned of a friend's passing. A no-nonsense go-getter and a dear lady with a wicked sense of humor whom I worked many non-profit fundraisers with. Her service will be on Thursday.  S2 and S3 in #13 nails it. I find it comforting somehow. Thank you.
And  #12 "

"Being a man
I'll never be completely beyond stupid, 
still find myself in situations which
I may not get out of alive. 
Just a little more careful because I know
erasers and pencils wear out,
clocks run down"

describe my husband and two sons all too well.  

You boys!  





 

[Gyppo]

 Gyppo - that's fine, sorta normal.  Spent lots of my days in the "My name is Sue, how do you do, now you gonna die" days.  Aimé is male, Aimée is female !!!  deal with it !!!
p.s. did you like the recording, the music?

I did indeed. I see why you think it would have suited Cash's voice. 

As a fairly mono-lingual Englishman, with the exception of a few useful phrases in other languages, I'm always fascinated when I read something someone has written in a non-native tongue.

[Gyppo]

Gyppo, aside from the polygamy, I could have had a crush on your musician. Great read. I remember your specter in red from before. Still haunts.
 

Seems I brought him to life then   Drawn from my huge mental collection of 'overheards' and 'brief meetings' which coalesced into a recent dream about his interaction with the 'real world'.  Sometimes I can trace a character's origins, but often not. 

The real 'lady in red' was a chronic alcoholic I helped find her way home one day when I found her struggling on the ice covered streets many years ago.  I carried her bottle  for her so she wouldn't drop and break it, whilst she draped herself against me for support.  She bent my ear about her shit life in between telling me what a wonderful person I was for helping her and offering me a swig from the bottle, which I declined.  Many disapproving looks along the way.  I watched her safely through her door and legged it, thinking 'There but for fortune'.

By the time I got home the local gossip had reached my wife, who knew what a sucker I was for helping 'lame dogs' and believed me.

But the girl in red leathers stayed as a mental 'character template' waiting for a suitable tale. 

Gyppo