National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[lisaeagle65]

April 14No TitleSome poems float down gently from the ether,good-natured, docile.Others fight tooth and nail; subject and predicate,resisting all attempts to be wrestled to the ground.Words fly, potential escapes this way and thatuntil at lastwriter and written lie exhausted.(that's all I got today folks)

genius. love it!!!
 

[Colm Roe]

Ways to die.
#15

Chances are
chance will do it.
Some are cruel, like
pausing to kiss your wife
one more time.

Later, she'll wonder about the crash,
about those seconds
and curse your devotion
wishing you loved her
just a little bit less.

P.S. I have a direct line to the Grim Reaper and am reliably informed 
that he prefers to 'remove' men who don't kiss their wives at least once 
as they leave for work...you have been warned   





  

[Gyppo]

Halfway through already.  How did that happen?

=====

NAPO 15 - 2019

Holding a live fish

How you hold a fish varies.

If it's destined for the pot
then a dry hand gives the best grip.
Damaging the scales doesn't matter
if you're about to kill it anyway.

But if it's going back in be gentle.
A wet hand, correctly positioned,
grips nearly as well
and does far less damage.

Hold it across the back,
just behind the head.
Don't squash the belly,
they're surprisingly fragile in there.

Accidentally voiding a hundred potential lives
from a roe-heavy female
won't harm you.
But it leaves a bad feeling. 

If unhooking takes too long
don't just toss it back in.
Hold it in the water for a while,
gently rocking it forth and back, 
stimulating water flow over its gills.

Once it starts to wriggle,
to recover from its trip 'airside'
it will soon dart away.

Those few seconds make the difference,
between floating away belly up
or living out its natural span.

Remember, you only borrowed it.

Gyppo

[Deb]

Wow! So many wonderful additions.  

Here's my submission for today - it needs a lot of work.


Country Sunday

My West Virginia Granny
wore her fancy clothes to church on Sundays
with her pearl necklace and old-fashioned, clip-on earrings.
An atomizer in a slender, crimson-colored glass decanter 
dispersed a liquid bouquet on to her dress.
A proper lady with a gentle smile and a stubborn chin,
she didn’t allow backtalk.

Grandad smelled of sandalwood and starch 
In his pressed, white, button-up shirt
creased, black slacks, suspenders, and shiny black shoes
 – never a scuff
Black banded, gray Fedora in his hand, he’d step outside, 
and tap the brim once he’d put it on his bald head
also, shiny – never a scuff

Side by side, with their Bibles in hand
they walked a half mile down a dirt road holler 
to Church to hold hymnals and sing praises to the Lord, 
“On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross…”
Grandad must have turned his hearing-aid down and tuned out
because we never heard the tell-tale, high-pitched feedback 
at Church on Sundays,

The flock would sing to give the preacher reprieve,  
step out of the steaming pulpit,
catch his breath and wipe his brow 
after turning red with persuasion while trying to save souls.
The organ rescued those who couldn’t carry a tune
but the after-service potlucks were the highlights for us kids.
Baptists get hungry from all that singing.

~Deb

[Dave]

Simple Math for a president

Six hundred and eighty billion dollars of hard choice:    
twenty-two billion cars at $30,000                                                                                                     
three million four hundred thousand houses at 200,000
six hundred and eighty billion miles of travel                                                                                                                   
would fly you around the world twenty million times                                                                                           
or to the moon one million five hundred thousand times
save $100,000 for 6,800,000 years
give every man, woman, and child in Canada eighteen billion dollars                        
feed the entire world for three years.
educate every child in the world for 24 years

Or?


 

[Tracy Mitchell]

#15

~

[Tracy Mitchell]

[binx]

4/15 poem


The Aging Process

So cold
in its openness—

colder yet
in its promises

[Lecram06]

just a bit of a front story on this. Years ago a friend took a homeless lady in. He was so kind and peaceful. He went missing.
The woman shot, dismembered and cannibalized. I wrote this yesterday. Sometimes it takes awhile to reach it. I apologize for the lengthiness.



MORNING OF MOURNING

A drowsy sun peeks
over a fog- consumed mountain
drowned in pink and blue highlights of haze.
It is cold this Sunday morning.
Frosted sagebrush and frozen footprints
are among this crowd of mourners.
A small fire in the center of us all
fails to warm any part of this earth
and its tiny visitors.
It fails to bring tingling life
back to the frost-bitten blood
we all share.

Juniper berries and pine needles
heap the over sized tin platter
and I wonder
as we in our own grief take a turn
to gently drop a handful
into the tear- blurred flames
why you? The gentle one?
Taken by her violent heart of insanity
and soured soul.




Each stiff, frozen hand
like unoiled mechanical parts
hurt in closing on gathered dirt
to sprinkle on the now shrinking fire.

Flames, orange with lack of oxygen
Release bits of Juniper and Pine
to rise and disappear
as reality is absorbed slowly
like the winter sun into winter skin.
And I wonder about the cold soil
how it doesn't smell on January mornings
how it hurts to hold
how it hurts to let go.

Cupped in dusty palms
water drips from half-bent fingers
into the shallow hole molded
around the baby tree you planted.
I wonder about this tree
and it's inevitable death of thirst
without you.

I wonder about grief,
juniper berries and pine,
sweet songs that rise in smoke,
cold, hard earth in cold, hard hands
and death of baby trees.

I wonder, as the sun peeks
over a fog- consumed- mountain
drowned in pink and blue highlights of haze
if this frigid Sunday morning
will ever thaw.

In loving memory of Peter 
1942-1993

Lisa,
Your words fold me into the grief as the lines swirl and return me to natures tears.  Marcel
 

[NicoleMichaels]

SHEEP AND LIONS 

Scale is everything.

A praying mantis
is an apex predator
to a hummingbird. 

A loaded wheelbarrow,
so useful to an adult,
quickly becomes
a broken bone
to a child who tries to help. 

And who hasn't fished
a bridge from a great distance,
cabled its spans.

Today you have a plastic
jaw without a hinge,
painted clothes
that don’t need washing.
No hat,
I can bend your arms
in any direction. 

Float you in sea foam. 

There are gulls here, boats. 

Even mountains built
for Big Horn Sheep and lions
shrink in the rear-view
mirror if you keep on driving.