National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[Lecram06]

Triolet 17

Yes, by FedEX Express, no less
The three-a-day-all-at-once arrive.
It makes it all too real, I must confess.
Yes, by FedEx Express, no less.
From here on in, how will we measure real success
If the new game is to survive?
Yes, by FedEx Express, no less,
The three-a-day-all-at-once arrive.

[Lecram06]

Day 17

   

I wanted my Daddy

to tell me

everything was alright

 

Rather than telling me

how to do

everything right

In a few words, let the reader decide and write their own third verse. Marcel
 

[Lecram06]

#17


How Sarah Palin Ruined the Wink

She straddled a balloon perched on an anvil
or a flying goose– tracking from the sky,
the edges of everything ran down the page.

Her skirt was red, her lips were warm:
your kisses are wasted on me, she said–
the edges of everything ran down the page.

Far from apples, or planets or nodding heads,
a duck falls, a dog runs, a small general
in a red helmet watches from a distance: snow

or sleet dissolves whatever lucidity
there might have been – life used to make sense.


~

Tracy,
You reach far and wide and gather in the imagery that spins the reader into your vortex of meaning. Marcel
 

[Vaughn Neeld]

Oh my goodness, so much goodness! Thank you Gyppo, Von, AJ, Marcel - very kind of all of you.
Meaningful, insightful, precious offerings from everyone. I wish I had time to address each one and I could, for they all speak to me in one way or another but time is short. 

Von, I've been thinking about the same topic and after 5 or so different beginnings, ended up with this:

Stupidity

Genes notwithstanding, 
I curse not my DNA
but the ignorance of a family,
who fail to see the light of day.

Their prejudice and judgment
I cannot seem to squash
Condemn 'the gays' and 'coloreds', 
they do so with panache.

I wanted to invite
my brown-skinned, best friend
to Thanksgiving dinner
but it would have been a sin.

To make her suffer through
the underhanded comment
of prejudice and hate,
enough to make one vomit
right on your dinner plate.

My rage greatly heightened
when my dear, gay friend did say,
“I’d love to meet your folks.”
But my family’s idiocy gets in the ‘bleeping’ way!

~Deb



Note: This pertains to grandparents and older aunts and uncles but I took them out of the finished (for now) poem.
 

Deb, yes. We are in a transitional stage of race consciousness with the advent of DNA revelations. Most Southerners have a percentage of either Native American or Black blood, and those who have been spouting hate all of their lives now have to either ignore or accept that in the Deep South, even one drop of Black blood would have landed them in the "Slave Class."

[Vaughn Neeld]

Cell Phones

There is always a cell phone next to your ear,
but I want to talk with you face-to-face, my dear.
Put that thing away when I am near,
for I wasn't born with one attached to my ear.
Let's sit down as we did when visits were dear
and meeting friends at the pub brought all of us cheer.
Friends and families should palaver this time of year.
So, put down that cell phone or--

I'll ram it . . . . . . in your ear!

P.S. The last line has been amended;
the real last line might have offended.


(My apologies to you serious poets out there. Sometimes doggerel is all we can come up with.)

[Tracy Mitchell]

Vaughn this is wonderful!

[ajduclos]

Vaughn - Awesome "Cell Phones" !!!  Right on !!!   This puts me in mind of a few poems I've written on the same topic.  You've written this with love and fury...........
Aj

[Gyppo]

NAPO 17  - 2019

50 Years and Counting

Over fifty years ago we said goodbye.
In your street clothes instead of your apron,
stood by the head baker's car
waiting for your lift home,
you looked far more grown up,
not the girl who teased me at work, 
and made the world a better place
just by your presence.

We exchanged a few platitudes
and said we'd meet again, some day,
if the gods willed it.

Too young to realise that some day,
sometimes, means never,
and the gods, presumably,
had other fish to fry.

Yet you've always been there,
easy to recall, 
gentle on my mind. 
Red-brown hair glinting in the sun,
that little smile on your lips
and warmth in your grey eyes.

I've loved and lost since then,
more than once, 
become a man, a lover,
a father, and now a grandfather.

I have no real idea how you've lived,
although I heard stories.
But nothing for a long time now.
For all I know you may be dead.
You'll certainly be grey haired by now.

But your image persists
and my mind adds children,
even grandchildren, 
to that young girl who stole my heart
and still, no matter what,
holds a place I don't wish to deny.

Gyppo

[Dave]

Lecram06
I enjoyed your 17 as it is a world of which I know Nothing, almost as if reading about a totally different culture.
 

[ajduclos]

Gyppo - 50 Years and Counting, so tender and memory filled and real.  painfully beautiful, real.
Aj