National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[indar]

April 25

Lost and Found 

Uprooted, dragged here and there,
middle of fourth grade,
Central Elementary,
I arrived defeated,
Slow reading group, no arithmetic, friendless.
Why try?

Mary Alice cornered me on the playground
during recess
behind the snowbound bushes,
asked me the question--
the question that hung in the air between us
as did our deep-winter frozen breath,
the question that kindled expectations,

the question that promised a future
with this cat-eyed girl;, a white scar 
through one eyebrow and skinny legs.
I would forever envy her her boney knees.

The question earned her my loyalty
no matter what, even though
she later talked me into
getting drunk and sick on her father's
home-made wine,
and got me into trouble caught trying 
to smoke a cigarette in the girl's bathroom.


She asked the question for which
I, at last, had the right answer:

Do you like horses? 
 

[Vaughn Neeld]

Day 25

Capture Those Words

Capture those words
flying around the room
with unclipped wings.

Hold open the cage door
while I use this net
to gently stifle them.

I don't want to stop them,
I just want to corral them
before they hurt someone.

Here, I've caught them.
As soon as I cage them,
quickly close the door.

[indar]

Hi Vaughn,

I have been meaning to tell you how much I liked your #22---right down my alley   I have enjoyed reading the work by people otherwise unknown to me participating in this challenge. Are you planning a book of poetry or are you also a prose writer? Good luck with the Sunday workshop. I hope you continue to post here after the challenge is over.

[indar]

"Sailing to Byzantium", a feat,
A journey recommended
By William Butler Keats.

Oh Marcel I am so happy to see Yeats referenced here--I got into his thinking as a result of 2 of his poems. One of them was a shape-poem Aj, that began with a single word "There".
The next line: "the sphere" the whole poem forms a triangle meant to mimic the  didactic 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis" and he used the union of opposites between Byzantium and Innisfree to illustrate "the union of opposites" (art and nature). I love the poem "Lake Isle of Innisfree" I have searched for that shaped poem---don't know the title. Marcel, if you know of it please inform me.

Poor Byzantium there will be no sailing there again except as an ultimate feat

[Gyppo]

Napo 25 - 2019

Organic Snow

The May Blossom fell early this year.
The trees were stiff with it,
white billowing clouds 
outlined against the sky,
glowing in the moonlight
of a still night,
like a giant blancmange.

There were two days warning
when it lost its impossible sheen,
and then the wind blew...

Swirling clouds of white,
spinning and pulsating
rising and falling
twisting and twirling,
making ethereal patterns
in the hidden turbulence.

Shimmering like a million prisms
in the sunlight,
flowing down the road,
bouncing and hopping,
like a shallow stream
hugging pebbled contours
in its dash to the sea.

Piling in drifts, like snow
against walls, hedges, bins,
tyres of parked cars.
Accumulating wherever the wind is trapped
before dying with a tired swirl.

Then the local children,
home from school
sweep through like a warrior wind,
kicking and scattering,
grabbing huge handfuls
to scatter over each other.

In dark school uniforms,
like wedding couples covered in confetti 
they recreate the shimmer.
Disney-like, but real.

The red-headed kid, hands and arms full,
showers his mum's car as she arrives,
laughing as it follows the curves
like smoke in a wind-tunnel test. 

***

The next morning he erupts,
boiling through the door, 
shoving his siblings back
as he grabs a double handful.

He throws it at his sister,
straight in her face,
and the dew-sodden petals
land as one soggy lump.

Their shoulders sag
because the magic has gone.

Gyppo

[ajduclos]

Day 25
 

Of Your Soul 

 Be truly quiet
gentle breaths
listen to the Music

Oh the Music
hear it
feel it
let it carry you away
 floating like an eagle feather
on a warm summer breeze
over deep canyons
past verdant forests
as you lift and drop and stretch and shrink
riding waves of sound vital and tender
drifting through your soul
touching unknown knowns
 arousing known unknowns  

Become agelessly new in spirit
hear
feel
the Psalm of your Soul

[ajduclos]

Now, Vaughn, NOW !!!  I've been reading your work during this April mayhem, and it is superb - chapbook now !!!!
Aj

Aime, I am going to a workshop on Sunday afternoon in Salida on how to get a book together to offer it up to the palate of publishers who would rather chew a person up and spit them out than savor the flavor. Maybe it will get me motivated. Von  

Maybe it will... your work is worthy of at least a chapbook.  True about publishers, most only thinking about the bottom line.  Marcel has self-published several books - perhaps that could be an avenue to take.
Aj 
 

[ajduclos]

Hey Gyppo - you paint quite a vivid portrait of the May Blossom shower of clouds.  And now I can correctly envision a giant blancmange !!!  It all makes sense the Monty Python tennis matches.....................
Aj

[Vaughn Neeld]

Indar and AJ. Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I do need to get that chapbook out into the world, whether it would be appreciated or not.

Indar. I am a retired supervisory editor of a military journal, and I still do free-lance editing. I write prose as well, mostly book reviews now. Marcel and Tracy are part of the Writers Critique Group I began in about 2008 as well as being members of the Poetry Society of Colorado. I, for one, am too old now to play on the mountains, so I guess I would describe my "play" as being "word play." ;-D I am so fortunate for such wonderful people to become part of my life, just as this site has become almost a necessity. I awake each morning eager to see what has appeared since the day before. Thank you, all! Von

[Colm Roe]

April 25

Lost and Found 
 

Lovely poem Linda...you girls and your ponies