National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[ajduclos]

I will be away for the last 3 days of the Poetry Month Celebration... a sudden trip is occurring.  I hope to have finished my last three offerings before I leave in the wee hours tomorrow morning so I can post them.  I wish to see this through.  
It's been an honor, a privilege and pleasure.  Thank you all.
I'll look in when I'm back.
Aj 

Day 27
 

Flog  

Several years have passed since I last played
old and new injuries and ailments
conspiring with innate laziness. 

Nonetheless I've been recruited by a merry band
of mid-life crisis approaching men-boys
generationally sounder than this septuagenarian
recruited to fill a vacancy in their revelry
in southern sunshine warmth of Hilton Head
where I'll be expected to swing clubs
for four fore days. 

And    ah    oh yes    lest we forget
cough up the missing one eighth freight.
A dubious privilege at best. 

A questionable friend yesterday
convinced me I needed a pre-trip practice round.
Today, in addition to the humiliation
my pathetic flog lavished on me,
I hurt and ache in places long since forgotten. 

We leave tomorrow

Wish me luck  

FORE
  

[indar]

Good Luck AJ. Hope to hear from you when you get back

[Vaughn Neeld]

Deb, I believe your Overview Effect is your best offering so far.

Indar, dying penguins and nameless starlets,  Short but telling.

=====

I need an early night tonight and tomorrow may be rather busy, so I'm posting tomorrow's early.  But I am sticking to writing one a day.

Gyppo

=====

Napo 27 - 2019

That other 'Gyppo'

There is another Gyppo out there.
He lives in a parallel universe, 
rather similar to mine,
but he's a little less organised
and far more sneaky.

Which, to be fair, takes some doing.

He has also found a portal,
possibly no bigger than a cat flap,
between our two worlds.
When he can't be bothered with 'stuff'
he slides it through into my world.

It looks familiar so I don't notice at first
and he knows when I'm pre-occupied.

He often strikes when I'm writing,
but in April he really takes the piss.
That's when he 'borrows' my stuff.

I have eleven teaspoons in my drawer,
and they're all gone.
I'm down the last of four butter knives,
and there's only two plates left in the rack.

I know I didn't leave them piled in the sink
in mucky cold grey water,
or stacked on the draining board
with stiff dried curry around the bowls.
Twenty four hours is my limit,
usually much less.

So it must have been the other Gyppo, 
using my stuff and returning it unwashed,
thinking a dreamy poet won't notice.

But I do.  And enough is enough.

So I will find that portal, oh yes I will. 
Imagination has its uses.

Then later this year, when he's away, 
taking in the three day Game Fair,
(because all poachers visit the game fair,
rubbing shoulders with the keepers
in green wellies and waxed jackets,
checking out the latest security tricks),
I'll fill his sink, and his washing machine.

That'll teach him a lesson.

Then maybe we'll nail the portal shut,
each from his own side.

Gyppo

Gyppo, I love this. I get so rattled when "the other" takes things and then sneaks them back and puts them right where I left them although I KNOW I looked there a hundred times!

[Vaughn Neeld]

Day 27

The Culture Into Which I Was Born

I see that barefoot girl covered with freckles, with white hair and blue eyes,
not really fitting in, but trying to.

She isn't white all over, nor brown all over, liked the kids down the street.
(After she turns six, she can't play with them anymore.)

She feels ugly, stupid. Arithmetic is awful. She'd rather draw or look at the pictures
of the kids in books.

Kids who have red wagson, bikes, dogs, cats, brothers, sisters--
and a mom and dad who look at them with love shining from their faces.

Do the moms and dads in the book ever beat those beautiful children with belts,
or yell at them once the page is turned?

She learns to smile, say, "Yes, Sir," and "No, Ma'am." She hides her bruises.
She is careful of what she says.

At home, she hides under the bed, draws pictures in her Big Chief tablet,
writes love poems to herself.

[Vaughn Neeld]

April 26

AOL News

Two featured stories:

thousands of Emperor penguin chicks
wiped out in the antarctic

and

some starlet I've never heard 
of stuns on the red carpet 

in a see-through dress.
 

This is short, but really evocative of our times--with people ignoring the catastrophic to oo and ah over the mundane. V

[ajduclos]

Good Luck AJ. Hope to hear from you when you get back

Thanks, Indar - and I will check in on my return, perhaps with a funny story or two - certainly with some humor regarding my "flog" prowess !!!!!  

[ajduclos]

April 27

Praying Mantis Have Darling Faces

heart-shaped with big, wide-set eyes.
Designers of extraterrestrials for the movie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
must have had the mantis face in mind.

Like creatures from outer space,
mantis are Kelly green, they keep
their tiny hands folded before them
saying grace, hence the name.

A female mantis chews the head
off her boyfriend after mating,
we must assume she has her reasons,
she can snatch a hummingbird

out of the air mid-flight for dinner,
eat it raw and pick her teeth 
with a flight feather, then go
in search of a garter snake for dessert.

Mantis are not otherworldly, they are
part of the miraculous web of life on earth,
they live in our forests, carefully preserved
nature center, our back yards,
look for them, they have darling faces.

Indar - I think I've known a few, but at least I still have my head, empty though it may be.........
Aj
 

[ajduclos]

Day 27

The Culture Into Which I Was Born

I see that barefoot girl covered with freckles, with white hair and blue eyes,
not really fitting in, but trying to.

She isn't white all over, nor brown all over, liked the kids down the street.
(After she turns six, she can't play with them anymore.)

She feels ugly, stupid. Arithmetic is awful. She'd rather draw or look at the pictures
of the kids in books.

Kids who have red wagson, bikes, dogs, cats, brothers, sisters--
and a mom and dad who look at them with love shining from their faces.

Do the moms and dads in the book ever beat those beautiful children with belts,
or yell at them once the page is turned?

She learns to smile, say, "Yes, Sir," and "No, Ma'am." She hides her bruises.
She is careful of what she says.

At home, she hides under the bed, draws pictures in her Big Chief tablet,
writes love poems to herself.

Vaughn - beautiful, poignant... that little girl could use a hug..........
Aj
 

[indar]

This is a post-ahead for April 28

Italian Cooking in the Upper Midwest

Mom's recipe, 1948, stewed tomatoes
over pasta. Garlic was discovered
in the 50s.
Cayenne pepper burst upon the scene
in 1963 along with basil.

Sometime in the 80s unfamiliar cheeses
beyond Kraft Velveeta
followed by scrapings from nutmeg pods 
and a bay leaf.

Whole wheat pasta introduced
turn of the century until
pasta made from super-greens.

The American Cancer society warns
against tomatoes from metal cans,
I make my sauce fresh from romas.

Richard asks me a seemingly unrelated
question, twirling linguini on his fork:
why do we want to travel, see new places
continue to study and learn and then
when we acquire wisdom to be
solid, judicious members of society
we die? I look down at my plate. 

Yes I say, yes and just when 
I perfect my Italian cooking.

[Vaughn Neeld]

This is a post-ahead for April 28

Italian Cooking in the Upper Midwest

Mom's recipe, 1948, stewed tomatoes
over pasta. Garlic was discovered
in the 50s.
Cayenne pepper burst upon the scene
in 1963 along with basil.

Sometime in the 80s unfamiliar cheeses
beyond Kraft Velveeta
followed by scrapings from nutmeg pods 
and a bay leaf.

Whole wheat pasta introduced
turn of the century until
pasta made from super-greens.

The American Cancer society warns
against tomatoes from metal cans,
I make my sauce fresh from romas.

Richard asks me a seemingly unrelated
question, twirling linguini on his fork:
why do we want to travel, see new places
continue to study and learn and then
when we acquire wisdom to be
solid, judicious members of society
we die? I look down at my plate. 

Yes I say, yes and just when 
I perfect my Italian cooking.

So true! So true. Just when we begin to understand things........rip. V