National Poetry Month Celebration 2019 - Post Poems Here!

[indar]

First a handmade sewing chairdesigned to fit just her.While he shaped and glued the woodand made minor adjustmentsshe sewed the cushions,a comfortable but solid matchlike their life together.

Hi Gyppo,
Normally I comment in the other realm but this one has a history here. Reading this, I want to take up sewing. I don't have to be told that sunlight fills that sewing room and it is scented with sweet herbs and wool. I have this overblown need for a sense of purpose that sometimes becomes a problem---I love the feel of contentment that comes from such industry as the couple in your poem is engaged in. I loved Sharon's poem that prompted yours and you did a fine response--love it.

[NicoleMichaels]

NICASIO 

You,
first kiss,
who lacked a car
to take in a movie
that summer after freshman year - 

Who picked me up
on foot 
to escort me home
in the cul de sac dark
as if all brightness ended there,
and might curl up 
on a stair 
to sleep off its drunk
until we were of age to drive - 

You are in Madrid today,
your time zone notched in white
sun like a sharp blow to the head. 

Describe it to me - 

how you are propping your sock-less feet
on a wire chair
in an open-air
cafe,
smelling the fresh coffee,
sipping the day’s first glass of wine.

There is a young girl at the next table
who waits for her date,
strokes
the ink cat
at the base of her neck,
her skin a little red. 

Isn’t there a dish named Nicasio? 

And won’t you drift off
after brunch -
your fork and knife crossed and defeated, 
your eye glasses slipping
down the open ridge line
of your fifty-five year old nose -

still dreaming of the girl awake
in front of you, 

the one with the fresh tattoo.

[Vaughn Neeld]

This is one of the great secrets of all writing, poetry, prose, whatever. Even fairly dry technical stuff. If you do it all the time it does get easier, like exercise. Obvious really, but many writers seem to resist this simple fact. They try to train themselves to be more productive, to not waste words writing less than perfect text.

There are no shortcuts. No magic template. But no writing is wasted if it teaches you something, if it opens you up to that inner flow.

This doesn't mean all writing is fit to share with the public, but once you begin to get a feel for what might work and what doesn't you'll find yourself subconsciously nudged to the better side. That's when you learn to trust your own instincts.

Once you no longer have to think so much about the 'mechanics' of it, the nuts and bolts of sentence construction and grammar, it frees your mind up for the more creative aspects. More about the subject and the feelings it exposes for you.

It lets you into the character or characters you are writing about, cranks up your empathy sensors to full power and sometimes even beyond. When you get that involved it seeps through into the reader as well.

In your poem about the eagle, flying high, observing, I was seeing the world through his eyes, feeling the lift of the currents beneath his wings. I also felt his solitude, a double edged blessing/curse.

Gyppo
-------------------

Gyppo, I really like this mini-essay. As a writer-editor who leads a wonderful group of local writers, I feel that the effort of "just getting it on the page" cannot be stressed enough. Build the words. Tear them down. Rebuild the words. I can see a mantra in this. Von

[Vaughn Neeld]

Day 14

Those Dang Ants!

When I was a barefoot kid,
those big old red ants
were the bane of my life.
When they attacked me,
I would attack right back.
I'd take the hose
and fill their holes,
and I'd watch them wash away.
Or, I'd take a shovel
and dig way down deep
so they would go crazy
trying to cart those
white, mealy babies
to safety.

Well, I'm a lot older,
and a lot wiser,
I hope.
I have had to let go
of my prejudice
against all things "insect."
I've learned
that those bugs
have a reason for being here.
If they weren't,
we'd all be knee-deep
in what is called "detritus."
That is, "waste" products--
of all kinds--
and I mean ALL kinds.

Yes, I've forgiven those
old red ants. I reckon
they're just doing the job
the good Lord set out
for them to do.

Now I just got
to figure out why
I must keep on feeding
these dang mosquitoes!

[binx]

4/14 poem

Cartography

Back in the days, I worked
mostly on my geography—

Sounds of wine glasses clinking,
maybe a breeze from wind
through trees; scant description
from little events as life continued
to widen:

semester grades were posted,
a dissertation was written
then torn up;

there were hangovers on the Hill,
and a girl with a sharp anklebone
used as a dangerous weapon.

by George

[indar]

April 14

No Title

Some 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 that
until at last
writer and written lie exhausted.


(that's all I got today folks)
 

[Tracy Mitchell]

Indar , George, Nicole, and Von -- you are lighting up the thread this morning!

Each day is a new treat here, and today looks mighty good.

[Tracy Mitchell]

[Tracy Mitchell]

[Gyppo]

Chuck Norris was never one of my students when I worked as a writing tutor
Gyppo