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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Bad Parenting

I made it! 30+ poems in 30 days for NaPoWriMo!!!   Yay me!
 I must admit
that I have been too indulgent with my muse,
treating her as if she were a queen,
demanding nothing.
Now she has become a spoiled brat,
petulant and contrary.
She will not rouse when summoned,
burrows under the covers and whines,
"I don't feel like it!"
I should have been more firm from the start;
now it's a battle of wills.
She ignores my taps and gentle shakes,
covers her ears to my reveille,
refuses to budge.
"Well, I'll just start writing without you!" I shriek.
 She calls my bluff- "Just try."


Monday, April 29, 2013

Summer Jane

source


Summer Jane
comes with the wisteria
Her autumn chestnut hair
grows a crown of auburn as June rolls on
The girl ripens with the summer
Her cheeks pink
like a peach
and her sweet scent draws the boys
like bees to soda pop

Summer Jane loves them all
She writes their names
in the margins of her dime store paperback
Tells them
the cicadas sing at night
just for them
Most times, they believe her because 
she tucks a magnolia blossom behind her ear
and paints her toenails red
and she’s so damn pretty

No one knows where Summer Jane comes from
or ever sees her leave
but just like summer,
one day she’s gone
Everything is a little less bright
and the breezes blow a little colder.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Beginnings

source
We are born of water, and to water we return
We may shed tails and grow feet but we remember our beginnings
Once we forget our origin, we will fail to survive

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Save the Frogs!



Rainbow Frog by Hannabobanna.from savethefrogs.com

 April 27 is Save the Frogs Day! 
This poem is based upon a true incident when I was a camp counselor last summer!
The day was hot and so we took
our campers for a swim
The lifeguard sat upon his chair,
so blond and tan and trim
But he was not a nice boy, no,
He was callous and cruel
He said that he was going to kill
frogs in the baby pool!
"How could you do that awful deed?
Don’t do it," we beseech
"Sorry, they’re a nuisance so
in goes the Clorox bleach."
"But we will get them out for you
so you don’t have to do it"
"They’ll just come back, those nuisance frogs,
and that’s all there is to it."
Most counselors then just shrugged and said
"That really is quite sad,"
but three of us would not give up
Frog murder made us mad!
And so we hatched ourselves a plan
to have a frog rescue
We’d sneak the frogs out of the pool
to hop in the fescue
We waited til the pool was closed
to save frogs from their fate
But it would not be easy for
a lock was on the gate!
And all around the baby pool
a chain link fence we found
It rose to five or six feet up
and went down to the ground
But we did not give up, oh no,
Our will would never fail
The three of us decided that
the stupid fence we’d scale!
Three women nearing fifty must
have been an absurd sight
Climbing up a metal fence
as day turned into night
We made it to the other side
and grabbed the lifeguard’s net
We chased those frogs around the pool
and got ourselves real wet!
Those frogs were very quick and so
were not easy to catch
But we were most determined that
the frogs had met their match
We finally caught all of the frogs,
released them to be free
over the fence where they could hop
in grass or on a tree
When we at last were finished then
we grinned about our joke
"The lifeguard won’t be hoppy but
the froggies will not croak!"




Voices Rise


source


The children have no fear to speak

Their voices rise above the grief

that cuts us low and makes us meek

but children have no fear to speak

Our honesty is all they seek

Just listening provides relief

The children have no fear to speak

Their voices rise above the grief.
 

submitted for Verse First, Voices, at Poets United

Friday, April 26, 2013

Behind Glass

Children's faces pressed against glass, the SUV sits in traffic
Animal shelter eyes pleading, "Take me home with you, please."
Too many prisoners and not enough knights to rescue them all.



submitted for dVerse Poets Pub, Form For All, Out of Asia-sijo

Overexposure

source


I feel so exposed,
so vulnerable
These clothes, this skin
don’t protect me.
Where is my armor,
my home?
I want to hide. Instead,
I clash with everything around me;
I can’t seem to stay still;
I make too much noise!
The predators will surely find me,
and I, no tougher than a worm,
will yield to their teeth