poemcrazy collection – Page 2

who were you in my dream?

I longed for a knight in shining armor
And dreamed of an overall-clad farmer.

It happened again the following night:
I dreamed of a pastry chef dressed in white.

Firefighter, postman, a surgeon in scrubs
Were only a few of my dreamland flubs.

When at last he appeared, my gallant knight,
He mouthed dream on and vanished from sight.

^{Poem title from chapter 39 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

it looks like

Streetlights
like sentinels
from another world watch
while the city sleeps in a shroud
of fog.

^{Poem title from chapter 8 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

Terra: from dirt to mother earth

If there were no coffins,

every body

would become fertilizer

and every grave

a place where the grass

is always greener.

^{Poem title from chapter 27 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

skin spinoff

As the inks penetrate your skin,
The truth sinks in:
If you both keep seeing eye-to-eye,
You’ll have a tattoo to remember her by.
But if you and she ever split,
You’ll always be reminded of it.

^{Poem title from chapter 33 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

the Plains way

“I am safe in calling this a single herd,
but it is impossible to approximate the
millions that composed it. It took me
six days on horseback to ride through it.”
	—George Anderson in an 1871 letter

Over the sod,
They trod, they trod.
Over the sod, they trod.

Huge buffalo herds
By the hundreds of thousands,
Over the sod, they trod.

Vast buffalo herds
Of a million or more,
Over the sod, they trod.

Hard buffalo hooves—
How many millions?—
Wearing away the sod.

Hard buffalo hooves
Wearing a way
Over the sod they trod.

^{Poem title from chapter 29 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

To see a buffalo herd like that–how amazing would that be? And now for the last of my poems for Monty Vern’s Silver Lining June collaboration, in which the last words of each line are the key words, in order, of the given quote. Peace to our ♥s!

[“The day is done, and the darkness / Falls from the wings of Night, / As a feather is wafted downward / From an eagle in his flight“ from “The Day is Done” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

Something New Under the Sun

~after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Again a demoralizing day:
Dearheart, will you never be done
Fraternizing with darkness,
Letting stumbles lapse into falls,
“Forgetting” you have wings—
A goose in the noose of Night?

Dearheart, dust off your feathers!
The next time temptation wafts
Your way, enticing you downward,
Soar up swiftly, like the eagle.
Again and again—take flight!

our real names

If I could open the window 
   and find you stirring the sky 
   till it looks like a collage,
If you could bring me magic 
   that I might dress myself with rain,
If we could listen to our shadows 
   on a night picnic, both of us 
   most mad and moonly,
If we could allow ourselves 
   to be visited by words, joywriting 
   with controlled abandon,
In poem sound and song we would 
   discover our real names.

^{Poem title from chapter 10 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

The poem above is made up of chapter titles from Susan Wooldridge’s poemcrazy book. Below is my second response to Monty Vern’s Silver Lining June collaboration, in which the last words in each line are the key words, in order, of the given quote. Peace to our ♥s!

[“It is in the smell of an avocado blossom, and in the true passion of a kiss” from “The Unnamable River” by Arthur Sze]

The Senselessness of Long Covid

~after Arthur Sze

Now you must accentuate sight, having lost smell.
Though slices of tomato, yellow pepper and avocado
Masquerade on a blue plate as a festive blossom,
Artistry is a pretty poor substitute for taste, it’s true.
No wonder you consider them with little passion,
Even a slight revulsion, like an elderly uncle’s kiss.

Mr. Mabie

Of all the mathematics Mr. Mabie taught—
fractions, percents, the lot—half of which
we hated; fifty percent, forgot—probability
was the hardest, we thought. We wanted
to call Mr. Mabie, Mr. Mabie Not, but could
never figure out the odds of getting caught.

^{Poem title from chapter 2 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Who says math isn’t fun? (More poemcrazy poems here.) Peace to your ♥!

I dress myself with rain

One of the 60 poems I wrote using the chapter titles in Susan G. Wooldridge’s poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Last April–fittingly, since April is National Poetry Month–my muse went into overdrive, and I went from not contemplating the project at all to completing all 60 poems in less than three weeks. This past National Poetry Writing Month was tame in comparison (thank goodness). For more poemcrazy poems and some background on the project, click here.) Peace to your ♥!

I dress myself with rain

Rain!

kick off shoes
pull off socks
shimmy out of pants
wiggle out of shirt
fling underthings

Rain dance!

^{Poem title from chapter 30 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

fear of poetry

Poetry. It’s only a word. It will not hurt you.
Exposure therapy can help you overcome
your fears. The poetry exercise below was
created especially for this purpose. Use it
when the blank page begins to mock you.

P O E T R Y P O E T R Y P O E T R Y P
O E T R Y P O E T R Y P O E T R Y P O
E T R Y P O E T R Y P O E T R Y P O E
T R Y P O E T R Y P O E T R Y P O E T

^{Poem title from chapter 51 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

National Poetry Writing Month begins in a few days. A sure antidote to fear of poetry, since there’s only one day (technically) to work on each prompt. I almost always have something acceptable by the end of the day, which creates a nice feeling of accomplishment. Peace to your ♥!

open the window

Knock, knock, knock—
Open the window.
Spring breeze here,
Stopping by
For a visit. Won’t stay long.
Only passing through.

^{Poem title from chapter 37 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Happy spring to those in the northern hemisphere! Peace to your ♥!