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Posted: |
Dec 30, 2017 - 5:07 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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We have LIMERICK and HAIKU topics for those poems. This thread is for other types of poems be they Free Verse, Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnets, Clerihews, simple rhyming couplets or any other kind of poem.
I only aske that we not criticize what members share, and that we follow FSM rules, so I won’t use “isms” or politics in my poems.
It is hard to get teenagers into poetry, so I wrote this first poem because it was relevant to their lives. In our state, teens must first get a Learner’s Permit and drive with their parents for 6 months before they can apply for a driver’s license.
LEARNER’S PERMIT
Your long fingers circle the wheel,
nails chewed, carefully crimsoned.
Dad in the passenger seat calmly
calls directions. I, nervous mom,
fasten with palsied hand
the thin belt of security
We parents, like heavy hailstones
bursting crops,
issue orders, gasps, and hisses
until you brake,
commanding us to stop!
I sense the learners permit
trembling in your pocket.
In promised muteness, I stare
only at the back of your head,
High ponytail tail quaking in sync
with your long, silver earrings.
Turning left into heavy traffic,
you ease into the nearest lane,
turn on the signal, glance over your shoulder,
and easily slide into the right lane.
Suddenly my seat is a down comforter,
my foot no longer braking the floor.
You know to look for danger,
safe openings and necessary stops.
I’ve learned to hand you the keys,
permitting myself to finally hitchhike
a ride in the opposite direction.
TICK-TACK-TOE
My father’s broad forehead,
striped with deep horizontal
and vertical lines, forms
many tick-tack-toe puzzles.
Ancient maps on parchment skin
echo his travels through years
of six day work, family disease,
pride and failure of
progeny, and the simple trails
of daily discoveries.
To him these wrinkles are ugly
as he now stretches shunning hands
to halt my camera’s intrusion.
He’s blind to the beauty I see
in each pattern of sharps
and to all my X’s and 0’s
that fill every open square.
Members, chime in.
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Two magic poems.
Joan is the FSM Poet Laureate.
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Nice stuff Huey.
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Posted: |
Dec 31, 2017 - 11:29 AM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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THE FORSYTHIA
Even in March’s frigid air,
the forsythia blooms first,
a gold unfurling among bushes
of naked twigs and dead straw grass.
Like a singular shaft of sun,
it stands amidst gray skies,
a precursor for others’ blossoming.
Grass, tulips, roses
and petunias delay, waiting for
the accepting assurance
of April irrigation,
a stronger fist of sun,
and the ramps of
sprays and fertilizers.
How I ache to emulate this
first forsythia, risking my
blooming before others have
packed solid once slippery
trails of spring mud;
instead of always being a
June geranium, seasonally
rooted in my red envy
of its yellow courage.
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Bill, add your own poem.
i do comedy. And i do annoying. But i dont do poetry.
Tho this doesnt prevent me from admiring others' talents in this field.
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Ok here goes.
Show me a home
where the buffalo roam...
And i will show you a house with a lot of shit on the carpet!
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Posted: |
Dec 31, 2017 - 11:29 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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TO MY SON’S WEDDING
Newly single and alone,
I drove to my son’s wedding
and hit a fat black dachshund,
red chum spattered in a circle,
a ruby ring around my front tire.
The owner carefully offered,
“Not your fault. Female across the road.
Never could teach him the dangers
of these mean streets.”
His young son opened their screen door,
an older sister instantly retrieving him.
My sudden remorse for the boy’s strings
circling his flattened heart
elicited no permanent pity.
Next year a new puppy
will enchant his eyes, ensconce his heart.
Maybe sooner.
Driving slower now around normal curves
and smooth straight highways,
I ponder what to say, my son asking for last minute advice.
Hand him the ring. Proffer platitudes.
Let him discover soon enough a dog pound’s
renewable love purchased
for only forty dollars and a can of food.
DEATH OF DOXIE
For the first time in years,
my dog didn’t dash out to
dance his greeting around my car.
Unable to hurdle the barricade of pain,
only the drumming of his incessant tail
lead me to the corner where he’d dragged
paralyzed hind legs.
Called the vet, told the nurse, “It’s time and
I need to stay with him.” She snapped
“No appointments left, drop him off.
We’ll finish it later.”
She didn’t understand this singular dog
who was only mine, who feared a broom casually
leaning on a wall, who cowered from large tumbleweeds
summersaulting across my lawn.
So I sat in the office, holding his vibrating
body, waiting for the attention that
should be paid to one so timid and loving.
He would not have understood my absence.
The doctor muzzled his Doxie nose in blue Velcro,
unnecessary for a dog ignorant of cruel jaws.
As the syringe shot relief into his paw,
I held his face close, mumbling litanies, “Just look
at me, no more pain.”
His faithful eyes fastened to mine, and
then his kind heart stopped,
no glassy fading look, just
brown open eyes still trusting.
Only the silence of the stethoscope and
the protruding tip of his wafer tongue
signaled my invisibility.
At the desk, I paid with a check and my heart,
and left, trailing the loneliest objects in the world,
a disconnected leash and a collar circling air.
At my home, I tossed in the garbage
a warm, odorous dog bed and stained food dish.
At times I managed a smile when
thinking of his eyes that reflected no betrayal
because unlike Candy, I didn’t,
“let no stranger shoot my dog.”
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That Joanie
we're going to have to teach her
shes never seen
.. a St Trinians feature!
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