April 2006 – I tried, and failed within the first week.
April 2007 – I succeeded
April 2008 – I succeeded
However, all three attempts were not me writing 30 poems in the month of April. All three attempts were me posting a poem-a-day by famous people. How did I fail in 2006? Not sure.
Anyway, last year I attempted the real challenge. 30 fresh poems in 30 days:
April 2009 – I managed 20 poems
Not bad.
I haven’t yet decided what I want to do this year. I’ll do something though.
My response to Read Write Poem’s Prompt #119: Let’s Get it On
This act of pairing up, bedding down and making a third human is as bizarre and chance-driven as anything else that happens during our lives. Still, not too many people sit around and ponder the haphazard nature of getting it on.
Considering the way my mind works, it’s downright amazing the poem that resulted is as clean as it is.
The Answer
I first read Adams
The same time I was learning
How to conjugate
Latin verbs.
It was later I learned
Moses and his followers
Conjugated 42 times
In the wilderness.
From point A to point B
Point B to point C
42 times they traveled
Conjoining, conjugating, coupling
End points.
The Hebrew word
Must not translate well.
My mind wanders elsewhere
Across mountains and valleys
Sandy beaches
And other double entendres.
I think this can’t possibly
Be what G-d intended,
And then I reread
The Song of Solomon
And realize
His mind and mine
Are conjoined.
A few weeks ago someone rejected my ‘Vulcan logic’ when I told them changing our clocks has no effect on the amount of sunlight in the day.
Since then I have learned, I might actually be Part-Vulcan. In which case, that individual’s comment takes on the form of an ugly, bigoted remark.
March 2, 1989, then Poet Laureate, Howard Nemerov, recited a poem in front of the US Congress in celebration of the nation’s 200th anniversary. C-Span has recently made almost their entire video library freely accessible online.
Some of his trademark humor is evident, especially at the end of the poem.
Here is a quote you can find many places online
“no verses which are written by water-drinkers can please, or be long-lived.”
It is ascribed to Horace.
Here is a translation of this line in context:
“O learned Maecenas, if you believe old Gratinus, no verses which are written by water-drinkers can please, or be long-lived. Ever since Bacchus enlisted the brain-sick poets among the Satyrs and the Fauns, the sweet muses have usually smelt of wine in the morning.”
Almost as bad as removing the word “not” from a quote.
Just a bit of administrative detail:
The Creative Commons bit on my sidebar has been deleted. It was put there at a time when I was posting less of my poetry on this blog.
Mirror Universe Bible
Donald’s deity
fumbled, forgot
to provide trumpets,
or an army, with
or without military
costume, so Donald
had to cup his hands
and blow, until his face
turned magenta,
turquoise,
and then a shade
matching a tree fern.
The wall didn’t fall.
Donald’s outlook dismal, he
returned to his motor-coach,
furtively cursed
his forgetful Lord,
and headed back
into the mist,
popping nonpareils
hoping life would improve.
This poem is written in response to ReadWritePoem Prompt #118, where we were to utilize as many of the following words as possible:
I think I used them all, though I did move one character of one word to a different position.
Fellow poet, Poemblaze, went in another direction.
Wrote this haiku tonight:
My excitement
when I saw her face:
unmeasurable.
[like many poems, there is more than one way to interpret this. However, once a poem leaves the poet’s pen, it no longer belongs to him. Whatever way the reader interprets it, is the correct way.]
