April 2022 - Poem a Day thread

Strain (Haiku)

My lyre's broken strings
still sing the sweet melodies
of youth... and lost dreams.
 
Jillian

Jillian is young,
Most days she's happy,
I've never known her
To be mean and snippy.
Jillian is helpful,
Jillian is kind,
Ask her a favor and
She really won't mind.
Jillian is pretty,
Exceptionally neat,
Her only problem
Is in what she won't eat.
Yes, she'll eat most
Of what's laid on her plate,
Except when they're green,
And then she can't wait
To get up.and leave
Her lunch or her dinner
Untouched, uneaten,
But don't call her a sinner.
She just will not eat
Anything that's agrarian,
In fact, you can call her
An un-vegetarian.
 
Hey, 2022,
Haven't you heard?
Toy guns are offensive
Vulva is a "year-six" word
Respect authority
Appreciate diversity
Don't let your hair down
Til you're in university
Where everything becomes real
But wait, I'm not done
I cry for my daughter
I cry for my son
They teach her to fear sex
They teach him that he's a loaded gun
 
What Tyler Said…

Have you heard what Tyler said?

Are you crazy? Tyler's dead! He wasn't a man afraid to be heard, but to hear him now would be quite absurd.

It was the bones of Tyler, hanging there dead. I can tell you only what his old bones said. They said he's filled to the brim with freedom bread, and he'll never go hungry again.
 
I like Ike

I’m not a cultural anthropologist
but I came into being in the same
year as that Eisenhower slogan.
Which means I’m old but if you
want to know how old, you
will have to look it up or
“google it” as they now say.

But I digress and will now get
down to subject of this dissertation,
which is the evolution of “Like” in
popular usage through the late
twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries and how this innocuous
word usually associated with
similes or a state of attraction
just shy of love, to become
the icon of the “Internet Age.”

The word “like” is one of the
most versatile of the English
language and may serve as a
verb (transitive or intransitive),
noun, adjective, or preposition.
Like can also be used as a “filler
word,” marking a pause in speech,
a trend I first noticed in my adolescent
children, but which was really no
worse than the “you know” that
predominated in my conversations at
a similar age, although I grew out of it.

But the real transformation of like
came about with the proliferation
of social media, particularly Facebook,
Instagram, tiktok and others, where a
“Like” button was used to indicate
“friendship” and devolved into the
competitive acquisition of “Friends”
or as an indication of the popularity
of an individual post of content provider.
It has even invaded this learned forum!
Only time will tell what comes next.

Oh yes, and please like my post.
 
#2

to like or not to like
(less of a question than a musing)

it seemed so innocuous at first
a thumbs up, a cry-laugh, an eek!
fine for so many forums
responses to wits when they speak :cool:

but here with the poetry hoarders
it's easy to fall in the trap
of liking posts first for their content
and smiling receiving ones back 🙃

but it's not that i don't like the poems
of others i've not yet assigned
a comical face or approval
or their words with me don't quite align :unsure:

i started by posting the 'likies'
for those that first struck me the most
and now i'm concerned i'm offending
those others who'll think me averse :eek:

so from now on i think i'll be tending
to post my approval in words
when it comes to the poets of thinkers
and image-derision for :poop::poop::poop:'s
 
#3
invasive thoughts

brain's bouncing around
reluctant to settle in quieter moments
the fleeing with few bags, the fear and the pain

escape in the elements
lush greens, the warmth, wet from the rains
the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the weak

wondering if we'll lose the embryo peaches
when the temperatures drop come week's end
bomb carnage, the smoke, and the poisonous gas

coffee and cake, chitchat with friends
choosing a movie, what to binge next
the torn, the bloody, dead, the dying

in those moment i forget to avoid invasive thoughts
how the poppies bloom, and bloom, and bloom
 
April 6, 2022

Kiss in the dark


His lips pressed to her’s
The way they did
Once upon a time,
When it was easier
To forget the world
And everyone else outside.

The night cloaking them
In ambiguity
Where they could be anyone,
But chose to be true
In a way neither
Thought possible before.

Then morning came,
And with it
The end of innocence,
The end of ignorance,
And
The end of what could have been
In the daylight.
 
Such A-Day

Alliteration allotments allegedly allure allergies.
Ambivalent American ambassadors amaze amoebas.
Antarctic ants anticipate anthropocentric antiheroes.

(don't ask)
 
Tears can be sexy
Even in the middle of the night
What's arousal anyway
But fight or flight
With room to play?

Tying limbs
And shaping braids
Sends endorphins
To mind and heart
Untying knots
With skin left flushed
And pressed like sugar cookies
Is a treat

What's not so sweet
Is once the heat has passed
I'm unsatisfied and he knows it

The distance expands
Between his hands
And my heart
And I'm tying myself
Back up in knots
Failing
To figure out how to close it
 
April 7, 2022

Plethora


he was famished

had waited

been tempted
sorely for infinite days
to devour
every piece of her

the abundance of her body
filled his eyes
making his mouth water
with the taste of her lips
as they part for him

the petals of a flower
succulent and sweet

Pressing his tongue into her
to understand the texture
of her soft whimpering moans
the likes of which
were everything that sustained him
urged him onward
to feast upon her longer

and to continue until satisfied
to excess
 
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#4
acts of a lesser god

seismic events upturn our earth
dig careless fingers into the clay of our lives

our soft bodies rude-tumbled
exposed to sun, to wind

fear dries their moist balance
blind, we writhe to reach cover
 
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Turning the pages
we found new chapters
promising untold stories
so fresh and stormy
we spent the life of a candle
lit the night of the past
clad the future in wings
of possibilities
and read on and on
History, regret, reset, repeat
until the alphabet came to an end
we ran out of letters
the words lost on a last empty page
everything said
silence beneath the verso
memories
promises
sentences
fading, forgotten, dead
 
paired geese overhead
raucous honks greet winter’s end
nestlings to follow
 
There will be no justice
For the mothers of Ukraine
For the orphans left without limbs
For the bystanders maimed
There may be prosecutions
There may be therapy and closure
There will be outrage
There will be exposure
But there will be no justice
It's always been the same
 
April 8, 2022

It Hurts


They tell you
There’s nothing like falling in love
Losing yourself
In someone else
Allowing another person
To carry your heart

They tell you
That nothing compares
To how wonderful
Their touch is
Ecstasy and excitement
With each new
Discovery of bodies

They tell you
About how you will want to share
Open up
In a way you’ve never known
Feeling things
Brand new

What they never tell you
Is about the inevitable pain
Because anything
That feels so good
Will always have a toll
And falling in love
Feels so fucking good
It is the most expensive
 
A bright spot
on the very stuff
we sometimes regard
not
enough
or too hard.

The canvas so interesting
colours added to distract
- to invite
eyes day or night -
and prolong the act
what beneath is signaling

1929_B.jpg

Aren't we philistines
to ignore the splendid work
the arrangement of details
bastards, swines
rip it off with a smirk
wiggling our tails.

Only to lay shaky hands
on the tender lands
statuesquely shaped
rubenesquely curved
bend and draped
offered and served.
 
April 9, 2022

Breaking


It’s funny, isn’t it?
How the world flips
And ideas turn
So quick
With new thoughts
Of maybe this isn't
What you want

And I’m left here
In a daze thinking
What if the world
Turns back to me?
Do I wait for you,
The one I love?

You keep checking
For someone new
Should I pretend
I don’t see you?

I’ll sit here
Awaiting attention
The way your skin
Knows mine
And hope
You haven’t forgotten
How I’m breaking
 
Mine Is To Remember

Their mission and cause was to survive
A march more akin to a dance of death
Sixty five miles, with no food or drink
The enemies' bayonets ready for those who fell.
They walked, they stumbled, they limped,
Many were carried by friends, themselves wounded and broken,
But many more were left dead on that road,
Conquerors seldom suffer guilt.
Only a handful are left still alive
Of that trek of death taken a lifetime past
Their mission and cause was to survive,
Mine is to always remember.

*BATAAN DEATH MARCH, APRIL 9, 1942*
 
April 10, 2022

the other sixth sense


my fingers madly race
through the catalogue of memories
left over the days
months
years
hoping each time
to reach out
and feel you here
your hands clasp mine
our legs intertwine
this could be teenage lust
if we hadn’t left those years
far behind
hard pressed you find
the loving skim of skin
soaked in a want
only the taste of you
and your tongue’s caress
could ever create
 
I heard a poet say,
'Attention, please,'
who didn't liked the way
his words were quoted,
how meaning was squeezed
out of a moment noted
down on spotty paper
scribbled and crumpled
still carrying the midnight vapor
of a dying cigar killing the point
about feeling humbled
on the day he joined
a slightly deranged pack -
some would say philosophers,
others fruitcakes - of lumberjacks
who took him into the wood
showed him what nature offers
and thought it was good
as he went on, 'This tree,
not paper, I call a friend of mine
from this day on, no mo' po'try,
And like the pen he broke
we took it as a sign
to send the handles up in smoke.
 
Kinda like Saskatchewan

Flatland far as the eye can see,
breadbasket of the world, which may
be why those Ukrainian farmers came
here to escape Russian tyranny.
It wasn’t easy but they made it
work and through their work
our prairies became the second
breadbasket of the world.

We both have brash neighbours
on our borders but theirs
come with tanks and bombs.

I'm invoking the flexible 30 in 30 clause - one of the poems I was playing with over the weekend.
 
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