Some Winter-themed Poems

 

As I said at the beginning I planned to post a few essays and maybe some bad poetry. So how about some bad poetry today? I write primarily free verse, haiku, and tanka. I can and have done poems with rhythm, rhyme, and formal structure but they are generally nonsensical and silly. It just comes out that way. I like free verse for expression and emotion. Haiku and tanka for the sheer concentration it demands and gives.

Sometimes a poem is more a child to me than my stories and, when I give them away, I worry about them. How were they received? Were they loved or merely tolerated? Did they give what I wrote them to give? Some of my ‘children’ I do hear back about and others are never heard from. I pray and grieve for those.

 

 

January 2013

Tears or rain on leaves

It matters not or little

All water sustains.

 

Grief, laughter, sadness, and joy,

Commonalities of life.

 

 

Yes, I seem to ignore the traditional focus but it works for my particular expression. Now something a little longer.

　

Kavanaugh
Cold, it is so cold

I shiver in my long red coat

Decorated with elephants.

And watch my step carefully

The sidewalk is so uneven

Filled with leaf-choked rain puddles.

We step around cars and

Methodically stacked black trash bags

Of an afternoon’s efforts

To corral the chaos of the past fall.

We walk. we talk.

There is the sound of laughter

A sailfish decorated with Christmas lights

All lit up in the moist darkness

And Christmas long past.

You zip up your jacket

Hiding your hands in the pockets

And I shiver in my long red coat

Decorated with elephants.

 

 

 

Both of these are rather sad in tone to me. It must be the cold, gray skies outside. Perhaps spring will bring something a bit happier. . .even joyous.


Wasn't it Robert Heinlein who wrote "Beware of poets who read their poems in public. They may have other bad habits." ?