April 1.21: Coping

It’s Poetry Month!

Awake, Chanticleer!

It’s a Word Party

for one-twelfth of the year!

Such rarified air —

how best celebrate?

Use words like behoof,

whence, vulpinate?

Will I write my to-do list

in tripping dactylic,

wear diaphanous robes

though I look imbecilic?

What shall I read?

Some Dickinson, Frost?

Maybe an epic

like Paradise Lost?

Yes, I’m name-dropping;

it’s only a ruse

for what I tuck in them:

my friend, Mother Goose.

Does rhyme make a poem?

I think not, but then

I don’t know what does —

it’s out of my ken.

I’ve read and I’ve wondered

if anyone knows

why some works are called poems

and not just fine prose.

What makes a poem?

Can I know beyond doubt?

Will Poetry Month

help me figure it out?

 

 

Connections: April 30.17

What better way to close Poetry Month

than with this floating cup

the flower that would be an egg

blooming sunnyside-up?

Connections

Protest

I searched for poems of spring.
Ponce de Leon seeks fountain of youth.
Alchemy? Holy grail?
Title for Brooklyn Bridge?
Easier.

Pogo says the first sign of spring is winter.
But must winter enter in?
Mortality? Reality?
So heavy the tread of winter,
so light the touch of spring, that
the one inflicts on the other?

I want a verdant, blue poem.
Sunny, light as transparent green bug
en pointe on kitchen window,
barely there,
fragile-winged,
but declaring her being to me.

Transient,
delicate as the glimmering bug,
but as worthy,
spring for its own sake,
sung
whooped
concelebrated.

No trespassing, poets,
with somber sound,
tempering delight with caution.
Leave such pedagogy to pedants.
I want no morals,
no lessons,
only the heady frilly breath of
this newborn air.