Ticonderoga

Tico My Heart,

I remember my first encounters with you
Not my first childish attempts of
What I now know is my full passion
But the first time
The time when I knew this was it
The joy I felt
Holding you close to me
Running my fingers over the mysteries
of your contours
No longer questioning why
I’m drawn to you

And every now and then
When the confines of that
Which I call my world
Threaten to crowd me
Almost as reflex I suppose,
I find myself
In a place
Walls don’t always exist
But drawn by you

And when I’m occasionally selfish
You don’t mind
For you know
The extent of the power
You have over me
When drawn with you

You give worlds of images
All perfectly contained
Within the movements
Of as few
Or as many
Well placed strokes
From my soul
As drawn through you

Whether
To you,
By you,
With you,
Through you,
Nothing beats the feel
Of you, my Ticonderoga
No. 2 Soft
I’m drawn
No. 2 Soft Pencil


The NaPoWriMo site challenge for Day 2: Write a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections (like a letter is written to “you”), and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.

A Cage

A
cage is
not just bars
that can withhold
the physical self

Words
spoken
heartlessly
but struck deeply
Can confine the soul

For
only
as long as
you are willing
to let them hold you


As always I begin National Poetry Writing Month with an Arun, as I have done these past few years, in honor of the fiend (<– not a misspell), and creator of this poetic form – GirlGriot, who first got me into this yearly challenge.

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one syllable with each line. 1/2/3/4/5 — 3x. There are no other rhyme or structural requirements

The NaPoWriMo site challenge for Day 1: Pick a word from a given list . Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition. I chose the word Cage.

We Don’t Need Television

Makes us wanna holler

When they try to silence us

We’re done being quiet

Makes us wanna break free

When they try to hold us down

We’re done being still

Our movement is revelation

Watch us

Hear us

Our voice revolution

We’ve had enough


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #174: You Say You Want A Revolution

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s Quadrille, Kim (Writing in North Norfolk) is prompting a revolution for a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “revolution”.

Here I give gentle nods to Gil Scott Heron (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) and Marvin Gaye (Inner City Blues)


Day nineteen of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Just Because…

Just because I no longer
stand in front of your eyes
doesn’t mean you can’t see me
close them,
I am there

Just because I no longer
answer when you call my name
doesn’t mean you can’t hear me,
speak softly, listen carefully
there is my voice

Just because I can no longer
touch your hands
doesn’t mean you can’t feel me,
hold on to another,
my arms are there

Just because I am no longer there
to show you I love you
doesn’t mean my love is gone,
Place your hand on your heart,
feel its beat
I am there

Know that I am with God

Know that God is with you

And in that we are still with each other

Just because…


Day eight of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

House of Mourning

Tears stop just short of flowing down
So silent remains my grief
Buried deep in the mundane of simply living
Far from the shores of relief

Still I wear so clumsily the my mask of norm
Designed to hide the depth of the moaning well
My true face of sorrow is exposed around the edges
All those around me can tell

I claim this brooding on my own
It is my desire
I am not yet prepared to unburden this load
And none dare to inquire

It is not my wish to dwell in this house of mourning
Sleep soundly in this bed of pain
But as long as my heart closets these lamentations
Locked shall its doors remain


Day six of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

It’s Good To Know

This love thing
Wasn’t my calling
Sentiment
Not a thing I could stand
Yet you right zoomed in
So enthralling
Put a wrench
To my solo life planned
And though
I haven’t finished falling,
It’s good to know
It’s with you where I’ll land


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #173: Zoom Poems

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

on Quadrille Monday De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) had us zooming around the history of a humble four letter word that, in the beginning, literally sounded like something fast and exciting – like race cars. Thanks to Covid, the word has also become somewhat synonymous with a slow dreadful thing to be avoided – like online office meetings.

As such we’re being asked to Zoom our way around a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “Zoom”.

Here my mind zooms in completely different direction than my previous quadrille.


Day five of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

With Just One Little


Several long years in the void of

Living on the brink in frightment

Of an orange-haired menace destroyed of

Any enlightenment

But now Karma’s been employed of

Things, yes, I’m zooming in delightment

Petty in my schadenfreude

With just one little word Indictment


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #173: Zoom Poems

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday on Quadrille Monday De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) had us zooming around the history of a humble four letter word that, in the beginning, literally sounded like something fast and exciting – like race cars. Thanks to Covid, the word has also become somewhat synonymous with a slow dreadful thing to be avoided – like online office meetings.

As such we’re being asked to Zoom our way around a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “Zoom”

Day four of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

I Know In The Morning You’ll Walk Away

This is the bend before the break.
This is the mercy not the grace.
This is the proof and not the faith I try to find.
There shouldn’t be a good in goodbye.
–Jason Walker / Shouldn’t Be A Good in Goodbye

The night beautiful and starry
Then you pull me close – whisper I’m sorry
And something inside begins to shake
For I know in the morning you’ll walk away
It’ll only hurt more if I ask you to stay
And this is more than I can take
This is the bend before the break

It’s not what’s meant by ‘till death us do part’
When the thing that’s dead is your heart
But I see the nothing left in your face
So when you tell me it will be okay
I know in the morning you’ll walk away
Leaving me in the pain for time to erase
This is the mercy not the grace

This is not how it I want it to be
My heart shattered all around me
The loosened knot of the ties that bind
I know in the morning you’ll walk away
You tell me, I’ll be fine again someday
And it is a truth that’s most unkind
This is the proof and not the faith I try to find

Even though we it’s far from right
When I let you stay for one last night
You hold me with love, that I know is a lie
And there’s not a damn thing left to say
When I know in the morning you’ll walk away
So when the dawn and I break, I don’t cry
There shouldn’t be a good in goodbye


Day 3 of National Poetry Writing Month

I play around with an untraditional glosa

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Chipped Away

Never one for romances
I was blinded to arrive
Apart from old advances
By time’s sweetest contrive

You chipped at the iciness
That fear had given quarter
Revealing warm spiciness
Under this cold heart’s mortar

With twin hearts now emblazing
Gave no choice but to sever
The cold to the amazing
This love so dear so clever


Day 2 of National Poetry Writing Month I bring you an Ae Freislighe poem

The Ae Freislighe (ay fresh-lee) is an old poetic form from Ireland. It has a quatrain stanzas (4-line stanzas) of only 7 syllables per line. What makes is interesting (and somewhat frustrating) is its rhyme scheme.

Lines 1 and 3 rhyme together, but they rhyme as three syllables (xxa)
Lines 2 and 4 rhyme together as two syllables (xb)

A unique element of the form is that the final syllable of the poem should be the same rhyme as the very first syllable of the poem. (Yes, I cheated here – rhyming the word, not the syllable. It said should not must – shoot me.)

An Ae Freislighe poem can be as concise as one stanza, or scale out as far as a poet wishes.

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Not Waste It

I
Do sense
Here and now
This first bright spark
I shall not waste it

You
Also
Know the gods
This moment touched
You will not waste it

We
Now one
Deep feeling
This sacredness
We do not waste it


I kick off National Poetry Writing Month with an Arun, as I have done these past few years, in honor of the fiend (<– not a misspell), and creator of this poetic form – GirlGriot, who first got me into this yearly challenge.

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one syllable with each line. 1/2/3/4/5 — 3x. There are no other rhyme or structural requirements.

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days