no shy violet
salmon shaded velvet
framed in soft green
jutting out to
taste the bluest
sky you ever saw
delicate stamen
pollen strewn by
spring breezes
promise of future
springs as eternal
as sunrise

NaPoMo 12 2012

Skin sighs
I unfold like a new leaf
Soul deep warmth
Frost puddles around stiff
Bones of winter
Now donning cotton
Bright as sun
Blue as sky
Ivy twines around
Graceful wrists
Clouds crown a feathered
Nest Scattered hair
In honeysuckle breezes
As light changes
We awake to the scent
Of grass

Step out, step out
From shady glade
Let safety fade
As evening slips
It’s velvet dress on
Colors sweeter as
We watch their leaving
Silver sheathing on
The pond the
Fronds of lilies
Fold their hands
And bathe in lavender
And peach then
Reach for one last
Time as moon climbs
In the distance
Takes it’s place
A smiling face
To welcome stars
As frogs sing
Stars ring tree tops
Soft spots curling
Up the living
Giving over to
The night

 

NaPoMo 10 2012

 

Image credit: Tommy Stone

 

Jumping puddles
In a rainstorm
Is just plain silly
Pull your shoes off
Dive right in
Splash about
Create a muddle
Stir the pot
Don’t hide and huddle
From the clouds
They blow away
Like cotton candy
Sweet dream visions
Floating by
Dive right in
Come on
Just try

 

NaPoMo 7 2012

a little Easter silliness

Took a ramble through the brambles hoping to evade the wall,
Brightly colored, dyed and smothered, decorated all.
I told my friends, escape! escape! and took off at a run!
I thought that all had been hard-boiled but someone just in fun,
Left one uncooked and as he hooked a corner round a stone,
He tumbled o’er and hit the floor and now he’s come undone!.
Old Humpty yes, I knew him well, a good egg through and through!
His innards dumped, he took a fall, our sense of horror grew!
No basket will contain our friend, no child will squeal with pride,
For deviled be the rest of us, he might as well be fried!

Image source: funnypictures.net.au

 

NaPoMo 6 2012

Crazed floral china
Grandmother’s lace handkerchief
Cherry blossom snow 

NaPoMo 5 2012

To cover tiny feathers
Huddled shivers
Bony slivers in
The wind of changing
Seasons look for
Reasons to continue
On this journey
Spread your wings
And feel the sunshine
This is your time there
Will never be another
Like this second
By our reckoning
Sky beckoning
Fly now

 

NaPoMo 4

My heart was lost and careless tossed, a line that can’t be crossed
So buried deep my heart would sleep,  I would not pay the cost
As years passed slow, I tried to go through daily joy and woe
but something bold was taking hold, a seed began to grow
A padlocked door does something more, a thing you can’t ignore
Keeps out the pain but then again, keeps me from feeling more
I found the key that sets me free, throw wide the doors to see
Protective shell, no place to dwell, hid in the shadowed lee
For where in shade, a deep green glade, the sun rays also fade
No flowers grow, nor breezes blow, no compromises made
To get, you give, and die to live, for though your heart is rive
It swells to hold, and shins the cold, love flows through as a sieve
I choose the light, will stand to fight, climb to the highest height
And if I fall, I gave my all, broke through my self-built wall
My wounds will heal, I’ve learned to feel and answered hopes’ true call

 

A Nevada Sonnet – a form I came across on AllPoetry, a variation on a “fourteener” or sonnet adapted by a poet with the username of Amera. (amazing talented poetess)

Line one internal rhyme – syllables 4, 8, and 14

Line two internal rhyme – syllables 4, 8, then 14th rhymes with 14th from the previous line.

If you hum Amazing Grace as you read it, it works 🙂

A shout out to AllPoetry user Corrideo who actually broke it down into a spreadsheet as he has done other forms. Awesome work and a great teaching tool!

NaPoMo 3

The spark that moves the heart
That makes the art of love and
Breath a wonder how to understand
A hand up to light shows veins and
Bones that hold the frame
You name the thing as though
You own it, shown the meaning
Maybe gleaning bits of essence
In the presence of the spark
The part, the bit, the thing
We cannot name
The same in all
The breath
The life



Happy National Poetry Month!  Since 1996 April has been celebrated as National Poetry Month in this country. You can read more about the origins and details on Wikipedia

Around the country, poets will take the challenge to write a poem every day this month and I am going to attempt to participate. What way to be more intentional about writing.

If you are not a poet, you can still participate. READ a poem every day this month. Pick out someone you haven’t read before. Visit the websites below and discover someone!  Read Naomi Shibab Nye, Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Philip Levine, Sharon Olds just to name a few of my favorites…

Poets.org
Poetry Foundation

Visit AllPoetry.com, and read what thousands of people are writing this very minute.

Introduction to Poetry   by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.