December 31

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1 Year, 337 Poems, 320 Poetic Forms

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Noisily tumble into salty puddles cleaning the winter away

Desperation due to desiccation

A dancer among the branches

Layered delicately ruffled and damp

Forming an army of silent patient shower spiders

But a jubilant jaunt to libation

Gangly kids tumble from the bus

Street-smart, city-wise, he is on his way

When we love ourselves as we love the other love becomes bold

One day the vine’s all green leaves and promise

It’s the best she can do, breathe in, breathe out

Where nature preaches I will be

Field guide in hand walking the land to understand

six wrinkled elbows buttress wrists and hands

Six legged sunrise

My parish is the biomass

Invisibly weakened by life so goes the heart

Curvaceous evolution

Avoiding the academic machine

Flair and glare reflecting in aviators, life somewhere between psychedelic dream and nightmare

No power button, just powerful

Too bad this ecosystem is ruled by thermostat

Life is this blue and pink treat ball

It is always practice

Stumps are shorthand for rains and winds withstood

Lust like every damn day

A stalled hurricane of potential

She’s missing the cock to her doodle do.

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A Descort Poem

 

December 30

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A Ministry Concert at the old Electric Factory in Philadelphia

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Colorful lights

dot the small spaces

left where the instruments

of strings and percussion

and voice did not fill.

These colorful orbs

the only refuge for

lightness and brightness

for two hours

in a reverberating

urban cave.

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A Free Verse Poem

Photo by CJF

December 29

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Pause

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Without or with expected applause… pause

In spite of or despite your faux pas… pause

Before breaking or following laws… pause

When considering what are and are not flaws… pause

When running towards or away from dangerous jaws…pause

Just because…pause

Without cause…pause

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A Monorhyme Poem

 

December 28

Knee Surgery

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Would I go back to tell the young me

Not to do what I did?

To get off the three wheeler that flung me

to avoid the roll and the skid?

*

Is it the decision that formed me?

Scars shaping my future days?

Or is it is the decision that deformed me?

Starting a suture phase.

*

No I wouldn’t change a decision

I made as a naive youth

Sure I was lacking forward vision

but as adult I achieve truth

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Quatrain Poem

December 26

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Happy Birthday Dad

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Happy Birthday Dad

Another year full of life

living, creating, smiles, laughs

many miles explored

problems solved, projects finished

the best gift to this family

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A Sedoka Poem

December 25

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Lights, Family, Food

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It’s the lights I love

during winter holidays

always bright, cheery

coloring the gray landscape

enhancing the snow’s beauty

or making up for its lack

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A Bussokuseki-kahi Poem

December 24

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Name Changes

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Funny how scientists can change

names of some plants in an instant

wonder if the plants think it’s strange

nomenclature inconsistent

wonder if they are resistant

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An English Quintain

 

December 23

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Lemons I Grew Myself

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Sweet delicious and lemony

much larger than those at the store

straight from my living room tree

after waiting a year or more

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I mistakenly referred to these as limes in an earlier poem… turns out they are enormous lemons!

A Redondilla Poem

December 22

 

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Remember Who You Wanted to Be

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Remember the vivid dreams of youth

Who you did and did not want to be

You followed your heart which was the truth

wanted to fly, teach, cook, surf the sea

To make real change in the voting booth

Be loved, be calm, be true, be free

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(A Bumper Sticker Poem)

Bumper Sticker Poems – a form I created, inspired by cento and golden shovel poetry, with the following guidelines:

  • Using a bumper sticker as inspiration use the words in the bumper sticker as the first word in each line of the poem
  • The theme of the poem may or may not have anything to do with the message of the sticker
  • Title should be the words of the bumper sticker
  • Should be rhymed
  • 9 syllable lines
  • Number of lines depends on number of words on the bumper sticker