Poetry Month Broadside

My second annual limited poetry broadside has arrived today and is available (as mentioned earlier) as long as they last. To request one, email me with name and address.

Happy Poetry Month!

Day 4 (my NaPoWriMo blog still held hostage)

The Act

A sacrificial smile
A few seconds worth
Of monitored misconception

I can be convincingly contrived
To the point of melodrama
Candy red and sugar dripping

My baseline convalescing
Beneath ornamentation
Awaiting the moment you leave

This two-faced act steps out on a tight rope
Several times a day it will balance and defy gravity
For your benefit alone
Without applause

Day 3 / Untitled

Sleep was a causality of morning
A most unholy beam of light through the window
Spotlight to my face—
Caught in the cross hairs

Of another morning of demands
Tethered to someone’s aspirations
That are at best a no deposit bottle to me



(note - blogger is being a major pain and has my site specifically for NaPoWriMo under review and I am therefor locked out of it. sigh...)

Day Two of NaPoWriMo

Rage

Opened, a red blossom of anger
Long held in a tight fisted bud;
Too long—

Maybe it was annoyance once.
Irritation came and settled it its belly
And churned with the callous lies

Than ate at me like fire ants.
Irritation became causality
Of the spectacle of “awe” over Baghdad.

Like remnants of lives
Severed, charred and strewn about
Irritation could not survive.

The fury with which our own
Came home in boxes
Became the rage in full bloom today.

You talked about political capital,
Suspended habeas corpus,
Mortgaged future generations.

The audacity of
Mission Accomplished

Some cool links

Day two of National Poetry Month / NaPoWriMo ~ thought I'd share a couple of good resources I've seen from blogs I read.

First off, there are some excellent poetry writing prompts furnished by Kelli at First Draft.

Then Ivy has some cool things and Poetry.org has 30 ideas to celebrate Poetry Month.

And a poetry thought offered in this quote: It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. ~Stephen Mallarme

Happy reading and writing!

2008 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere

Almost forgot.... Nominations begin today for the 2008 Poet Laureate Of The Blogosphere. This will be the fourth year for the elections. There are some minimal qualifications - such as having been a poetry blogger for no less than one year as of March 1, 2008. Anyway, the nominations can be made at this site.

National Poetry Month

It's here! Now you have a legitimate reason to torture your friends and family with poetry for a whole month.

A couple of housekeeping notes to start the month off with....

• As previously acknowledged - I will be participating in NaPoWriMo (writing a poem a day all month long) and you will be able to see these here with each one added as the month progresses. Do understand these are one day wonders or perhaps blunders as the case may be and are not polished works.
• I will not be doing the annual poetry quotation email that I have offered for several years now.
• I will however for the second year be offering a Poetry Month broadside of one of my previously published poems that is on nice card stock and suitable for framing. These are available in a limited quantity for to those who request them, until they are all gone. There are only 100 printed. If you would like one, email me.

That's all for now. May everyone's month be touched in some positive way by poetry.

Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement. ~Christopher Fry