Public Service Announcement: Today is World Poetry Day!!!

tl;dr!? There are 5 poems below but I refuse to summarize.
         Either take a moment here,
                           or there,
               or don’t.

Here we go!

Woodpeckers

The woodpecker bangs its head against a tree in the neighbor’s yard.
     Relentless. Tenacious.
     Until they stop.

But then, there they go again.
     Knock wood.
     Knocking away for that soft spot.
     A moment of gold,
          Of yield,
          Of rotten give.

And in a poetry moment
     I am the woodpecker
     Working the blank page
                    And I know why they bang their head.

                     Viva E., March 20, 2019

the simple things

The winner of the 2019 Abel Prize in Mathematics
     a woman
     a Doctor of Philosophy
     a maverick
cited Julia Childs as her role model.
Isn’t that delicious?

I like pizza.
I like beer.
                     Viva E., March 21, 2019

Snow

For two weeks, I monitor snow.
     At the start, it’s all up and hip-waders deep
          in the armpits of the apple tree.

As the weather warms, it melts away from sidewalks’ edge,
     Embarrassed by the slushy piles and ice it has left everywhere,
          it took the shape of water.

And the hip-waders around the apple tree?
    Shrunk to mere snow boots.

Today the apple tree woke up wearing the flimsiest of flip-flops.
    By day’s end it will be running
         barefoot on the beachy lawn of spring.

                Viva E., March 20, 2019

We are all in our devices.

We are all in our devices.
Together spread all apart.
     FreeCell.
     Instagram.
     Twitter.
     Maybe a check to see what’s happening on FaceBook.
     Or the mobile New York Times app for the more erudite.
We are all in our devices.

                Viva E., March 21, 2019

In response to my February 27, 2019 A Poetry Moment post, I received the poem Bully Collins — hand-written in the FAL font — in the mail.

Bully Collins

Right on!
Finally an opportunity for poets to change their image.

No longer the thoughtful, retiring and meek individual checking
     the thesaurus or rhyming dictionary for
     the perfect word to complete
     the line or struggling to decide on
     the punctuation — a dash, a series of dots …
     maybe a question mark?

No longer will poetry books be assigned to
     the darkest most remote corner of a bookstore.
     Now poetry will be on the table near the entry/exit
     and the buyer will get free coffee and Danish.

No longer will poets be searching for grants, prizes, etc.
     but will have a patron
     happily meeting all expenses and
     will also make it worthwhile for New Yorker poetry critics
     to write favorable reviews with a few succinct lines
     to be featured on the book jacket.

And the cry went out over the land.
     ATTENTION POETS
          USE YOUR BULLY POETRY

                              –FAL, March 10, 2019

Written and shared by my Favorite Aunt ‘L’ (FAL), and all apologies. Errors and indentation mistakes are my own.

My wish for my readers is that you know someone who adds poetry to your life. And smile! YOU may be someone else’s poetry.

You never know.