National Poetry Month days 23, 24, 25, 26 & yes! 21

Whew! I’ve been busy today! several of the more recent poem forms have been a bit more serious for me – but there’s some that should make you giggle too! Let’s get to it:

Day #21

One of the last poems I wrote today (out of avoidance, heh). A free verse (learn more about it HERE) – which sounds easy to most, but for me they are often harder with now hugely specific rules to follow, the wide open world at your feet (eek!) and add to that Easter as a possible topic with all the emotional ties it has to our family. I was so tempted to dodge or just post an old one, but I made a promise to myself that this year I would actually write 30 new poems in April. I pushed on and came up with something. It is nothing s great or grand, but it comes from my soul.

Three Words

by Julia Wagner

Three words simple, plain,
Yet in them lies all the
Hope of mankind.

Three words sweetly tender,
Showing the unconditional
Love of God and our Savior.

Three words of
triumphant glory,
a promise divine.

Three words,
Powerful,
Jubilant,
Heart soaring,
Tear coursing,
Carrying the yearning desire
Of every person ever touched by sorrow.

Joyous refrain
Shout it again
And again
He is Risen!
He is Risen!
He is Risen!

Day 23

The Tetractys Poem – a fun form – full of counted syllables. I did a double. You can learn more about the form & it’s rules HERE.

Cloudburst

by Julia Wagner

drip
drizzle
umbrellas
open beneath
stormy torrents. Scurry, quick, to cover.

Thunder shakes, lightning flicks, wind whips. Clouds roll
past. Sun peaks. Close
umbrellas
drizzle
drip

Day 24

The Diatelle poem – another completely new one to me – and quite the challenge. But I had a bit of fun with it! It’s full of syllable counting and rhyming patterns, so you can read the details HERE.

Comeuppance

by Julia Wagner

Pete
Did spy
Apple pie
Upon the sill
Away from watchful eye.
With careful step and silent thrill,
He pinched sweet temptation with expert skill.
Hastening on tip-toe, he escaped with his treat.
A bleat made him jump, the pie took a spill.
Demise of his prize made him ill
And with agonized cry
Watched the goat fill
Tummy high
With pie.
Beat.

Day 25

Credo Poem – a form taken from a scene in a movie – you can read all about it HERE. Just like the name of the form suggests, it’s about what we believe.

Beauty from Ashes

by Julia Wagner

I believe in the tender mercies of the Lord,
the hope of His promises fulfilled,
the balm He sends to heal our tattered souls,
the peace He gives when all feels lost,
the miracles that ease life’s daily pains,
solace, comfort, love

But I don’t believe we will receive them unless we open our hearts and souls to Him

I believe in healing
I believe in forgiveness
I believe in the Love of our Savior
Forever, always, eternal
And I believe in smiles through tears, hope through heartache and that our trials can be made beautiful and we can find joy again and again.

Day 26

Finally! All caught up! Today’s form is a cute, fun little thing called a synonym poem (or antonym, but I did mine as synonyms) Stephanie outlines the details HERE. By the time I got to these, I had gotten serious and emotional and was ready to have a bit of silly fun, so I had popped out three quick little ditties:

Laughter

by Julia Wagner

LAUGHTER
Mirth, chuckle, giggle, glee
My dad is tickling me!

Burnt

by Julia Wagner

BURNT
Singed, charred, scorched, seared
When you’re cooking, watch that beard!!

Sneeze

by Julia Wagner

SNEEZE
Gasp, wheeze, gesundheit, ACHOOOO!!!
I’m sorry, did it get on you?

*PLEASE REMEMBER ~ any poetry found on this blog, written by me, is my personal property and may not be used without my permission, other than sharing it as an example in a lesson or to read it to someone.

National Month of Poetry Day 18

Today is National Poem-in-your-pocket Day! You can read about it at Stephanie’s blog or go to poets.org.  Just like I have a hard time choosing favorite books, I have a hard time choosing favorite poems, but I did decide to share some of my own.

These first two poems are more serious (not my kid or silly poems, in other words).
The first poem was the first Villanelle I ever wrote – a challenging form and quite fun. I like playing around with the repetition and varying the punctuation to bring different meaning and lessen the constant repetitive feel. I shared it back in 2006, but thought it’d be fun to do so again.

Solar Flare

by Julia Wagner

Fists pound the empty air;
Defeat entwines with chords that bind.
Silent hours of repair

Do not exist where
Exasperation and distress find
Fists. Pound the empty air!

Anger licks a solar flare.
Sparks erupt when spirits declined
Silent hours of repair.

Petulance ebbs to despair,
And upon the weight in one’s mind
Fists pound. The empty air

Falls heavy. Hearts are aware
As souls are chastened and aligned.
Silent hours of repair

Ameliorate through ardent prayer.
Chasms bridged; no more do blind
Fists pound; the empty air
Silent. Hours of repair.

Next is a free-verse – not sure if I used that term correctly, but no specific rhythm or rhyme pattern that I wrote years ago. I’d forgotten about it until I started scouring my poems trying to decide what should go in my pocket today.

Passion

by Julia Wagner

How does one describe
emotions of the heart?
Words, insipid, fail to capture
the ardor with which I love.

Nor can it be painted with
the finest brush in hand.
Colors dull with time,
so opposite my passion.

What resemblance to
nature could I possibly compose?
The most majestic mountain or
delicate rose sallow in comparison.

As time erodes the most formidable citadel,
devotion, secured in the
fortress of my heart,
will crescendo through eternity.

And now, because I especially love kids’/light hearted silly poems, I have to include a couple:

A Wee Little Fella

by Julia Wagner

If I were a wee little fella,
I’d live in a red-capped
mushroom house;
I’d harness the snails and go
for a ride,
tipping my cap to the white-
knight mouse.

I’d drink the dew from blue-
bell cups and dine on daisy plates,
And glide across the ice puddles
on a pair of grapevine skates.

Excuses

by Julia Wagner

I cannot write a poem today
I promised I’d help Fannie Mae
I’m her back up wedding singer
You see she sprained her pinky finger
Then I need to dye my hair
and find pink polk-a-dot underwear.
I need to practice my ninja skills
And pay grandpa Joe’s ballroom bills.
I have an appointment at ten
to decide ownership of a pygmie hen.
I need to pickle some pigs feet
and tame a wild parakeet.
I promised old man farmer Zirkle
I’d investigate his crop circle.
I also need to catch a tree frog
I spotted hopping through a bog.
And so you see, I’m sad to say,
I just can’t write a poem today.

Thanks for reading and poke a poem in your pocket to share today!!

*PLEASE REMEMBER ~ any poetry found on this blog, written by me, is my personal property and may not be used without my permission, other than sharing it as an example in a lesson or to read it to someone.

National Month of Poetry Days 13-17

Wow! What a weekend! Things have been just hopping around here! So, I don’t think I mentioned earlier that my daughter, Dot, has chosen to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has been called to serve in the Mexico Mexico City South Mission – we are so excited for her and preparations have been fun, busy and a little crazy wild at times! (Like an unexpected jaunt up to Detroit… 4+ hours away)

This Saturday she went to the temple and it was absolutely wonderful in every way. Consequently, that filled our day and we had grandparents visiting from Utah which filled subsequent days and I got behind on my poems. So here are the past several days worth of poems (with links to the how to!)

A lot of these are just silly kids’ poems, but they tend to be my favorite kind!

Day 13

we did Triplets– you can read about them HERE This poem was inspired by my daughter, Dot (her middle name is not Rose), who really did get a rock stuck up her nose – but she stuck it there herself (and not with her toes). She was probably about 4 or 5 and we were in the Wendy’s drive through when she started hollering about a rock in her nose. I hopped out and opened the side door, pushed on the empty nostril and told her to blow & out it popped! lol

Woes of the Nose

by Julia Wagner

Jimmy, how do you suppose
Sweet little Dorothy Rose
Got a rock stuck in her nose?

It wasn’t me! I oppose!
I was washing my elbows.
I bet she picked it with her toes.

Day 14

we did Couplets– you can read about them HERE. I did two….

Turtle Troubles

by Julia Wagner

I wonder how my turtle
wound up in Grandma’s girdle?

After the Rain

by Julia Wagner

After Spring’s clouds and showers
Earth dons her robe of flowers.

Day 15

we learned about the Tyburn. You can read about it HERE. This was totally new to me and a really fun challenge!

Speedster

by Julia Wagner

Funky
Spunky
Junky
Clunky
Classy cruiser, funky spunky sped,
Now it sputters, junky, clunky, dead.

Day 16

we did a Windspark poem – a kind of fill in the blank poem. You can read about it HERE. I did this one right after writing the previous poems, so I still had rhyming in my brain, so this silly little ditty popped out:

A Frog’s Life

by Julia Wagner

I dreamed
I was a frog
Nestled in a bog
Hopping from log to log
Gleefully

Day 17

Today!!! We did Haiku– specifically a poiku, which you can read about HERE. I just did traditional haiku because my poetry brain was starting to die

April

by Julia Wagner

Month of weeping clouds
bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots
hope grows with flowers

*PLEASE REMEMBER ~ any poetry found on this blog, written by me, is my personal property and may not be used without my permission, other than sharing it as an example in a lesson or to read it to someone.

30 Days of Poetry day 12

Today’s poem form is a Nonet – a 9-lined poem you can learn about over at Stephanie’s blog – they’re quite fun, you should give it a try!!  Here’s my “experiment” – lol

In the Name of Science

(nonet)
by Julia Wagner

“What happened to my science project?
One more week and it would have glowed!
And where’s my bacteria
culture? I could have cured
the cough and cold.”
Shaking my head,
I sigh. “I
cleaned the
fridge.”

And here’s an older favorite – Though I enjoy writing various types of poems from the silly to the serious, my favorite are silly kid poems.

My Evil Twin

by Julia Wagner

It wasn’t me, it couldn’t have been
It must have been my evil twin
She looks like me, wouldn’t you know
but the things she does fill me with woe!

For I would never drink milk from the jug
with a chug-chug-chug-a-lug
And I would never bounce my ball
and knock down pictures in the hall.

I wouldn’t snitch a cookie from the jar
or hide mom’s keys to the car
I would never pinch my sister
I don’t know where she got that blister.

I wouldn’t feed my veggies to the dog
or water plants with your eggnog.
I would never dye the cat
though blue fur looks cool like that.

My brother’s finger is not a carrot
that bite mark must have been a parrot.
“Where’s the parrot,” you ask me?
Catch my evil twin, you’ll see.

I really couldn’t tell you why
My brother ate that mud pie.
And I don’t think we’ll ever know
what happened to the cookie dough.

I wish I could help, I really do
But I really haven’t got a clue.
It wasn’t me. It couldn’t have been.
It must have been my evil twin.

*PLEASE REMEMBER ~ any poetry found on this blog, written by me, is my personal property and may not be used without my permission, other than sharing it as an example in a lesson or to read it to someone.