Poetry Week!

I am inaugurating Poetry Week. Starting right now.
We’ll see how it goes.

Given the heat and humidity as of late, I am feeling a bit more perspirational than inspirational at the end of the work day. So, I will reach into the vault and extract a few of my original poems and present them here.
Ahhhh.... that’s easier than sipping iced-tea!
One downside is that the original indentation does not translate into the blog format. In other words, no matter what, everything becomes left-justified.
Do you have any of your own poems that you would like to see bookpuddled?
Send them to me. Obviously, they must be 100% original works.
If I post them here, I will ask your permission first.
And this next thing is very important: Who is the JUDGE of whether they are "good" or not?
My cat and me.

I will definitely send you a reply if you send your stuff to:
always_reading2000@yahoo.com

I’ll start.
I wrote this poem about 640 years ago.

Good Poetry

Imagine the centuries of eyes
Herrick’s To Anthea, or Jonson’s To Celia
have seen
cast down, scanning right to left,
lower, licking vowels.
Loitering at the left ankle
upon the final thee of each.

Spread open, the poem yields itself
naked
watching as we gaze.

The while, it asks for two things:
that we Hear and Listen.
Perhaps thirdly, for Time –
Let time sharpen our dullness, as
only time can.
For this is poetry’s only promise, that
we will never return
to find it gone.

Oh, to possess the better ones.
Yet, indiscriminate and wanton
these favorites seem unfaithful.
But remember this:
Good poetry never marries.
It retains the right to court.
To romance.

To grant, never spurn, attention.
To lend, never criticize, understanding.
To love, never ask, to be loved.

No wonder good readers fall.
Convinced that they were in some way
worthy of the charms
of good poetry.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2005.