Poetry Stretch Results - Peace

The challenge this week was to write a poem about peace. Here are the results.

Lessons Fathers Only Learn at Home
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Mommy’s off all afternoon. Saturday
is daddy’s day. Such a noise escapes
the hurricaned house―pent-up power
of penned-up toddler―our neighbors
suspect bears or bands of bandoleros
of shuddering drizzled windows
and putting squirrels off their ease.

Trees blown down, block towers
tumble to brobdingnagian boredom,
and twenty-piece puzzles pull apart
like planetoids around a weak sun.
Drawing won’t do, her crayons too
thin (too old) too fat (too new)
for crinkled construction paper.

I conscript sock puppets into service,
buy ten minutes, before breaking out
Rockin’ Baby Boombox Blaster
for a quick karaoke-dance-party
that fizzles after our fifth encore
of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
(How I wish for Mommy’s car).

After bribing her with ice cream
to sip her juice cup at the table,
I sweep up off the sticky floor
the wreckage from the storm:
chaos of animal cracker crumbs,
rubble from a buttered bagel,
an anarchy of alphabet magnets.

I look over at my burbling girl,
once the white and flattened face
of the moon in a sonogram photo,
the now-calm eye at the center
of this maelstrom’s crushing path,
this aftermath, and I start to laugh
at all my wild and cataclysmic joys.

©2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved


Peace
by Carolyn Arcabascio

If I could hear it
It would be leaves
Thin and green and breezy

If I could taste it
It would be flavored
Round and orange and warm

If I could smell it
It would remind
Of fabrics, stitched with home

If I could touch it
It would rest small
And smoothly in my hand

If I could see it
It would be wide
And shapeless as tomorrow

(c) 2011, Carolyn Arcabascio. All rights reserved.


The First Day
By Kate Coombs of BookAunt

The first day of summer,
before Mom thinks of chores.
My mind an empty blue pool
I might dive into
this afternoon when it gets hot,
but for now I slouch
on the back porch, snap
the top of my grape soda,
banish a curious bee
and turn the page
to read myself deep
into somebody's summer.

--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved


BREATHE PEACE
by Carol Weis

Breathe in
Breathe out.
Just follow
the flow of
breath and repeat.
Breathe in
Breathe out.
Let the mind meander
through rooms filled
with mayhem.
Don't start clearing
just notice and
keep breathing
in and out
until the upheaval
in your
head
slips
away.

© Carol Weis, 2011, all rights reserved

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.