Monthly Archives: March 2020

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Eleven

Listen, kid,
shut the lid –
the bin
won’t close itself

there’s bears about
and stormy times
and last night’s remains
belong inside

not scattered about
on the morning grass,
like a New Year’s Day
party aftermath

Remember, kid,
to tighten the lid
next time you’re tasked
with closing it

Peace (tighten it up),
Kevin

— PS .. late added word — ‘closing’ – in last stanza … corrects a bit of odd rhythm

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Eleven

it’s easy to misread
the street — at least
it happens to me when
the window’s wide open, this
world’s off-kilter rhyme
of visual sneak

what i thought
was a cat on padded
paws was not a cat
at all but a bag, discarded
white, with flapping
plastic feet

i followed this cat
home, picked it up
and became a poem,
another quiet day recycled
into fingered words
i can’t speak

Peace (looking),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Ten

I cannot keep up
with this river’s flow,
it surely knows more than
I’ll ever know

my feet in pursuit,
I quicken the pace
even losers are winners
in this race we embrace

Somewhere behind us
on a mountain top drop
the ice is in melt
the water can’t stop

‘til it reaches the ocean,
the sea beyond port
but I stopped long ago
to compose this report

No, I cannot keep up –
I’ve grown too slow —
the river knows more than
I’ll ever know

Peace (following it),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Nine

Pause a second
to watch the dogs
in water, the cold
winter currents
not even a bother

only the ball matters

the shake shake shake
of fur in sun, water
droplets dancing, one
by one by one, and then
they’re off into the river

another dog on the run

Peace (spring — release),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Eight

Plant this lost hour
deep into the ground,
like a flower of hope
and bloom

The clockmaker remembers
only days of dark
and light

The poet forgets
the words discovered,
then writes

The father ponders
the moments, the child
now grown, gone

The teacher reaches
forever forward, faith
beyond

We’re in this yawning room,
pining, in mourning,
for the afternoon

Peace (moving forward),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Seven

What comes to mind
when I see the mounds:

that scene in the movie
where the madman
dreamer sculpts mashed
potatoes, an unrelenting vision
of an alien visit

but these mounds are dirt,
tunneled debris, piled ankle-high
like volcanoes without the heat

these underground artists live
below in a place we can’t see,
small creatures working furiously
before spring

Peace (digging it),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Six

like driving
through freeze-frame;
I’m the only thing
in motion on this
short city street — I tally
five men, two women
head-bent over phones,
rooted human lampposts
with a dull shine glow

Peace (looking alert),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Five

“I thought it’d be boring
but it’s not,” he says,
sounding surprised,
and a bit too loud

But maybe, today,
he speaks
for the crowd

working to invent words
that never existed,
using only some rules,
imagination, choice

his public exclamation,
a song inside the
noise

Peace (in schools),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Four

The first face I meet
greets me warmly,
a neighbor as a host of
an Election Day gathering

I’m led to the volunteers
at tables, situated at seats,
rolls of residents on paper,
fingers along city streets

Two sheets — national and
local —and a black marker for
coloring the oval, dark
please, I’m reminded,
shaded beneath

then its a play in reverse,
the machine opens its mouth
to feed on my forms,
and we’re biding goodbyes,
voting complete

Peace (in the booth and beyond),
Kevin

(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site.  Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)

Day Three

Figures prone, as if
exhibits in a museum,
a gathering of stories
and words in hand

with not a breath of voice;
each mind’s alive
with what’s unfolding
inside the bound texts

If you could listen,
the inner working
might reveal cacophony,
a multitude

but here, in the classroom,
through this window,
it’s a comfortable quiet,
a sustained silence

Peace (books have it),
Kevin