Poetry?

I began a four-week Zoom class on poetry a couple of weeks ago. Each week, our excellent teacher reads a couple of poems aloud, and we discuss them in class. Then, she assigns a topic and some simple ideas for composing our own original poems.

I nearly broke into unexpected tears, realizing I was not new to the world of poetry after all. In fact, I swam in poems for 26 years, carefully selecting songs for every chorus I directed. My mentors had impressed upon me, to begin with the text and then notice how it was set musically. Did the composer respect the rhythm of the spoken word in the musical setting?

I am consumed by the new ideas presented in each session. I notice sensory details in my everyday surroundings and try to be open to metaphors in every situation.

Below are my first two poems.

Assignment 1: The Magical and Surreal

I wrote this poem while in New Orleans with my daughter, Lisa. Magic and surrealism are the way of life in this lower-than-sea-level town of jazz, ghost stories, legends, giant oak trees, rivers, lakes, ponds, and bayous.

Swamp Song

Crescent Moon rises over Bayou St. John

This sultry summer evening on Moss Street.

Croaking frogs wonder as they witness an impossible magenta glow,

How can light emanate (seemingly)

From below those shimmering leaves on the Magnolia Tree?

The setting sun laughs as she casts her magic spell,

Beguiling those jibber-jabbering frogs,

Where they perch on a green lily pad,

Honking a polyrhythmic swamp song to the indigo sky.

Assignment 2: Writing Our Joy

Secret Joy 

Each night that summer

After the town quieted

And a misty fog rolled in slow and thick from the sea

We sipped red wine

On the patio at Third Corner Bistro.

Our grinning eyes met

Across a square candle-lit table for two,

Knowing we’d soon share our secret joy.

Waiting in pleasant anticipation,

Listening

Alert.

Any moment, we’d hear that familiar

Long low whistle

And the whoosh – whoosh - whoosh of steam

Emitted like a cloudy blast,

Like a yawning harmless beast.

Clicks and clacks,

Rattles and taps.

No steady beat

Or metric pattern,

Just haphazard, darting train tunes, 

Sailing our way 

From across the alley,

From behind those parked cars and a chain link fence.

That dependable train,

Always, it stopped

On the dark late-night tracks behind 3rd Corner,

It, too, waiting for a signal to proceed:

"Tracks clear ahead, Safe to continue onward, northbound."

Did it look for us across the tracks?

A faithful audience of two?

Like a horse impatient to gallop,

lifts and scrapes its hoof

Then whinnies loudly to the world,

“Let’s go!”

That long freight train,

Car - after car - after car,

Blows off steam, coughs and moans,

Then, laughs in greeting, as the horse might,

Upon noticing us two,

Wrapped safe in the warm summer night’s air,

A pungent blended scent of night blooms and auto oil,

Hints of Malbec swimming with sweet soup aromatics,

Like a silky shawl draped loosely over both of our shoulders

Our knees find each other,

beneath the soft draped tablecloth

It does not disappoint, 

That train.

It sings its promised sweet sonic song,

A deep, rumbling rap.

A thud.

Knocking, tapping,

Softly clapping bell sounds

Meant for

Just

Us two.