Half Over Hill–An American Sentence

Black truck half over hill traveling unseen path rumbling softly.

***

The American sentence consolidates the three lines of a haiku into one single sentence of seventeen syllables.

My Trip to the United Arab Emirates–Limerick

When I was a much younger man

I had been to a foreign land.

I figured I would not

Understand one jot,

But English had taught every man.

***

This poem was inspired by and in response to David’s poem, “High Hopes or Cautionary Tale,” at Skeptic’s Kaddish. You could see his poem here: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/106476380/posts/3958340542

A limerick is a five-line poem where the first, second, and fifth lines are long and the third and fourth lines are short. There seems to be quite a lot of variation between the examples of limericks that I have seen. But the long lines tend to be eight, nine, or ten syllables in length, and the short lines tend to be five, six, or seven syllables in length. Typically, the three long lines rhyme with each other and the two short lines rhyme with each other. But the rhyme scheme is subject to change on the whim of the poet. Limericks are often humorous poems consisting of a single stanza. However, they don’t have to be funny, and limericks can be linked together in multiple stanzas to form a longer poem. If you want to learn more about limericks or any other poetry term, you can check out the Glossary of Poetic Terms at Poetry Foundation here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms?letter=L

Chasing Ghosts–Landays

Chasing ghosts and Spanish moss under

The yellow sun highway on the road to Savanah.

***

Landays is a form of folk poetry spoken by women in Afghanistan who are predominantly illiterate because girls there are not allowed to attend school. A landays is a couplet with a first line of 9 syllables and a second line of 13 syllables. A landays is supposed to end on the sounds ‘ma’ or ‘na.’ The poems are often about love, homeland, grief, war, or separation. If you want to learn more about landays or any other poetry term, you can check out the Glossary of Poetic Terms at Poetry Foundation here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms?letter=L

Did You Know Greenland

Did you know Greenland

Is the one place where the potheads

All wish they lived?

This Summer Travel

This summer travel

To warm Slovakia,

Tropical paradise.

October Poem 32: The Roadside Layover

The girls came back to the rundown hotel

Room with an apple and a banana

And an eighteen pack of cold Bud Light on

A night that was already soaked in booze.

They said, when you are travelling apples

Are like freshly juiced oranges, floral

Against the sweet acidic reflux of

Prepackaged junk food. That is why they keep

Them in plain sight of the attendant. They

Know someone will steal them. He thought about

Their words as he sat at the foot of the

Bed and ate that banana. And when they

Had changed into their swimsuits, he watched the

Ducks parade to the pool for tonight’s swim.

September Poem 24

My opportunity to travel

To 10 new countries

Changed the culture of Panama.

 

All afforded you should

Opt to go the first weekend

Of good bream fishing.