2019 National Poetry Month
Napkin-Pocket Poems
will be added throughout
the month of April
To Celebrate National Poetry Month in April
Sprinkle your pocket
poems all over the land, in library books, in cafes, on buses, in church, at the office, on trains, planes, attached to your email, anywhere you can tuck a poem to be found.
What are pocket poems? Short-short poems that fit on a scrap of paper, a napkin, small enough to fit in a pocket.
Email me your best short pocket poems, and I will share them on our website for the month of April.
National Poetry Month
is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern.
"Girl on the Rocks, "
by Judith A. Lawrence
.
Hungry
I don’t want soup
or slowly cooked goop
I don’t want a stew
of vegetable goo
I want red meat
a rare bloody treat
call me a savage
but pass me the salt
—Eileen Hugo
Tanka
Lost souls found again
Over butterscotch lattes:
Broken memories,
The cracks between shattered lives.
—Igor Goldkind
a bit of canvas
brush in hand
euphoria lift
—Juniper Rue
I am alive
On the edge of a caramel circle
or, perhaps, of an abyss.
Sliding with my right sponge foot,
when going left and…
Sliding with my left shortcrust foot,
when going right.
—Alexander Limarev
My cake and eat it
buttercream
whipped to a frenzy
—Susan Tepper
Untainted flowers
Untainted flowers have come to rest
Where love resides, within my chest
A beating heart where once lacked light
Beautifully grown, this garden in sight.
—Nardine Sanderson
Wanderer
by Caspar David Friedrich
The Artists Garden at Vetheuil by Claude Monet
FEEDING THE NEW DAY
In this dawn, red &
golden-orange, a man stands
on the plaza steps,
scattering seeds to pigeons
gathering at his worn feet
—Lorraine Caputo
INTERSPACE
Through the cracks of this
moonless night, I see fleeting
Perseids flick’ring,
a dozen white birds gliding
across the midnight-blue sky.
—Lorraine Caputo
At the Dinner Table
by Edvard Munch
Unheard, Untold, Unseen
Deaf walls
Silent doors
Screaming hearts
Poison darts
Bursting clouds
Plastic floors
Blind stares
Infrared
—Nerisha Kemraj
ALMOST THERE
My flutter of shadow goes into the forest.
My walking is full of wind—a gait of leaves.
Everywhere is echo, mirror
of what I love and do not have.
My eye is a bloom of water and image.
Its love is slow and green, a floating insect.
A speech of shade, of paint,
of forever, almost there.
—Patricia Nelson
Heart in a basket
plush liner
that ship sailed last week
—Susan Tepper
(sleepless in sacramento)
can't sleep: snow falls, an
endless tapping, my novel
still won't write itself
—Laura Roberts
A Jonquil
A jonquil ceased to be narcissistic
When down in water it beheld
Another face:
Your grace.
—Susie Gharib
The Lady of Shallot
by John William Waterhouse
A Sensuous Cuisine
I'll bake a kiss
With spicy lips,
Ice it with strokes
Of fingertips.
—Susie Gharib
Perseid Meteor Shower - Photographer - Alex
Old Man Feeding The Pigeons by Claiborne Hemphill-Trinklein
(reading, writing, rebellion)
reading for pleasure
is an act of rebellion
when fascists dictate
—Laura Roberts
A Village Street In Winter
by Alfred Sisley
Woman Reading a Book
by John Louis Wellington
Darwin Award
man with a footed fish tattoo
files for workers compensation
claims injury an act of God
—Carl Palmer
Appointment
She arrives fifteen minutes early.
After a long wait in the outer office,
her name is finally called.
In the examining room,
young nurse standing by the scales,
“I need your weight today.”
“One hour and five minutes.”
—Carl Palmer
Snow Poem
This morning the sky lost
many of its soft white teeth.
The school playground collected
them like the tooth fairy.
No currency gifted,
just a smile of snow.
—Loretta Diane Walker
Winter-Playing Children by Pyotr Konchalovsky
white teardrop of moon
drifting clouds carry sorrow
even the blue-black mourns
—Loretta Diane Walker
Night Sleeper
by Andrew Wyeth
Anemones And Daffodils
by Henry Roderick Newman
Painting by Marc Chagall
Sweet dance of my life
be graceful as the gilded wake
of white pelicans.
—Catherine Arra
Local comb honey
wedge of Brie, chilled Prosecco
our afternoon tea.
—Catherine Arra
Birds With Strange Beaks by R B Davis
Brie Cheese and Blackberries
by Robin Lucille Anderson
Love is the spring rain
dousing plants
trembling through branches
—Susan Tepper
Spring Rain New York by John French Sloan
birds swoop in for seeds
flee quickly as skipping stones
red feeder rocking
—Carol Shank
moon
aura
rosy ring
through the middle
beams
—Carol Shank
Sundaisy and Spikeboy
We woke and felt the dark,
Not each other’s bodies,
Not the day, either,
Sin and bafflement,
Fear and a lonely sweat,
Now, we squirm in the sheets,
Admirable, but not healing
—Ben Nardolilli
Backyard Visions
Time and the garden
both pass us by,
the best we can hope for
is to aim and shoot
for a place up on the balcony
there we can rise
above the bushes and grasses,
leaving all of the plants
behind to fight
in a green competition
—Ben Nardolilli
Moonrise Over the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich
Painting by G. M. Henry
4/3/19
To mark off for tomorrow
and not to dwell, until that time,
that is the message
I have for you about the old day
that’s rapidly fading, notice
how it’s moving just like yesterday
—Ben Nardolilli
Man on a Balcony
by Gustave Caillebotte
Moon separates clouds
two souls merge on their journey
in flight with no net
—Leslie Hoffman
He was an old bear
standing in Potlatch River
grasping for salmon
—Leslie Hoffman
Great Blue stands at shore
waiting for aquatic prey
stoic persistence
—Leslie Hoffman
The Reflection by Robert Bissell
Two enmeshed in one body
Riven with moonlight
Tender blows this starry night
—Susan Tepper
Cassandra I pray mercy
The moon shadows you
Blankets of stars will forgive
—Susan Tepper
Starry Night Over the Rhone
by Vincent van Gogh
Cassandra
by Evelyn De Morgan
Senyru for the Fatherless
The Flight of Memory
once there was a man
he claimed to be my father
and then he was gone
—Juniper Rue
Painting by Claudia Tremblay
Welcome Spring
cold pale sunlight
warms black-tentacled branches
greening baby-ear leaves
burgeon thicket and tree
rowdy colors puncture sky
spring tarries in my forest
—Fay L. Loomis
In the Silence
tuffets cling to shaggy pine boughs
siftings glaze soaring oaks
a carpet of sparkling zircons
awaits a snow angel
—Fay L. Loomis
The Q train home
Green lights flash across the page,
I finally smile at the rain drops.
Your reflection 
is a slight glimmer
It’s winter on this train,
yet flowers sit in the corner.
—Margot DeSalvo
A cup of coffee
warm fat pancakes bubbling up
my haiku breakfast.
—Joan McNerney
Poets are music makers
Their words are their songs
Let one sing for you today.
—Miles Tepper
26 Wellington.
I find a mirror of home
along these London Streets.
Austen might appreciate
my sense of realism –
as I sit here with
Dickens and Byron.
I have fallen in love,
with pastries and
the dream of living
in this city.
The tempered sky
shines in approval.
—Margot DeSalvo
The Shortening Winter's Day is Near
by Joseph Farquharson
Le Printemps by Claude Monet
The Concert by Jerad van Honthorst
Dickens's Dream by R W Buss
Vintage Train
Our woods are half dressed
in fragile buds as dandelions
sprout from nowhere.
—Joan McNerney
Bluebonnet fields
Fields of purple blue
spreading to horizon far
my heart longs for you
—Carolyn Donnell
Spreads like ocean waves
bonnie caps of royal blue
Texas comes alive
—Carolyn Donnell
.
Spring by William McTaggart
Poets...
touch
the wind
healing hurts
with a gentle
balm
—Karen O'Leary
Waders
Geese, godwits, gulls and oystercatchers.
A calm tide sneaks landward.
One little egret
wades through the water,
her whiteness pristine,
her head bobbing.
She reaches the shore,
decides to wing it.
—Lola Scollard
Your fingers leave a soft trail
On expanse of my memory
Your taste in every morsel
Your scent in every deep breath
My flesh knows your soul
From another life
—Nalini Priyadarshni
I taste the sweetness of alphonso
on my lips
parched with longing
for ears that hear
unspoken uncertainty
in all my conversations
smooth over warring factions
of my being with their presence
—Nalini Priyadarshni
the grape scent
of mountain laurel...
almost home
(previously published in Stardust Haiku, March 2019)
—Claire Vogel Camargo
rainbow colors
dart like fireflies on my wall
float on sunlit motes
and come to rest in my hand…
a crystal swan
—Claire Vogel Camargo
Painting by Neil Adamson
The Woman with a Parasol
by Claude Monet
The Kiss by Vsevolod Maksymovych
Kiss the Midnight Sky by Christian Schloe
Rainy Day by Alexei Butirskiy
Paris
A raincoat for Paris –
December and raining
you kept forgetting me
tramping narrow back streets
the buildings, grey air
flattening arms and legs
tinted spice:
I bought a scarf to cover
where my neck was drowning
—Susan Tepper
The 30s
I’m in love
With the night,
And I’m dancing
In the dark;
I can see why
People love
The 30s.
—Christie Forde
A Place in the Mind
A place in the mind
Where there is art;
A place in the mind
That smiles.
There you shall find me
At peace with myself,
Happily lost
In my latest line.
—Christie Forde
Mountain Laurel by Charles Ethan Porter
Visible Light by Alexander Harding
Trash
It was late I was taking
Out the trash—
Not that there was any
Garbage pick up the next day
Just trash I needed to dump
At the curb of my heart
To smell sweet again; *
—Laine Coté
whistling north-west wind
primroses close their shutters
lullaby time
—Michael Joyce
puddle after rain
my reflection painted
in reverie
—Michael Joyce
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire - Dancing in the Dark
Artist Unknown
Lovebirds by Cheri Hebert
Spring
Wool sweaters are a memory
Now that the grass is green.
Springtime is here.
—Mary Bone
Stardust
The moon drinks stardust at night
With help from
The big dipper.
—Mary Bone
The Primrose Gatherers by William Stephen Coleman
Photographer Unknown
The roses carry
those same thorns
our deliverance
—Susan Tepper
False Dawn Haiku
Bright, high, morning moon
shines through pale green maple lace:
past loves, remembered
—Frank V. Boyer
Jesus Crown of Thorns
Stardust by Ottavio Fabbri
Boreas Painting by John William Waterhouse
Evening Hush
The Snowy Egret soars
up to its bedroom loft.
The last flap of its wings
stirs the scent of almond blossom,
sways the breath of leaves.
—Cheryl A. Van Beek
Good Morning Sunshine by Darren White
Haiku
Free-falling in drifts
star jasmine’s fragrant flurry
snowflakes April day.
—Cheryl A. Van Beek
Thank you to all
who contributed.
See you next April.
Meanwhile you can enjoy these pocket/napkin poems
all year long.
Pool
I have a small pool out there.
Not dark like night, but
full of pale milky light
and shimmering smoothly,
rippleless.
It's not deep either,
hardly more than a footfall.
Just deep enough
to hide my dreams
without them drowning.
—Lynn White
Haiku
Alligator drapes
on pond bank like discarded
cummerbund drying.
—Cheryl A. Van Beek
Snowflakes by Henry Hutt
Photograph by Brian Tada
Painting by William B Montgomery
what lies beyond the fruited
branch too slim to hold
the wounds and other weather
—Susan Tepper
Moonlight by Anthony Casay
Lady Under a Tree by Laurie Parker
