Thousand Poems Project

The rules are pretty simple:

1. write 1000 poems
2. blog at least one a day – whichever, doesn’t matter
3. quality is not a consideration IN THE LEAST!
4. this is strictly about production (like in NaNoWriMo)
5. stay focused!!!!!!!!
6. save EVERYTHING
7. plan a reward/celebration

start writing . . . GO

I began my challenge on 9/11/11 (not a deliberate date, just coincidence). Currently at 625+ (9 April 2013) 921

such a simple goal it seemed: write a thousand
poems. twenty-nine months it took to write
them, and that is the surprise. so much time,
so much life come and gone rivers flooded
droughts come and gone ice storms and ice fog nights
summer with tornadoes and storms of past
resurrected to haunt the now such love
gained and lost lovers won and tossed aside
not for lack of love, never that, but for
incompatibilities love not over-
comes . . . the dog euthanized . . . landslide crumbled
to dust returned the father leagues of life
traversed and each mile unmarked is a poem
failed or captured matters nothing in the end. . . .

David M Pitchford
11 Feb 2014

Requiem for a Year

Some say it was a year of sorrow

Year of woe

Election of a disputed unfavorable

Celebrities formative of three generations  passing

Wars and rumors and no news here

Just like poetry, truth died in that year

That abominable  year

Not even yet gone and still, like a sepsis patient  too heroic

Resilient in its stubbornness to go

Gentle or otherwise

Into that goodnight.

Oh year of hate, and worse, year of hate justified,

Won’t you go now and let us peacemakers

Sweep up the bloodstained confetti

Coo to the future our hopes

And rest somewhat at ease

Before again the cold war becomes real

And we learn again to dream in mushroom terror

Pore over Quatrains  and Nostradamus  and Patmos

As though fables might lead us from purgatory

In the face of secular insanity and this self-flagelating  republic

Let your infamy die with you

Your promises shattered, forgotten, among the broken beer bottles

 

–D–

12/26/16

 

drifting

cliché on the wind
feather of form
summer taking me everywhere
stormy with a chance
flash flood and glad to be high
until flash and clap
fear of falling
life takes us where it will

DM

a few short, some may call them haiku, poems

stars ebullient
crisp cool wee-hour breath steaming
death knell of summer

——————

sometimes we attain
moments of serenity
from the inside — out

—————–

jealously delights
raising doubts, razing bridges
breaking lovers’ hearts

—————–

composed hastily
handfuls of haiku
zen in this moment

—————

abundance prevails
universe expanding
what is poverty?

happy Father’s Day

I’m too damned tired to talk to the dead today you bastard,

Love D

denial of mortality ceases at undeniable news

we screamed against the coming of the night
our howls blending into a chorus of life
righteous beauty rained on and sparkling bright
in the failing light of waning afternoon
and then the gloaming the sunset the song
sung sad of day dead at night’s glorious
hand . . . sudden came the darkness though only
perhaps seeming sudden from the dying light

agog we stared as the distant stars took up
our song to sing night alive. fear assuaged
we took up the halting dance of one seeing
only vaguely and vaguely understanding
until jubilant faith replaced fear and we
came to accept transition as a gift.

david m pitchford
26 feb 2014

Kentucky February Snowfall

deep blue rhythm of arctic winter grasps
in chill fingers southern haven belies
comforts, jails them in frosted winter world
when to end? when to end? for warmth they pray
though to whom none can certain say, they pray
and curse and burn more fuel, wood, gas, coal
smoke and steam escaping impotent to heat
the world and its arctic sky snowing slow.

just weeks from vernal equinox they cry
against cold nights and bitter frost as robins
chatter of seeds and plenty and coming
pleasance under skies of promise — flowers
soon to triumph over latency and frost
filling the vernal world with truth and beauty.

david m pitchford
26 feb 2014

What Their Son Saw

theirs was a marriage of perfect hatred
refusing to leave lest the other cease
to suffer the shared hell they had so long
labored mindless, heedless, ruthless to build
on a bedrock of resentments taken
from the past and shared between them as though
it were some poison edenic fruit fate
had determined they must partake and die
that most painful and enduring of hells:
workaday life in bad relationship
till bitterness welds them into single
symmetry just in time for death to part
leaving one to cold comfort tasting of dirt
and the other empty-smug satisfaction

david m pitchford
26 feb 2014

Not For Temptation

craig got out of rehab about a month ago
was doing so well until a coworker
brought up a horse named wildcatter — the name
somehow made it all real again, the tracks
the horses gate-to-wire and wagers won
once in a while just enough one more gods
grant me luck today . . . and how can normies
live without those highs? without the lows, live?
but, no , craig coaches himself, he has a higher
power now and steps against that seduction.
an hour later and craig is sweating bullets
though still at work, the quitting bell is set
to ring him home and no overtime in sight
somehow, some way, he’ll manage the beast this time.

David M Pitchford
19 Feb 2014