Poetry Society of Indiana
  • PSI Home
    • Donate
    • About >
      • General Info
      • Officers
  • PSI Membership
    • First Tuesdays Membership Meetings
    • Indiana Local Poetry Groups
  • Blog
  • PSI Contests
    • PSI Annual Poetry Contest >
      • 2022 PSI Annual Poetry Contest
      • Past Annual Contests
    • PSI Young Voices Annual Poetry Contest >
      • 2022 PSI Young Voices Annual Poetry Contest winners
    • Manningham Trust Student Poetry Contest >
      • Past Manningham Student Contest
    • Annual Spring Fling Poetry Contest >
      • 2022 PSI Members Only Annual Spring Fling Poetry Contest
      • Past Spring Fling Contests
  • PSI Events
    • Spring Fling >
      • 2022 PSI Spring Fling
      • 2021 Spring Fling
      • Past Spring Fling Events
    • Fall Rendezvous >
      • 2022 Fall Rendezvous
      • 2021 Fall Rendezvous
      • ANNUAL Fall Rendezvous Registration
      • Past Fall Rendezvous Events
    • PSI Workshops
    • Indiana Bicentennial Poetry Events
  • PSI Newsletter: Indiana Poet
  • April: National Poetry Month
    • 2022 NPM Daily Prompts
    • 2022 NPM Featured PSI Poets
    • 2021 April Daily Prompts
  • PSI Premier Poet
  • Publications
    • PSI Publications
    • Member Publications
    • 2020 Spring Round Robin
  • NFSPS
    • NFSPS National Convention
    • NFSPS Contests
    • Strophe National Newsletter

World Poetry Day - PSI online exhibit

3/22/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
How do poets of PSI celebrate World Poetry Day? Here are a few of the poems we wrote or posted to celebrate the day. All poems are copyrighted by the author. 
Picture
Picture

Words Gone
By David Allen


The words were gone.
The poet sulked at his desk,
staring at the blank computer screen.
His Muse stood beside him,
sobbing while she stroked his neck.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said.
“I want to help you, but the words won’t come.
This is more than a simple writer’s block.
It’s more like the words absconded with the images,
the ideas are idle, blurry concepts just beyond reach.
I have failed you.”

“Don’t say that,” the Poet said,
turning to face his Muse.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” she said.
“There’s too much darkness.
Too many things are piling up.
The words are suffocating under
the heap of today’s failures
and tomorrow’s fears.
I’m just not good for you.”
She turned and ran from the room.

The Poet muttered a few “damns” under his breath.
He wondered awhile whether to follow her.
Should he scrap the play
or go on to Act 2?
After a painfully slow minute,
he shook his head, then rose and left the room.

He climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
She sat cross-legged on the bed,
a pen in her right hand and a notepad on her lap.

“Look, I’m so…” he started.
But she cut him off, looking up,
Sadness and defeat contorted her face.
“So, did you come upstairs
To edit my suicide note?” she asked.

He walked to her side and kissed her cheek.
“No, just checking to make sure
you have no knives or pills up here,” he said.
His Muse’s frown turned into a slight smile.
“I just wish I was better at this,” she said.
“You are,” the Poet said as he left the room.

A few minutes later, he was back at the computer
typing slowly as a poem formed on the screen.
Picture

Keeping In Touch
​by Chuck Kellum

I.
Facebook feeds me
Daily news,
Complete with pictures
And conflicting views;   
    All from sources
    Whom I choose.


Most are friends
But some aren't really,
And most hold back
Though some share freely
    (And often).
II.
I want a bridge
Across the gulf
Of time and place
And other/self;
    Online friends
    Most days can help.

But in the end
It's face to face
And hand in hand
In times of place,
With back and forth
And give and take,
Where memories form
At equal pace,
    To know each other
    Well.


III.
I miss you,  my  dear  friend.

Haiku
​by Mary Couch

Picture
a span between us
safety in chaotic world
sun on horizon


Picture
Picture
Picture

Spring Bloom 2020
Image and Poem by Alys Caviness-Gober

Picture
Each year, at a safe distance,
through my windows,
with discontent and yearning,
I watch the first signs
of Spring.
 
First, a cluster
of little white flowers
with small spreckles
of oranges and yellows
push up through
Winter’s gray-brown
debris-ridden soil
and slowly spread;
then a hard green frond
of what will soon be
the first tall yellow daffodil,
rising strong like a standard-bearer
waving the brightest flag in battle.
Then comes dozens
of tiny bloodred clusters
amidst the first greens
of my roses.
 
All these blooms,
the first beauties of Spring.
 
So brave, they forge the way
for their late-blooming brethren,
and always seem
incredibly vulnerable
to the last of Winter’s icy grasp.
 
This year’s Spring bloom
is novel, like a new story,
it burst forth with
invisible white-gray clusters
sprouted with bloodred blossoms
and even smaller orange and yellow spreckles,
and it spread
wildly
insidiously
moving swiftly
adapting
readapting
deadly
striking down
our most vulnerable brethren,
but soon we know
all are at risk.
 
At first,
some of us scoffed,
faith-based believers ironically not believing
in something they couldn’t see,
even when numbers came in
from China and Italy
and other stricken places,
but then suddenly it was here,
and our numbers grew;
a question haunts our minds,
can this really be happening?
 
We watch from windows
whispering to ourselves
unfamiliar phrases like
social distancing,
sheltering in place,
and handwashing
(handwashing’s not something we usually say out loud)
but now reminding each other,
warning each other,
meme-ing each other,
we’re washing our hands
obsessively,
and practice six feet of
social distancing,
guidelines from
WHO (World Health Organization)
and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control)
~ when have those rolled off our tongues??
and we’re sheltering
hiding
sheltering
in place.
 
This year’s Spring bloom
is global;
one by one
entire countries
shut down
~ shut down for god’s sake
(can this really be happening?)
we’re in isolation;
fear-induced paralysis,
we cannot even whisper things like
quarantine
closed for the foreseeable future
because this year’s crop includes
slowly spreading economic instability
creeps across us,
hard fronds, to hold what will be massive job losses,
rise up as if held by a weakened standard-bearer
waving our tattered flag above a silent battlefield;
as the invasion of our
invisible gray and bloodred Enemy
continues
spreading, always spreading.
 
These blooms are not
the first beauties of Spring.
 
This year's Spring bloom
is an unsettling gray-brown
debris-ridden time,
a time of free-fall
and chaos,
and for most,
there is no precedence for it
within our lifetimes.
 
I’ve always lived
in partial isolation
with my disabilities
and chronic illnesses;
I’m one amongst the vulnerable,
and as this year’s Spring blooms,
I watch
from my window,
for once content
behind the glass.

Why Poetry?
by George Wylie

I write this my friend
to say so much more
with fewer words.

To use an image
to deliver a whole set of thoughts....
which beg your brain to absorb them
with the care I intended
.....and with my love,
G.W. 3-22-20
Picture
2 Comments
Mary A. Couch
3/23/2020 10:26:31 am

each day comes anew
embrace what you can and live
words can still be shared

Reply
David Allen link
3/23/2020 10:36:58 am

A lot of talented poets are part of the Poetry Society of Indiana.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Poetry Society of Indiana

    Archives

    April 2021
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All
    Awards
    Music
    Premiere Poet
    Spring Meet
    Submissions

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.