My first sonnet

I Sought You Long, O Love
byPat Laster

Through mocking, taunting games of hide-and-seek
you torture and delay. A challenged sleuth,
I search in crannies vertical, oblique,
for angles, images. Like savage youth,
I rip apart the weedy, matted clumps
of phrases adequate another time.
Your shadow leads me further, over humps
of cliches, scrabbling for a word sublime.
Perhaps my efforts trample fragile seed.
Oh, accents, meter, rhyme, emerge now from
your hiding place. Give up; no more impede
my crazed, frenetic goal to pen a psalm.
The chase was long, through bramble, thicket, thorn;
The prize is won: a sonnet newly born.

c lovepat press, 1994

Another April in the Arkansas Ozarks

In residence at The Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs (begun as a bed and breakfast by author Crescent Dragonwagon) for a two week stay during each of the past four Aprils (once, in mid-March), I have written many pieces of short poetry, as well as continued my effort to finish a long-in-progress novel, A Journey of Choice. Below are some of the poems. pl

After
last week's lively
Lucidity Retreat,
I sequester myself to write
and write.
~
removing
the trappings of public life:
earrings, dickey, bra
~
through the latticework
a pair of robins
from who knows where
~
parking ticket
in this tourist town where I
only sought directions
~
Healthy
dandelions~
their gray puffs the only
plant blooming in the untended
front bed.
~
'clop-de-clop-de-clop'
soon brings into view a white
touring carriage
~
gentle mountain rain
below rumbles of thunder~
a bird calls at dusk
~
packing the car~
as if in blessing
redbud blossoms fall

c lovepat press 2007
Pat Laster, Benton AR USA

Already April

A Triolet

An April love burst into my life
to blend with those already there.
Scraping futility's crust like a knife,
an April love burst into my life,
easing the torment of internal strife,
repainting confidence over despair.
An April love burst into my life;
nurture it, fool, for love is rare.
~
Willow Dancing
(Butterfly pattern)

New willow fronds, chartreuse chenilles,
Like young ballerinas--genteel--
hang motionless
in weightlessness,
Nudged into motion by zephyrs
To dance in slow, even measures.
~
Early Church
(a Lil-Ann pattern invented
by Carrie Quick, MO)

The park becomes my church this Sabbath day;
no cloistered walls to keep the sun at bay.
Three robins practice trills to vocalize,
while gurgling brook accompanies with grace.
The grackles try their best to harmonize
and peckerwoods show skill with figured bass.
No cloistered walls to keep the sun at bay,
the park becomes my church this Sabbath day.
~
c lovepat press 2010