Poems for Memorial Day

robin
atop a soldier's gravestone~
mower works nearby
~~
springtime comforts
even as it embitters~
a fallen soldier
[and]
"memory knows
long after knowledge
has forgotten"
(from an editorial May 8, 2004 in the AR Democrat Gazette on the death of Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Wm Kordsmeir)
~~
at the computer
on Memorial Day
finishing my speech
~~
sometimes, a florist
the only connection
with their dead loved ones
(from Jay Grelen article, ADG 5.26.'05)
~~
unknown faces
of the 21 riflers~
first war casualty
(Johnny Michael "Mike" Spann)
[and]
a sea of death
where "all gave some, some gave all":
Arlington
(from a newspaper article, 12.14.'01)
~~
ten cannons
scheduled to take part
in the reenactment
(at Chalk Bluff, AR, 5.3.'03)
~~
c 2011 Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Mid-May's Macrocosm

mockingbird
divebombing feline Greye
he bats her away

checking the acreage
psst, psst, psst from the old tree
must be baby birds
no wonder mother mocker
divebombs the yard cats
~~~

a shaggy-bark tree
near the swampy bottomland
a white-tailed deer
~~~

basking in the clean
smell of this old house
after Mother's Day

her brave smile belies
a fatigue noticeable
in the way she sits
~~~

tornado debris
drifting down
without prejudice
[idea: S. McCrummen]
~~~

Even
as the waters
encroach, the farmers plow
their acreage. Pure doggedness
shows hope.

Gamblers--
since casinos
were closed--could try their luck
at Southland Gaming Park in West
Memphis.
~~~
c May 2011, Pat Laster
dba lovepat press

A TRIBUTE TO Mrs. ETHEREE ARMSTRONG

...who invented the Etheree poetry pattern. She lived in Malvern, Arkansas. Below is a sequence of three etherees, one mirrored. This was written for a contest about any unnamed Arkansas poet. Can you figure out the pattern?


Counting syllables
by Pat Laster

I’d
give up
my first born--
well, maybe not––
if I could create
a poetry pattern
like she did––accepted by
writers, editors, publishers
around the world. I wish I’d known her,
but hearing her son speak will have to do.

The pattern looks so easy––it’s unrhymed,
syllabic, but, the poet warned, it
should have rhythm, meaning and
those images that poets’
senses find. Or it must
carry undertones
of a second
meaning, some
other
tack.

I
wonder
how many
poems in this
form, in this pattern,
subscribe to her second
rule? When blue jays peck suet,
and kittens cavort nearby, how
can anyone in her poetic
mind not get confused counting syllables?
~~
c 2011 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Poems for May

the first spring mowing
stands of white clover and blue
lyre-leaf sage left
~~
on the headstone
of an unknown soldier's grave
a mockingbird
~~
post-tornado:
faint scent of cedar among
the uprooted trees
~~
two goldfinch
at the new thistle feeder
of my former home
~~
quiet Mother's Day
past the deck, the unmown yard
remaining so
~~
beyond the glass door
cottonwood fluff, a red wasp~
still the rivers rise
~~
c 2011, Pat Laster, author
A Journey of Choice