Blogger has gone and upgraded...

... and the layout of the poems is all screwed up, er, looks like prose. Sorry! I've been gone for 3 days and this is what they do. I'm not savvy enough to figure it out, but I sent them a blistering note that I was extremely unhappy. Any suggestions from readers will be appreciated.    PL

Recent Poems- some ideas found in the newspaper

#125-12 my small funeral purse and cloth handkerchief back in their places ~~~(actual) #139-12 "Avalanche" Eighty feet of snow, mud and boulders lie between the rescuers and the hundreds buried. ~~~ #146-12 the pope dons a sombrero for the Mexico parade ~~~ #147-12 "Out of the Corner Of My Eye" Movement: I looked up, saw a large black dog running across my yard. I yelled, and it took off. ~~~ (actual) #148-12 "What a Shock!" Baby Cat--now a mom (surprising us all) cries hungrily at the window. I feed her. ~~~ (actual) #149-12 "The Right Place at the Right Time" Pronounced stillborn and laid in a casket, the child trembled. Her visiting parents noticed. ~~~ #154-12 circumsised as an infant, the inmate sues the hospital ~~~ #155-12 volcano blows-- ash and steam in the air not stopping the birds ~~~ #157-12 "The View" I move containered plants-- pink roses and pansies-- so I can see them from the place I write. ~~~(actual) c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

One poet's explanation of a cinquain

Plucked from inside one of my poetry books (while searching for a poem with April in the title) was a stark white sheet of paper with the top half defining the subject of the cinquain poetry pattern.
Since former Arkansas Poet Laureate Verna Lee Hinegardner loves for anyone to reprint her poems, I take the liberty to transcribe her definition and her poems.

She writes: "If I asked you what a Cinquain is and you said it was a 5 line poem, you would be correct. Or if you said it was a poem with a syllable count of 2,4,6,8,2, you would be correct.
But an Adelaide Crapsy Cinquain is a bit different. An Adelaide Crapsy Cinquain is written in strict Iambic Meter. The beat is "Unstressed - stressed" and this beat demands a strong accent at the end of each line. It can be either light or serious--but generally the last line has a bit of a twist. It must have a title. The title should not be one of the lines, and should be something that does not tell the outcome. Twenty-two syllables plus a title. Leave off all sham, all vanity."

Here is one of Adelaide Crapsy's (sometimes spelled Crapsey) cinquain:

TRIAD

There be
three silent things:
the falling snow ... the hour
before the dawn ... the mouth of one
just dead.
~~

Here are two of Poet Laureate Hinegardner's prize-winning Cinquains:

THE AWAKENING

Useless
as one limp glove,
the widow twists her ring
until she learns she has to stir
the stew.
~~

EMPTY ARMS

Old folks
are vacant barns
with empty lean-to arms
that reach to guard those precious things
long gone.
~~

Blackberry winter, et al.

blackberry winter
raising the window
to hear the rain
~~~(2012)

blackberry winter
owl calling
just before dawn
~~~(1999)

blackberry winter
a whippoorwill
at dawn
~~~(2001)

sixty years ago
whippoorwills called from woods
that are now backyards
~~~(2012)

Though no
whippoorwills call
during summer evenings,
thank goodness, the doves still 'coo' from
the woods.
~~~(2012)

a brown thrasher bathes
we continue visiting
around the table
~~~(2001)

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

... Hello to April--again

"Anniversary"

Six-year
azaleas, lush
with pink florescence,
a memorial to Mom from
her friends.
~~~

tiger swallowtail
stopping by the azaleas,
then the dianthus
~~~

"The Large and Small of It"
A young
boy in flip-flops
walks on rails beside huge
wheels of the last locomotive
built for

Union
Pacific line
in 1944--
this day, used for historical
display.
~~~

a strong burst of wind
sheers off a leg-sized limb
one foot from my car
~~~

"Games"
Two black
cats interrupt
my outside reading with
one chasing the other around
the house,

like we
children did when
playing Ante-Over
(Auntie Over?). I wonder which
cat won.
~~~

Kum Ba Ya
over and over ... singing
his cat to sleep
~~~

the family scattered --
Easter lunch for two
at Taco Bell
~~~

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press
See my prose blog at Pitty Patter (pittypatter-pittypatter.blogspot.com)