Thursday, June 29, 2017

An Edgar A. Guest poem for the holiday


THE BOY AND THE FLAG
Edgar A Guest

I want my boy to love his home,
His Mother, yes, and me:
I want him, wheresoe'er he'll roam,
With us in thought to be.
I want him to love what is fine,
Nor let his standards drag,
But, Oh! I want that boy of mine
To love his country's flag!

I want him when he older grows
To love all things of earth;
And Oh! I want him, when he knows,
To choose the things of worth.
I want him to the heights to climb
Nor let ambition lag;
But, Oh! I want him all the time
To love his country's flag.

I want my boy to know the best,
I want him to be great;
I want him in Life's distant West,
Prepared for any fate.
I want him to be simple, too,
Though clever, ne'er to brag,
But, Oh! I want him, through and through,
To love his country's flag.

I want my boy to be a man,
And yet, in distant years,
I pray that he'll have eyes that can
Not quite keep back the tears
When, coming from some foreign shore
And alien scenes that gag,
Borne on its native breeze, once more
He sees his country's flag.

From Collected verse of EDGAR A. GUEST, published 1934 by Contemporary Books, Inc.




Thursday, June 22, 2017

Just in the past few days. . . poems/ photos

First day
of summer, yet
the pansies, though leggy,
still show off their multicolored
faces.
~ ~ ~


Purple
jew coexists
with coreopsis, cone
flower, dianthus, oxalis,
stone crop.
~ ~ ~ ~

Close up
of bronzy 'mums
blooming for the second
year in Mom's ancient concrete porch
planter.
~ ~ ~



c 2017 PL

Monday, June 12, 2017

Sights, sounds, smells - POEMS

Yellow
blooms of lance-leaved
coreopsis litter
the lawn. Son says "Leave them." Brother:
"They're weeds!"
~ ~ ~

Fragrance
of gardenias
another perk of porch-
sitting early in the morning's
coolness.
~ ~ ~

MOM! DAD! HELP!
Its first
trip to the bird-
bath? "Now that I'm here, what
do I do?" It wades in and sips,
then stands.
~ ~ ~

Orange
canna blossom
stands as an overlord
above the mandevilla's two
pink blooms.
~ ~ ~

Bluejay
squawks, "No suet
in this feeder, lady!
and I could use some sustenance."
"Soon, sir."
~ ~ ~

First time
in a long time
I see althea blooms.
Demise of hackberry-tree shade
the cause?
~ ~ ~

Barely
audible this
early, nearly-summer
morning, a freight train trundles toward
Texas.
~ ~ ~
c 2017, PL - dba lovepat press

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Memories of a writers retreat experience


 Karen, Carolyn, Deanna at a book signing by Ruth Hawkins

At the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum
--a senryu sequence

Hasten, hasten all
writers –you who’re interested
in ‘one true sentence.’

Come to the old barn
where E. H. once wrote
parts of A Farewell . . .
Surrounded by ghosts,
his typewriter, leopard skin
rugs, whispers of lust
we focus efforts
to learn to write like Papa,
stark words, whittled to
the pith, gist and gut.
Imaginations flit, soar,
breaking boundaries
found in home, office,
school. Like doves released, we fly,
fill page upon page,
exult in fatigue:
a story begun, finished.
To Papa! Hear, hear!

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[10:24 pm, 1.21.14, Tuesday]


[Pat Laster
To the state critic, 1.16.14
Revised ala critic, 1.21.14]