Haiku :End of school, Memorial and Decoration Days

the last bell rings
but nobody cheers . . . class
concert not finished
~
week before finals
uncharacteristic urge
toward spring cleaning
~
four days of school left
taking his trumpet case
but not his horn
~
the prom knight
and his lady
dressed in chain mail
~
teaching the lad
about Decoration Day
son spies a turtle
~
Memorial Day
her arms full of flags to place
near the headstones
~
butterfly alights
on the open haiku book~
Memorial Day

pat laster - c 2010 lovepat press

Found senryu

Here are some found poems resulting from items in the daily newspapers. I took the ideas and formed them into these haiku-form-but-about-people-things-events shorties. pl

a balky bolt
interfering with repairs
on the Hubble
(May 18, 2009)
~
spreading
over the planted flatland
Black and White rivers
(May 12, 2000 - Oil Trough (AR) area, 1950)
~
"If you don't get home
before the streetlight comes on
you get a spanking." (--Keith Jackson's mother's edict as cited in Wally Hall's column on Mother's Day, 2003)
~
refused the honor
while living; after death
bridge named after him
(Other Days feature: the E. H. Crump bridge (AR)
May 15 2005)
~
close to the wall
carrying their children
through rising waters
(news picture-Philippines, 1997)

Pat Laster c 2010 lovepat press

To honor our foremothers--not only on Mother's Day

The cast iron cook stove radiated heat
that coolish autumn morning, Mama's day
to bake. Remembering the ecstasy
she'd felt when Grandma brought in coal and set
about her work of feeding hungry men
who'd soon be tromping in from cotton fields,
my Mama figured out a system: start
by baking what produced the lightest smell.
She'd tease us: 'Don't look in, but on your way
out, tell me what you think is cooking.' She
would stand before the oven's glass while six
of us tramped through the warm and homey room,
our noses sniffing for a hint, a scent.

Today's aroma--we discussed outside--
seemed delicate. 'What's 'delicate'?
the youngest asked. 'A light, elusive, I-
can-almost-name-it-flavor, slightly sweet,
not strong and chocolaty like brownies are.'

An overalled, towheaded brother took
a guess. 'It's cornbread!' 'No!' an older child
retorted. 'Mama don't use sugar. Guess
again.' 'It's cake!' a third one added. 'It's
my birthday cake, I bet!' She clapped her hands.

I shooed them off to swings and sandbox, smug.
I wouldn't tell, but knew the smell. The child
was right: strawberry birthday cake for her.
~~ Pat Laster, Benton AR USA
c 2009 lovepat press

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

Late March, before dawn...

Haiku
late March, before dawn
songbirds, rooster and I
prepare for the day
~
flick of the curtain
all the birds disperse
except the robins
~
brightening
a corner of the home place
patch of daffodils
~
tiny husks of oak's
new growth anoint my writing,
fall in my coffee
~
Senryu
gun cocked...slithering
toward the back-pasture turkey
only a muffler
~
Mom's clock
doesn't have numbers
it has birds
~
the week-long school break
and spring begin together
the child's fresh head cold
~
caddying
for his 4-year-old
grandson
~
ruptured aorta...
died at 50...friend's comment:
"He had a big heart."
~~
c 2010 lovepat press