"MY LOVE FOR YOU IS SO EMBARRASSINGLY" a love poem by Todd Boss

"Winter Love" by Linda Gregg

I will employ my loftiest language and poetic knowledge to tell you I think this little poem is great. It irritates me like a mosquito in my ear me but like the mosquito, I can't stop thinking about it. I feel like it ends before it should (so much more I want to know!) but am certain one word longer would be too long and would kill the poem. This poem is a good reminder that what poet leaves out is often as important as what they leave in.

Even if you disagree with me (or just don't care), I want you to at least think for a moment about what more information would do to the effect of the poem. Think about some questions you may have- Who is gone? What happened? How long has it been? If she told you, would you care?
Now I ask you- Does the longing for more information we experience as a reader make us more in tune with the speaker of the poem or does it distance us? Maybe both. I advise you take a hot (or warm) cup of tea and mull it over awhile. Enjoy!

Winter Love
by Linda Gregg

I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176562

"Snow-Flakes" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's been awhile since we've hung out with a classic poet so let's change that. While it's not snowing today, this lovely poem by our old friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow felt in order for a December day. Enjoy!

Snow-Flakes
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the air

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

     Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

     Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

     In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air

     Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

     Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.

Found at: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Longfellow/snow-flakes.htm

"Old Bones" by Gary Snyder

While this isn't a seasonal poem, I just enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share. The picture below is of a scree slope (the setting of the poem). While perhaps not exactly the scene Gary Snyder had in mind, the image is useful if scree (accumulation of broken rock fragments)  is new to you.

Old Bones
by Gary Snyder

Out there walking round, looking out for food,

a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack

plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,

         barely getting by,

 

no food out there on dusty slopes of scree—

carry some—look for some,

go for a hungry dream.

Deer bone, Dall sheep,

         bones hunger home.

 

Out there somewhere

a shrine for the old ones,

the dust of the old bones,

         old songs and tales.

 

What we ate—who ate what—

         how we all prevailed.

Poem found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/243088
Image found at: http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Hiking/2009/090803-KinneyLakesLoop.htm

Limerick #1

Something fun for your Tuesday. Enjoy!

"Or Death and December" by George Garrett

Today's poem post is for all those pet parents who perhaps don't absolutely love taking their dog out at ridiculous hours of the morning (especially in the winter). However, let me say know that I don't know who these people are or if they even exist. See, I know you think, "Wow, I'm so lucky!" every time you have the privilege to pull on your boots and put on that overstuffed burnt orange coat from 1986 saved especially for these early morning outings because nothing made past 1990 seems to keep you as warm or looks so cool. Not to mention that you're still rockin' your pj pants and dark circles under your eyes. The fact that it's December and freezing out just makes it ten times better...

Or Death and December
by George Garrett

The Roman Catholic bells of Princeton, New Jersey,
wake me from rousing dreams into a resounding hangover.
Sweet Jesus, my life is hateful to me.
Seven a.m. and time to walk my dog on a leash.

Ice on the sidewalk and in the gutters,
and the wind comes down our one-way street
like a deuce-and-a-half, a six-by, a semi,
huge with a cold load of growls.

There's not only leaf left to bear witness,
with twitch and scuttle, rattle and rasp,
against the blatant roaring of the wrongway wind.
Only my nose running and my face frozen

into a kind of grin which has nothing to do
with the ice and the wind or death and December,
but joy pure and simple when my black and tan puppy,
for the first time every, lifts his hind leg to pee.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238922

3-year-old recites poem, "Litany" by Billy Collins

This is just too cute. Enjoy!