After the last three days of posts, I thought that I'd lighten the mood a little. And at the same time, actually fulfill my promise to myself to try to write a poem a day. Two birds with one stone. Or pebble. So to speak.
I had the radio on while on my lunch break today, and found myself listening to the reading of a poem. As the reader began reading, I found myself silently anticipating the rhythm, or the smooth sounds of verse, or ... something that would identify what I was hearing as poetry. But it seems that you don't have to have any of those things to call a piece of writing a poem. Try as I may, I couldn't hear anything that would divest me of the idea that I was listening to prose. Not poetry.
Well, it accomplished one thing. It forced me to write a poem. At least, I think that it's a poem.
Poem
Christopher Bogart
It’s funny
what passes for a poem
these days.
“I saw a pebble
on the sidewalk of life
today … and I thought
of my childhood,
all alone on a sea
of hard cement …”
You’re kidding!
Right?
Maybe if it’s read
in a mellow tone,
thoughtfully,
deliberately …
maybe by Garrison Keillor.
“I saw
A pebble
On the sidewalk
Of life …
Today …”
Nope.
Still doesn't do it.
Perhaps it’s the pebble.
So solitary.
So alone.
“The sea is calm tonight…”
on the pebbles of Dover Beach.
Naw!
More than two pebbles
don’t seem to make it better.
“Let me not, to the marriage of true minds,
Admit impebblements.”
The whole thing just sounds
so very
pretentious,
irrelevant,
like this poem.
Maybe if it were
A Stone … ?
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