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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Erato's Olio: Poems for NaPoWriMo 2022 - 4. April 25 - 31

Once again, let me extend my thanks to @AC Benus for his patient help and suggestions in improving what I write, and to @Mikiesboy for encouraging me to write poetry once more. This is the last installment for this year. Alert readers will note that I have added a day to April again this year. I just couldn't resist including one more. All errors, including this calendrical one, are entirely mine.

April 25

Chopin played

croquet on my back lawn,

his movements elegant and fluid

even as he sent Britten’s ball into the puckerbrush

where Menotti and I searched for it;

and from his hammock perch,

Schubert watched.

 

Tchaikovsky

sat down beside my chair,

a glass of cold ice tea in his hand,

shaking his head at the latest scandalous news

while Copeland and Barber laughed away,

not quite grasping Cage’s

silences.

 

 

April 26

Skittish

adolescents

disabrenunciate

heteronormativity

before

learning

metaratiocination’s

superadvenient

fundamental

insights.

 

 

April 27

They arose

and flew low overhead,

yelling at each other I suppose,

such imprecations as to fill the watershed

waking all creation from its doze

from crane to copperhead,

heaven knows.

 

They stretched out

with necks eastward facing,

over green meadow and speckled trout

toward the sunrise on the ridge, its hues embracing

searching for a nest site roundabout,

there the eggs emplacing

without doubt.

 

They stand guard,

heads tall and eyes awake,

ready to face some pirate, ill-starred,

keen raptor, sly possum, or long, slithering snake,

kept at some length by baleful regard,

eggs ne’er to forsake,

the way barred.

 

 

April 28

Oh, my poor soul, did you not stop to think

that to my mortal body you were tied,

or that it forms the warm incarnate link

with all that is in living sanctified?

My soul, I wonder that you failed to see

how love is where the veil of heaven thins,

so through its fabric, grace and clemency

are measured boundless there against my sins.

Now twilight changes swiftly into night,

yet you may comprehend while there is time

that heaven is not waiting out of sight

but immanent in brotherhood sublime.

So every smile and kindness you bestow

builds paradise wherever you may go.

 

 

April 29

When it snows,

I listen to woodsmoke

singing of blazing fires and warm hearths,

its Johnny Mathis voice mellow and inviting,

yet I cannot leave the brilliant stars

whose music is mystery

unending.

 

When it thaws,

I hear restless water

pecking at the ice like unborn chicks

which have listened to their feathered parents crooning

and now insist upon their freedom

to experience life

for themselves.

 

When it greens

birdsong teaches my ears

melodies they lost while distracted,

like reading glasses left behind in a hurry

while concentrating on shopping lists,

but found once again by

good fortune.

 

 

 

 

April 30

This day I pray for justice and for peace

and those who must a sovereign be;

may they have courage, wisdom, grace and wit

that laws are practiced equally.

I pray compassion’s overflowing springs

might freely flow from every heart,

so love that centers every glowing soul

can feel as if it has a part.

 

And where the sun is risen do I hope

for healing in a fractured time,

each tear be mended, all our breaks rejoined,

for everyone and every clime.

One final plea I ask of all who mind:

forgive - to pardon’s gift consent,

that bitter animosity and hate

might in our weary age relent.

 

 

April 31

A British Thermal Unit ties

a pound of water’s torrid rise

by just one Fahrenheit’s degree

to kinds of fuel one may devise.

 

It’s similar in pedigree

to SI units’ Calorie

by which one mark in centigrade

a gram of water’s warmth we see.

 

This measurement is oddly made

to rate air handler’s power to fade

discomfort ‘neath the blazing sun,

transforming home to dappled glade.

 

Ironically, our chill is done

transferring heat to anyone

outside our rooms, beneath the skies

while inside our compressors run.

ul>
  • disabrenunciate – v. to recant repudiation or change a previous condemnation of;
  • metaratiocination – n. exacting, logical thought process concerning the self;
  • superadvenient – adj. additional to, in assistance of
  • If you have taken the time to read these offerings, then let me thank you most deeply for taking the time to do so. If you have labored through all four chapters, then my thanks are more than quadrupled. Of course, if you any of these moved you, I would be delighted to know how they made you feel.
    Copyright © 2022 Parker Owens; All Rights Reserved.
    • Love 12
    Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
    Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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    Chapter Comments

    1 hour ago, chris191070 said:

    Awesome poems. Thanks for writing x

    You’re most welcome! Thanks again for reading. 

    • Love 2
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    1 hour ago, Carlos Hazday said:

    The playfulness in the Apr 25 poem made me smile!

    I only wish I could host such a house party! Thanks for reading and your comments. 

    • Love 3
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    7 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

    I only wish I could host such a house party! Thanks for reading and your comments. 

    Thanks to your poem inspiring me, Ashkenazi playing Chopin's Polonaises is currently filling the air in my place.

    Edited by Carlos Hazday
    • Love 3
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    • Site Administrator

    Another wonderful week of poems.  I can hear the music and see nature unfold.  Congratulations on finishing the month!  Until next year... :hug: 

    • Love 3
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    2 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

    Another wonderful week of poems.  I can hear the music and see nature unfold.  Congratulations on finishing the month!  Until next year... :hug: 

    Thank you for spending a little while on this final week. I’m very glad you could hear and see some of what I did. Hugs back! 

    • Love 2
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    2 hours ago, Carlos Hazday said:

    Thanks to your poem inspiring me, Ashkenazi playing Chopin's Polonaises is currently filling the air in my place.

    :) That’s grand. Perhaps Gus could come visit too. 

    • Love 2
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    5 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

    :) That’s grand. Perhaps Gus could come visit too. 

    LMAO - You and I will chat sometime soon. How much do you know about American musical theater and Broadway productions? LOL

    • Love 2
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    :2thumbs:

    April 27 and April 30, for different reasons, struck a chord, but April 25 held great charm. Cheers!

    • Love 2
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    You made it very difficult for me to choose a favorite. April 25 is wonderful, just picturing this makes me smile.  April 26, lets me learn a lot of new words, and after I did, I nod. Now I know!  April 29 is my favorite. April 31...though, oh well I read them a few times more and then I will know...perhaps.

    Thank you for writing this wonderful collection, lots to think, to smile and sometimes even frown. 

    • Love 2
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    47 minutes ago, Headstall said:

    :2thumbs:

    April 27 and April 30, for different reasons, struck a chord, but April 25 held great charm. Cheers!

    Perhaps you recognized those geese now returned and nesting; April 30th prompt for a prayer was certainly an apt one in our times. I’m glad you liked the composers’ house party. It was fun to imagine. Thank you very much for reading these and responding to them!

    • Love 1
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    3 minutes ago, Aditus said:

    You made it very difficult for me to choose a favorite. April 25 is wonderful, just picturing this makes me smile.  April 26, lets me learn a lot of new words, and after I did, I nod. Now I know!  April 29 is my favorite. April 31...though, oh well I read them a few times more and then I will know...perhaps.

    Thank you for writing this wonderful collection, lots to think, to smile and sometimes even frown. 

    I am very grateful you read these and responded to them. I’m glad the idea of a summer afternoon with the composers tickled you too. I still haven’t  found that croquet ball. April 26 was a tough challenge: to write a syllable count poem with each line being exactly one word. April 29 is one which grew on me after writing the first few lines. I’m happy it found a place in you, too. Many thanks again! 

    • Love 2
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    1 hour ago, Carlos Hazday said:

    LMAO - You and I will chat sometime soon. How much do you know about American musical theater and Broadway productions? LOL

    That’s an area I’m in greater need of knowledge. 

    • Love 1
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    Wonderful month of poetry.  However, your calendar needs its annual adjustment.  :) 

    • Love 2
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    3 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

    Wonderful month of poetry.  However, your calendar needs its annual adjustment.  :) 

    Thank you, tim! I’m glad you read these.  I just never seem able to resist adding the extra day. 

    • Love 2
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