[Max Goodman]

My contribution to the new LUPO, a triolet about triolets. Midway down the page. (Check out the poems by others on the page, too.)

https://lightenup-online.co.uk/index...-eleven-eights

[Christine P'legion]

And here's mine: an attempt to trap the muse.

https://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/i...oets-complaint

[Jim Moonan]

.
This, scribble-squeezed out very very very quickly like a hot potato just out of the oven a few ephemeral moments ago:


Sea of Impossibility

As you can see
it’s nearly impossible
to turn thoughts
into good poetry.
It is close to being magical
working only with crude tools
and dense thoughts and words
like firewater to forge a diamond
made from clay—
as you can see.



.

[RCL]

Tuberville taken and now up at New Verse News

https://newversenews.com/



Verse of the Valiant

Hurrah for poetry
that soldiers say
to calm their day--

That “momentary stay
against confusion”*
for which they pray

as they protect the nation.

*As Robert Frost defined a poem

[RCL]

Seers and Sayers

Finding cosmos
in the chaos,

seeing, hearing
beauty’s being,

a poet gives
the gift of saying.

[Roger Slater]

Forgive me, Lord, for I have written free verse:

THE MONKEY FILES

Every poem has already been written,
waiting to be discovered,
including this one. A monkey made them,

and most of what the monkey made
made little sense, but somehow
the monkey banged out this little gem,

which may not be great human poetry
but is still pretty impressive for a monkey
who was typing with one hand

and shoving a banana into his mouth
with the other. And since what he was typing
was entirely random, it's miraculous

these words are spelled correctly
and contribute to sentences that happen
to correspond with thoughts of the random human

who rescued them from the monkey slush pile
and gave them a life, however meager,
the monkey could not dream of.

[Carl Copeland]

Penance may be required, but it was worth it. This develops the old typing-monkey tale just enough to make it interesting. I suspect that monkey has a hand in all our writing, giving it a life that the finders may not dream of.

[Roger Slater]

Thanks, Carl. Here's another hot off the press:

THE WISH

I wish I had not written this,
... and though it's not too late
to cross it out, to start again,
... I think I'd rather wait
and see if something comes of it
... if I just stay the course,
gently guiding words along
... without excessive force.
(Okay, I've seen what came of it.
... Admittedly, not great.
I wish I had not written this,
... but now it is too late.)

[RCL]

RIPages

Poems written but not read
Are like people who are dead.

[RCL]

Makers

Making songs of birth and death,
of laughs and tears, our myriad makers
made stays against distress.

Crafters’ arts of speech and scripts
that harmonize the then and now
wove sacred with profane.

As troubadours remaking rites,
they made enchanting courtly lyrics,
made sex our making love.


“Maker” is the Greek word for “Poet.”