How will you spend eternity?

I didn't mean to scare you.  I just wanted to check in, really.  Make sure you know I'm still here.  That I'm not going on another one of my Tony Geary-esque three month hiatuses.  Side jobs got a little busy this week.  Plus, I'm poeming once a day for National Poetry Month.  It really is true what they say, a poem a day keeps other blogs posts away.

Also, I continue to name my future children.  (I'm really gonna have to get on the ball to get all this begatting done.)  My latest adventure in nomenclature has yielded yet another gem.  Are you ready for it?

Annie.

Little orphan Annie.  Annie, get your gun.  Annie freakin' Lennox!  Annie are you OK, so Annie are you OK, are you OK, Annie?!  It's classic.  I think she'll fit right in with little Luke and Adrian.

Picture, if you will, a dad and daughter walking hand in calloused hand through an overgrown meadow.  OK, so it's more of a yard that the dad hasn't mowed in four days, but it looks like it's been three weeks.  That's because the dad put out some Miracle-Gro a couple of times to try and save a fledgling tree, never once considering it would cause the grass to grow like the ever-loving national debt.

Anyway, back to our story.  The daughter pauses to ask one of those age-old questions that kids ask sometimes.

"Daddy, what's that three-foot tall purple thing growing by the house?"

Now that could have been a stumper.  But little does she know he's been waiting for this moment for years.  He looks down into those trusting eyes, pulls out his phone, swipes it from camera to video so that he can Facebook this immediately afterward, and responds with four words he's practiced and perfected.

"That's poke salad, Annie."

Sigh.  Raising my future children is so rewarding.  Will be, I mean.

I thought I'd close today with a short poem from my NaPoWriMo collection, a little cross-pollination if you will.  Also, ideally, this will help explain where the title of my post came from.


Beyond the blue
If I make it somehow
That first day

While everyone else
Is in a scurry to
See the Savior

I'll search out
He who built the ark
To discuss mosquitoes


"Every day 'fore supper time / She'd go down by the truck patch / And pick her a mess of polk salad / And carry it home in a tow sack..."

Roots

Us two

Fighting, at first
For the same ground
To escape the other's shadow
Then maturing
Content in our own petals
Yet forever sharing

An undeniable resemblance

Always side by side
Until someone
Picked you
Took you away
But if e'er you should miss me
Return to your roots
I am always here
Your sibling



April is National Poetry Month.  I am going to attempt to poem each day at my Poetry Wrecks site, home for wayward lyrics and disadvantaged poetry.  If I like any of them, I may cross post here, as I have done with this one.  For this, I was given an image of two flowers and challenged to write a 55-word free verse poem.

April showers bring... something from the Bone-chives

I'm off to Cincinnati, where there is a 70-90% chance of rain all weekend. Hopefully, they'll be able to fit a baseball game in there somewhere. Even if there's a four-hour rain delay, the game doesn't end until midnight and there are only like fifty fans left in the stands, I'll be one of them. And there's a 100% chance of that.

This would have been a perfect opportunity for stop number two on the Blog Reality Tour. Unfortunately, I don't believe I link to any bloggers in Ohio. There used to be one in Kentucky, and maybe a couple in Tennessee, but I guess they've all found other ways to occupy their time.

I shall return on Monday. That is, unless a Reds scout notices my surprising athletic ability and the agility of someone fifteen years younger as I scamper to chase a foul ball, and they decide to hire me on the spot as a full-time ball boy. Or, ball man, whichever. Until then, and in honor of Earth Day, I am recycling a post.

It's poetry month over at Cooper's. (OK, so as I google it now, evidently it's National Poetry Month. Who knew!) So I figured I'd do a poem for one of my three posts this month.

I would never claim to write actual and decent poetry. I'm way too literal, and always end up feeling like somewhere the words have to eventually rhyme. I'm more of a lyrics guy. Lyrics without music, that's me. I think I would have collaborated well with Bobby McFerrin.

Now that I have hopefully lowered your expectations to a sufficient level, here is an attempt at poetry, originally posted in 2007:


Perfume hint caught
Memory sparked
That year I was in love

Eager heart leapt
Lesson relearned
Forever is but a word

Freely falling fast
Feeling remembered
And missed

Past replaces present
Eyes now tightly closed
Smile grazes lips

Midnight phone calls
Sultry afternoons
Slinky black dress

Past recedes to past
I'll always believe
I loved you best

"Ain't no sun. Ain't no blue sky. The wind blows cold now that you've gone away. And tomorrow, just like today, there's a hundred percent chance of rain..."