American Pops

In the Preface to Reflections in a Boomer’s Eye, http://amzn.com/0996768424 , I explained why I started to write poetry.

“When I was thirty I became interested in writing. However, at that time, I was focused on mysteries and thrillers (you know, Dan Fortune, Lew Archer, and James Bond). Poetry was not something I considered writing until I turned sixty and started to contemplate my existence. At that time my attention span became very abbreviated due to a short circuit in my head so poems, essays, and sundry musings were things I could finish before a squirrel ran by or I was distracted by a bright shiny object. I also thought it was about time that I learned to express what I was feeling, what I was seeing, or what I was remembering in words.”

After publishing Reflections I have continued writing but my passion has turned to writing very short, Haiku-like, poems. A friend recently asked me if I was still writing and I said yes but my attention span must have really shrunk because now I just write three line poems. She laughed and said that actually it meant that I was allowing myself to live in the moment and letting those thoughts be expressed. Since I do believe in experiencing moments (see http://doggeddoggerel.blogspot.com/2013/03/moments.html) I decided that she is probably right.

One of the quotes that I keep on my computer monitor is by Robert Frost: “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” So, maybe I am actually doing that in short bursts. There are no rules on how many words it takes to express your emotions.

Jack Kerouac said: "The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don't think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again...bursting to pop. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella." 

His Haikus are often referred to as American Pops. 

While on Jack Kerouac, I just came across a video of him reading original Haiku to the accompaniment of a Al Cohn / Zoot Sims on jazz saxophone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-if3tkmZvM  This is definitely worth a listen.

Here are a few of my American Pops:

Indiscretions of youth

Create memories

And arthritis

It was there

Then it was gone

Or, am I?

The elevator opens

No one is there

Good

A hug

An extra squeeze

A stealthy message?

Her eyes

Leak a question

Silence answers

Before I met you

I never listened to

Raindrops on the roof

Light of the gibbous moon

Through the loft’s skylight

Illuminates a spiders masterpiece

Peonies

Wind tossed and rain battered

Brighten my path

A shortcut

Across the field

Wet shoes

Rooftop TV antennas

Vestiges

Of another era

Rural blacktop

Slow tractors

A peck of apples

Searching a cemetery

For an ancestor

Seeing life

Today

The dragons won

But only round one

Grandma’s blue hydrangea

Rusty nails

She said