It was a slow winter for poetry, but here’s the roundup. If you’re new to this, read the Cheap Poetry Manifesto.
The decorations are put away in pieces and in bitses
but the holiday ain’t over ’til we eat the Christmas citrus.
Despite the ululations
of nine year-old relations
that I know,
It just won’t snow.
Through the office window I hear
A trill so fine and dandy
I know whene’er it greets my ear
The birds are getting randy.
Winter slogs through its dotage,
A king once crowned with lights and song, now watching somber
While the crowds cheer his heir.
The daffodil does not believe in groundhogs
But augurs distant spring with buttery hope.
The goldfinch demurs.
O! Lachrymose the litterbox, whose fair
And pristine clay sits unadorned by pee.
The cat would rather use my favorite chair
And leave it thus unsittable by me.
February drains away in muddy streams:
Is spring around the corner? In your dreams.
Understanding breaks like winter dawn, its light
Diffuse through clouds, broken by trees, visible only
In patches struggling to unite.
Lilac paint peels
in great unfurling petals
from a concrete garden.