Monthly Archives: April 2019

Imaginings for the Month of April, Part 2

The fire at Notre Dame

Restless and dissatisfied cats

Baseball

Never catching up on reading

Writing a poem

Aging cats and humans

Catsup

Giving permission that is really not permission

The value of silence

Markings

Front and back

Elephant ears

Running out of ideas (or not)—

They’re all there.

Dan Verner

April 30, 2019

Imaginings for the Month of April Part 1

Bronze door handles and

Opening a new book for the first time

Cat “organs” and

Ideas lost and found

Writing a poem

Auto-complete and

Potatoes

Writing a poem (again)

Lies and chocolate

Black holes

Beauty and nature

Scenes from an Easter week

Intimations of mortality

And shoes.

They’re all there.

Dan Verner

April 29, 2019

Day Twenty-Eight

On this, the twenty-eighth day of

National Poetry Month,

I have run out of ideas

For poems

Like a guy who has run out of gas

On a desert highway

Where no one comes by.

So he starts walking

Hoping for a ride

Hoping for an unexpected gas station

Hoping for an idea.

Dan Verner

April 28, 2019

Pachy Dermis

Asian elephants cool themselves

By moving their ears

Which have blood vessels

Near the surface of the skin.

This is fortunate since elephants

Would find it difficult to

Put on a hat or hold a

Fan.

It works out well.

Dan Verner

April 27, 2019

Front and Back

The azaleas along the front of our house

Are in full bloom.

Bright red, they go by the name of

Mother’s Day.

They were there when we moved in

Nearly 31 years ago and have bloomed

Most years.

In the back of our house

Some wild azaleas without a name

(As far as I know) grow in the back

Of our house. They are pink and white

And came from the woods behind my parents’ house.

My mother planted them there and

I think it right that in the front

Of our house

It is Mother’s Day

And in back

I am reminded of so many

Mother’s Days

As well.

Dan Verner

April 26, 2019

Markings

In a room on the third floor

Of a church are small indentations

In the tile floor.

They don’t seem to be natural

And they’re not,

The remnants of who knows

How many cellos

Resting on their pins

While students played

And the teacher taught.

All these are invisible

To those walking by in the hall

As are the hours of practice and

Hard work

All to produce something

Audible and

Beautiful.

Dan Verner

April 25, 2019

Silence

Four-part vocal groups

May make a great deal of

Sound, of course,

With crescendos

In fortississimo passages

With overtone series

And yet

They may also be

Silent

Before an entrance

During instrumental passages

And at the cutoff.

Silence defines sound:

Listen:

Dan Verner

April 24, 2019

Permissions

In the museum where I volunteer

Almost every week,

I am in a reception area

For the museum

And the gift shop

And when one of us

Leaves that area,

We say, “I’m going to

(wherever we’re going)”

And invariably the person

Remaining behind says,

“All right”

As if they needed to give

Permission,

(Which they don’t)

But they do it anyhow.

I’ve noticed this

With other people

And think it polite

And useful

Depending.

And that way we always know

Where we

Are.

DanVerner

April 23, 2019

Food Critic

I’m sorry, but I don’t like catsup

(or ketchup or however anyone wants

To spell it).

I think it’s the consistency or the color—

I don’t know. It seems a poor excuse for

A condiment.

The strange thing is I love tomatoes and tomato sauce.

Same ingredient, but a different quality.

In face, the only thing I like about catsup (ketchup)

Is its name. The term is from Southeast Asia

And means “fish sauce” and it’s the only word

We borrowed to use in English.

Reason enough to like the name

But not enough to like the sauce.

And now you know.

Dan Verner

April 22, 2019

Aging

An Easter Poem

Our cat, a twenty-year-old dilute tortie,

And I climb the stair together.

Well, not quite together—

She is a little ahead of me

In spite of being 96 years old

In human terms.

I am not that old and I am slower.

I expect to become slower

On the stairs until I can’t

Climb them any more.

Aging leads to inability

For both of us

But

It also

Eventually

Leads to renewal

And new life.

Dan Verner

April 21, 2019