pf roundup & forward...march!

Greetings to all and welcome to the last Poetry Friday round-up of February! I'm delighted to be your host as we leap over this year's invisible 29th into March, my birthday month.

Inspired by fellow Piscean Laura Shovan's February Poetry Projects (if you haven't, check out three years' worth here, here and here), I got to thinking about the word "march."  What a great word!  In addition to being the month of the god Mars, you can slow-march to the beat of your own drum or quick-march someone else off to their room.  You can play a march with the band, you can lead a march to demand rights or protest wrongs, and you can observe the march of time or progress.  The origins of this meaning of "march" are quite old, dating to when the Franks and even the Indo-Europeans before them marked off boundaries by foot.

Best of all, "March" is a tasty mouthful.  That -ch ending is explosive, definite; and yet it also has a softness, a long-lasting breathy end that belies its hard beginning.  As I considered this -ch sound, I realized that I have a particular fondness for words that end in -ch--they pop up again and again in my poems--and a project, a challenge, was born!

So here is a collection of -CH words, one muscular verb for eaCH weekday of MarCH.  I'm going to stretCH myself to post five -CH poems weekly throughout March!  A few will be previously published, but most will be brand-new. Please join me in this CHallenge, poetry friends!  If you can't write with me every day, maybe you'll share your one or two per week, or your five-in-a-row, or your favorite poem by another author including the -CH word of the day....I welcome your participation!


MarCH CHallenge: Dates and Words

2 march
3 stretch
4 twitch
5 punch
6 fetch

 9 preach
10 sketch
11 smooch
12 pitch
13 arch

16 inch
17 lurch
18 botch
19 lunch
20 hatch

23 clutch
24 crouch
25 snatch
26 perch
27 quench

I'll repost each word on its day, and you can send me your responses by email or leave them in the comments for that post.  I'll share all the responses for each week on Sunday mornings, and on March 31st I'll announce the "Stretchiest Marcher" (the poet who responded to the most words) and send a poetry prize his or her way!

Oooooooohhhh noooooooooo!  Returning from school I accidentally deleted all the round-ups I'd written after 1pm, from Irene (22) through Tricia (34).  And then, hoping to retrieve them, I accidentally deleted all the roundups I'd written this morning!  Woe is me, woe are us!  Luckily, we have the blue frog working for us and I think your links are all still there.  My apologies, but I'm just going to leave it this way.

Thanks for stopping by--I look forward to reading each and every post thoroughly!

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

sound poem

I've been wanting to celebrate with Laura Shovan this month and not quite getting there, so our 2-hour "cold delay" (???) this morning seemed like a great opportunity to catch up and write in response to a couple of Laura's Sound Poem Project prompts.





Sadly, my internet seems to be freezing in the pipes along with everything else, and I can't follow the sound links Laura has posted (and I have no idea what's going on with the formatting)...but I can listen to my house waking up and to the crazy creatures outside who don't appear to know that we are setting record low temperatures here in the DC area. It's currently 7* with a wind chill of...





Nine Below Zero





below below
the frozen mark
there's whish and sweep
of wind, and hark--





below below
the frozen sky
snow-winged birds
let fly their cry





below below
the frozen branches
blubbered squirrels
announce their antics





below below
the frozen ground
the bursting bulbs
murmur a sound





of sleeping green,
of hushed persistence...
below our listening:
spring's existence





HM 2015
all rights reserved



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Well, that insta-poem turned into less sound and more my desperate hope of winter's end!  Please join Linda--and Laura--over at TeacherDance for today's round-up.

hearts again and why not?

http://stuffpoint.com/love/image/39530/

I have posted this poem before, on a quite special occasion since which my Beloved and I have tied the knot yet again in the state of Maryland.  And those pieces of paper we got officializing our marriage are pretty important for many social and political and financial and legal reasons.



But this string of words--that's all they are, which is the miracle--expresses a connection which must touch the inside, human place in everyone who has loved.  Now let that "hollow muscular organ that is the center of the circulatory system" fill up and become your Heart.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
....................................i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~ e.e. cummings

The heart of Poetry Friday will no doubt overflow with  love this Valentine's Friday at Merely Day by Day with Cathy.

rampant spatulation

Spatulence

When will we ever, ever learn?

Her job is just one thing: to turn

the pancakes so they will not burn.

But when we call her to the task

(golden brown is all we ask)

she does not hop to speedy fast.

We shake the pan; she won’t come near.

She sticks her fingers in her ears,

shows us that she will not hear,

 singing “Spatu-la-la-la-la-la,

             spatu-la-la-la-la-la!”

I will say, I don't know about this one...what do YOU think?  Get lots of helpful opinions at the PF Round-up, hosted today by Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass! 

 

HM 2015

all rights reserved