forward...smooCH!

In case you're just joining us, I and several intrepid poets (including you!) are writing 20 new poems this month in the Forward...MarCH Poetry CHallenge.  I've selected 20 verbs ending in -CH (the list is here) and today's word is "smooCH".  I guess I was in the mood for birthday kisses....

This one is a double challenge--it's crossposted over at the Monday Poetry Stretch with  Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect, where the CHarge is to write an ottava rima.

Birthday Ottava Rima

The day approaches like a kiss,

a smooch from the universe.

"Welcome, honeybunch! Follow your bliss!

Look what’s in your purse:

shiny swatch of that and this,

Book of Blessing, chapter and verse,

pebble and penny and pocketwatch

for hours of wishes and hopscotch.“

The day begins each year like a kiss,

a smooch from the universe.

“Forward, honeybunch! Follow your bliss!

There's nothing to do but immerse

yourself in this life.  Nothing's amiss--

or at least it could always be worse."

Bewitched by blessing, I follow a hunch:

I invite the whole world over for lunch.

HM 2015

all rights reserved

Who's smooching who today?   Leave your poem in the comments or send me an email.

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Donna sends us a kiss-shaped diamante today:

Smooch

Soft, tender,

Healing, soothing, loving

Good-morning, all better, good-bye, I love you, good-night

Teasing, chuckling, tickling

Loud, whiskery

Grandpa’s smooch!

-- Donna JT Smith

Next up is Mary Lee, who surprises with this slime-borne kiss (ew cool):

SNAIL

My snail is mostly foot.
His mouth is really small.
So does he scale, or does he smooch
the glass of the fish tank wall?


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

Charles's animal smooch is less slime and more slobber!

RECIPROCATION

When I smooch my pooch

She slobbers me back,

I love being smothered

In her puppy attack.

Hee hee hee--Besame Smoocho!

Besame (No) Smoocho

A kiss is a peck or a
passionate surrender.

A smooch is not a kiss--
a smooch is an event.

Onomatopoeia
as performance art.

--Diane Mayr

And from far-off Utah, Kate Coombs joins the CHallenge!  Here's her "smooCH" poem (haven't we all known a guy like this?).

That One Guy

He’s smooth with his smooch
but not with his lines.
If he’d just keep quiet
he’d do fine.
First the ladies smile
and then they frown.
If he’d play silent film star
he’d win hands down.

—Kate Coombs

Carol is also joining the smoochfest with this one--it's so romantic!


Snowman Smooch

My snowman looked so forlorn.
He needed a mate to weather the storm.
I asked the children down the street
to find a partner for him to meet.
They molded and sculpted a beautiful one.
She came alive in the morning sun.
Then, her heart quickly melted away
as Snowman gave her a smooch that day.

--Carol Varsalona

Joy bring us a tiny mousie smooch:

I have a little mouse.
Kissie is his name.
He eeks and squeaks
and makes smooching sounds
whenever he sees a dame.

And now, in catching-up tour-de-force, Kate uses 7 of the words so far (plus 7 extras) in a poem as big as the 

Universe

The universe preaches, it’s giving us speeches
in words launching morning, like day moon, tree waking,
night going, clouds lighting, sky bluing, dawn breaking.
The universe stretches, it marches along,
sketching in daisies and wind and birdsong.
The universe twitches, it sews and unstitches,
with frog croaks and brushstrokes of reeds it unhitches,
with bug crawls and seedfalls and splashes in ditches.
It reads us the planets and points out the ants,
it watches the branches and fusses with plants.
Sky bleaching, sea reaching, the universe talks—
I listen to each of its beetles and hawks,
its message of bright and high hopes as I walk.

—Kate Coombs 

What a show-off, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Like in a Gerard Manley Hopkins way.  Golly.

I want to thank all of the participants so far for giving me this fabulous birthday gift--the Gift of Poetry!