(from Pluck Gems from Graves: Haikus, a book in progress).
33.
This evening’s Black sound
Walks like a cat on grass blades
Your nickname two-steps
22.
Get back to your poems
Don’t forget to wear your mask
Main Street is empty
58.
Can’t rock your hoodie
Your cliques of affinity
Might lead to arrest
24.
A virus walk break
Twilight stroll to compost bin
Two rusty leaves rap
77.
Go ’head, bro, dance
There are no mirrors in this joint
You used to love her
29.
Draw her some roses
The before times are ending
Lost my love letters
40.
Pandemic fashion
The maples need to speak up
Detroit Reds all day
34.
To live in this hour
Recall a jukebox love song—
Punk-ass church bells
13.
Perfect ending
A red-tail rolls over the steeple
Dandelion gigs
4.
Pull the dream catcher
A death count on the broadcast
April is chillin’
49.
A bebop wake up
Getting my shit together
Brew some Bustelo
Copyright © 2021 by Willie Perdomo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 9, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
1. There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared!-- Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!" 10. There was an Old Man in a tree, Who was horribly bored by a Bee; When they said, "Does it buzz?" He replied, "Yes, it does! "It's a regular brute of a Bee!" 12. There was a Young Lady whose chin, Resembled the point of a pin: So she had it made sharp, And purchased a harp, And played several tunes with her chin.
This poem is in the public domain.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
From The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1947, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1942, 1951 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1970, 1975 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.