April is National Poetry Month

When I retired and began writing for fun and not-to-be profit, my focus was prose. I spent close to ten years writing and promoting my novels "Brute Heart" and "Never Done." I also wrote a few essays and short stories.

During that time I also joined a critique group. Inspired by two members of the group who were poets, I started playing around with poetry. I quickly learned rhyming poetry was passe. Today's readers and editors prefer blank verse or free verse. Unfortunately, most of my early attempts at writing poetry were full of lines that rhymed. Sometimes rhyming words showed up even when I made a conscious effort to avoid them.

For the last year or so I have been submitting my work to online magazines, and surprise, surprise, 5 of my poems have been published. Who'd a thunk it? One of the chosen poems even rhymed.

Since April is National Poetry Month I decided to post a poem I have written. This poem, an example of blank verse, has not been accepted for publication. I have submitted it several times, but thus far, no interest.

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Weed

Noble bloom, pride of queen and pharaoh,         

     centuries of breeding grace your face.

A blueblood now your palette runneth over

     on velvet petals crowning shapely legs.

    

But ancient meadows tell of baser roots,

     of tangled limbs and blossoms pale and small,

a prickly past your breeders cannot stem

     nor halt the thorny legacy you bear.

Aristocrat of weeds, your rowdy cousins                                           

     ambush country fences, blight the harvest.

Outlaws from distinguished family tree

    or spoilers of your pretty pedigree?

You blush at such denouement (tres outré!)

     and pucker lipstick petals for a kiss,        

seducing those naïve to the deception

     with mesmerizing breaths of French perfume.

                                                Ginger Dehlinger