April 18, 2019 is Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. On this day, people are encouraged to carry a poem in their pockets and share it with others. This day is primarily used by teachers and their students.
The Society of Classical Poets has a number of delightful resources for Poem in Your Pocket Day. Last year, we offered a variety of rhyming poems by poets past and present that you can access here. We also have poems that are shorter and perhaps more fun, which have been collected in our Couplet Contest and our Shortest Poem Contest (you can access more by scrolling down and viewing the comments section here). Our Funny Food Poetry Contest winners (more in comments here) may also be a resource.
We invite you to put your own Poem in Your Pocket Day poems in the comments section below. This could be poems that you have written yourself or classical poems. However, we ask that they meet a few requirements:
- They should contain rhyme (ideally meter too).
- They should be short: 2-14 lines only, please.
- Keep in mind that young students will be reading them to each other.
Sample:
My Voice
Smarter than a smart phone
(It cannot lose its charge),
Hear my voice’s ringtone—
Your mind it may enlarge.
Post yours below in the comments!
A bird’s flight? It is
Your Mind…the image-nation
is democratic!
MOTHER
(Petrarchan sonnet)
When tired I returned home, without a thought,
I rested Ma, in your decrepit lap
and slowly went into a pleasant nap!
I realize now, with love, how much you’re wrought!
At eighty five, you walked a mile with taut
muscles; your head in flimsy sari wrap;
brought wool and knitt’d a lovely cap
for me. A mother’s strength, a Gordian knot!
Late your demise I listen now, to grim
inner murmurs of guilt O’ Ma! I know,
I didn’t hold tight, your hands during your slim
years of age and bring a joyous glim
in you. A son’s avowals are billows low
O’ Ma…but mother’s love, a deep, sans brim!
I hired my own assassins
… cigarette and wine!
I liked this a lot
Thank you Rohini ji. Namashkaar.
Moonlight
Moonlight glimmers on the ocean,
Dancing with the water’s motion.
Ancient waves roll up on the shore,
Before we came, forever more.
David Paul Behrens
The Bat
By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.
— Theodore Roethke
Tell Tale
Tell tale, tit!
Your tongue shall be slit,
And all the dogs in the town
Shall have a little bit.
Multiplication
Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad;
The Rule of Three doth puzzle me,
And Practice drives me mad.
Little Boy
When I was a little boy, I had but little wit
It is some time ago, and I’ve no more yet;
Nor ever ever shall, until that I die,
For the longer I live, the more fool am I.
source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32415/32415-h/32415-h.htm
These will definitely fit in your pocket:
Extended Coverage
Necessity’s the mother of invention,
And brevity is deemed the soul of wit;
But where are all the ounces of prevention
Supposed to keep our minds and bodies fit?
High Stakes
The overarching sum and substance
Of sane terrestrial existence
Consists of unalloyed persistence
Among committed wives and husbands.
Assembly Required
Unless we meet the world with open hearts,
The Master’s nonpareil munificence,
Like some complex machine with missing parts,
Has no particular significance.
Bottom Line
Rebellious supplicants who think impunity
Is theirs for having asked, forget that there’s no savior
Empowered to dispense complete immunity
From consequences of their ill-advised behavior.
Make of them what you will.
Since I see that more poems are coming in this evening, I figure I should participate, too. Here are two poems I recently wrote.
Compound Interest
A pittance saved weekly
for decades, compounding,
will yield a remittance
that’s simply astounding.
Peace
Peace exists when those who want
what’s yours and plan to take it
so fear the force of your response
they change course and forsake it.
Heh-heh.
Witty!
Hi Mark. High marks for these!
“CI” is a little Ben Franklin.
Its clever rhymes also bring to mind the fabulous lyrics of Dismey’s “Mary Poppins.”
This is one worth saving.
Mark,
I agree with Alan Sugar, and think CI is cleaver. I also like the way it rolls off the tongue.
Cleaver? Clever? Oh me! Oh my!
What shall I do? Perhaps I’ll cry!
The word was listed in my post,
As I too quickly tried to boast.
A friend wrote this couplet when we were in high school. I actually carried it in my wallet for the next ten years.
When in danger, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream, and shout.
Friendship Outgrown
I had a little crocodile;
He kept me company
Beside the waters of the Nile,
When I was age of three.
But as I grew, so did he too,
Including teeth pearl-white,
Until one day my fears came true—
He tried to take a bite!
Portuguese from the Sonnets III
Mine, with pulses, beats double thine;
Thine double, beats pulses, with mine.
The shortest poem in my collection, The Divine Comedies. A rubber is an English word for what is now more commonly called an eraser:
The Rubber
for Joe, aged 4
“I want my rubber to work,” he cried.
And we did too; and knew he knew, Gran had died.
These are fun! I toss this one in for consideration…
It amuses and confuses me
How many “writers” seem to be
Of spelling so darn unaware
Not knowing there, and their and they’re
Oh I know that that’s a joke
But, come on all you writer folk!
Will it really, truly kill thee
To check that bleeding dictionary?
And grammar oh my lordy Lord
That one went just by the board
What seems at least ten years ago
That subject, number, verb did go
The way of that extinct Dodo
Agreement? Why that must be Greek!
To all but a grammarian freak
So, now it seems that paparazzi
Have labelled us as ‘grammar nazi’!
FREEDOM
If freedom means
self-indulgence
swines well define
slashing in sewer Iines.
MIGRATION
By Tony Damigo © April 6th, 2019
Like birds in the winter, my hair flew south
To make its nest on the cliffs of my chin.
Now the tree from whence these birds were once found
Is fruitless, baron, and nothing but skin.
—-
AGELESS BEAUTY
By Tony Damigo © April 1999
(Written for my parents 50th wedding anniversary)
Though seasons pass and years go by
In twilight’s glow, I see.
That time will never change Love’s eyes,
Nor the vision it perceives.
I yelled silence
Culled nothingness.
The following poem of mine is a biolet, a verse form introduced by Luso-Brazilian poet Filinto de Almeida (December 4, 1857-January 28, 1945).
By walking on the wooden road all day,
I look to tales of gods and their own deeds.
Iwis, their means are meant to help the thedes;
I stand before the Sun, and so I pray.
I look to tales of gods and their own deeds
By walking on the wooden road all day.
Completed on February the Second, 2019
I THINK
I think, therefore I guess I am
my life is like a cryptogram
I speak as though I’m very wise
I try to tell a few good lies
I laugh because life is a joke
I drink but I would never smoke
Now I will focus on myself
to keep from falling off the shelf
—Mary Embree