eileen-benavente-blas
My favorite poetry form to write is haiku. When writing other than haiku, I like to end my poems with a rhyming couplet and am partial to alliteration. / Grew up in Washington, D. C. and first moved to Guam in 1969 at age 16, when my father retired after 30 years in the Navy and he and my mom decided to move back to their homeland. / Retired from the Guam public school system in 1999 where I worked as a secondary English/reading teacher and spent my last 4 years as a high school librarian. / Besides writing poetry, I enjoy reading and doing filet crochet. / My favorite author is Jane Austen. My favorite novels of hers are "Pride and Prejudice" and "Persuasion." / My guiding quote most recently is "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Indian summer
a late rainy morning
still in bed, gazing
at your empty side.
Is that the aroma of coffee
and crisp-fried bacon
wafting into our room
enticing me to rise?
Tears fill my eyes--
no use, no use,
no use to pretend.
You'll never return
cancer made sure of that...
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 12:01 AM UTC
do not rush to post
a poem written in the
early hours of morning
following a night of
indulging in dope or
Irish whisky neat
or a poem written
cold sober--you are
too close to your precious
creation to view it objectively
let the poem simmer
in your creative juices,
giving it a rest as a baker
does a ball of dough
after kneading it
let a few days pass then
reread your poem; read it aloud;
record it, listen to the recording--
does it read the way it hears?
revise appropriately applying
the process above to the revision
before you post the revised piece
edit for typos and errors
of grammar or spelling
following this process
shows you respect your poem
and your potential readers
who will read and respond in kind
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 7:45 AM UTC
my neighbor's red hibiscus bush
hangs over my fence
blood blossoms sway
in a slight breeze
five flowers in hand
I head indoors
to brew hibiscus tea
Sep 7, 2016
Sep 7, 2016 at 2:54 AM UTC
If you know why
salmon swim upstream
in a suicidal attempt to
get back to their beginnings
and why lemmings head
en masse for the sea
and why drones who
service the queen bee
inevitably die,
then tell me why
I who should follow
their lead hold back?
Am I afraid to find
that the pain of leaving
might be less than the
pain of staying behind?
Is this what salmon, lemmings
and drones all know?
And so they willingly go?
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
hobbling
on arthritic hips
I remember
those long-ago years
when I knew not physical pain
but the heartaches,
the heartbreaks remain--
legacy of lost love...
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 7:09 PM UTC