Catan poems on Hello Poetry

Kyle Kulseth Sep 2014

Bitter Nights. Best Friends. ******* Town.

I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown
          you'd squint your eyes
                 when laughing
     at the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery
               on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
               in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
                                   and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
                       when I sail for newer shores

Something in familiar signs,
          buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
          afloat for one more night.

Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.

Snake's head yawning
          from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
          our icy footsteps
     Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
          this is enough
          to buoy our ***** up
          against the weighty ballast
          of this tiny, yawning town.

Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.

The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery.
               Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
               This freezing town
               will test your mettle.
               Settle up and bring your friends.

#friends #time #friendship #sinking #place #wyoming #floating #sheridan #blacktooth #brewery

Amelia Jan 2019

I'll Take the Blue Pill

Lately when you’ve looked at the Facebook chat bar, you’ve noticed names that you haven’t spoken to in a long time.
As if Facebook knows what has happened and is saying “Look! Other people exist in the world! You had a past before all of this.”
Too soon, Facebook.
Even memories excluding him somehow manage to involve him all the same.
You spent 5 years in Toronto, and only at the tail end did you two learn each other and find a love that was ******* brilliant.
And now Toronto is a landmine.
U of T is tarnished and bleak.
The ROM, the TTC,
Every quaint and adorable breakfast cafe, Mexican eatery, Starbucks.
Tragic.
And **** Queen’s Park.
And **** High Park.
**** dog parks too because maybe at some point you walked past one together.
And the bookstore.
Never again.
You loved that bookstore
(it brought you him).
And death to bubble tea, and 0 calorie vitamin water.
(No one should ever experience the misfortune of 0 calorie vitamin water, but it’s a memory, so it hurts).
And **** board game cafes. Even though the only game you actually managed to finish was Jenga.
But that’s because you were falling for him and you would rather talk for hours than look away from his face to read too-long instructions.
Catan could wait.
A different world ago you suffered in a city too congested for the likes of your small-town spirit.
And somehow you found life there.
Would have gone back there.
And he will never know.

#canada #toronto #heartbreak #love #freeverse #pain #explicit #contemporary #longing

Michael Marchese Apr 2021

Settlers of Catan

This game is like life
Build your roads
Conquer lands
Construct homes
And expand
As your city erodes
Into seas of surpluses
Exhausted too quickly
A populous guarded
But hungry and sickly
So play it just like
How you’d really develop
A civilization
As god
Not a zealot

matthew scott harris Jul 2018

Paternal Misgivings Linger...

Though thine two grown
     former babes in crib age,
now lead checkered lives,
     no longer monopolize my time

     as though their persons went backstage
either one embracing, judging,
     and negotiating positive
     chutes and ladders with courage

evoking glee this papa
     helped both beautiful lasses
     avoid being risk averse
     navigating life with minimal damage

though to get ahead of the class,
     (asper the eldest Eden Liat)
     credit karma fairly and squarely attributed
     to herself with encourage

meant from this papa, who oft time
     felt he lacked any clue
     akin to a hobbled battleship left
     to drift at sea, whence,

     upon landfall sub
     sequent lee forced to forage
in a foreign dominion (akin to being
     among Settlers of Catan),

     plus devoid of instruments to gauge,
     an optimal strategic operation,
     thus figuratively groping in the dark
     (unaware of a brewing twister)

     guided by blind faith
doth admit saying sorry,
     but apologetic homage
     would disqualify thyself,

     a "FAKE" mastermind
     undeserving of just desserts,
unfairly via diktat plucking sweet treats
     awash within Candy Land,

     a deceptive image
entrancing, luring and, spellbinding
     ultimately incurring trouble,
particularly when Shana Aubrey

     (younger by about
     twenty six months)
garnered lion's share of parental attention
     necessitated mandatory intervention

      due to language
skills, plus pronounced
     developmental delay,
     where supreme social service

     sages gentle massage
wrought divine prestidigitation
     as one after another
     case worker did overencourage

to counteract congenital
     cognitive setback (coalesced in utero),
now finds das dada envious
    (cuz, aye got mired, hogtied,

     and bogged down with
    obsessive compulsive trivial pursuit,
     hence warrant so lucky as thee Punim)

     steers ship shape body electric
     round her uncharted cerebral
     cape of good hope passage.

#know #fault #allowed

glass Apr 2023

Todays Date 19

early morning heavy bag with nothing else but hopeful
they said theyd be there soon
you say youll be there later
catan at engineering noon
was bittersweet flavored

water in the kettle
barely touched the mech on the table
last day tears in the after shelter mental
i was in the ceramics studio when you arrived when it all came together
rivers of slip and clay and dip and dip and swing

keeping printing lately squinting
we helped to bring the paper
you disappeared concerning feared
but just for shoes in your backseat

sparkled nails on the church's floor
behind the curtain essay typin
ping pong flyin wild story improv timin
next to those shoes scrollin and the topic was ace
so i dont know if its my place
but
as we left the lack of open doors was odd/
so then came back to the front lawn of god to give you a plastic bag of support
keepin rapport in some way of some sort
gracious hospitality that it wasnt raining
though when we were waiting there were trains and there was dogs/
but soon hes gone and hugged and loved

and now im in the front seat;
and then im in the drivers.

back window fogged, behind the wheel with you beside me reel and keel my necks still sore two days later just like my brain that needs a stapler
because i couldnt look at you
im scared of being fake but then/
music's meant to sing
i went to bed at 1 am
i dont regret a thing

031823

#todaysdate #journal

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