poetry

April Monthly Poetry Competition 2021
This is the fifth April poetry competition I have entered since 2017.  The rules are simple: write at least one poem or more per month, and either post them or not.  I will base them on NaPoWrMo, Poetry Superhighway, Writing Digest, Writing Com ‘s Dew Drop Inn prompts and post them here and, on All Poetry, and maybe elsewhere but at least on these sites. I may write a few more but not post them as I need to keep “unpublished” poems for submission.

Humor keeps us sane
it is a piece of what we need to do
to prevent us from getting
the dreaded corona virus
coming up your nose

Pensively prompt - unpublished

creative talents unleashed

First Kiss with My wife

It was 1982
when I first met my wife
the love of my life

In 1979 she came to me
in a dream
and then she walked
off a bus
eight years latter

a few weeks later
we went for  walk
in the woods

and ending up kissing
passionately wild kisses
as we walked in the woods

SOMEDAY I’LL LOVE N.M. LEEPSA
By © N.M. Leepsa, 2018
After Frank O’Hara /Roger Reeves/Ocean Vuong/ Haley Mitchell
Category: Spoken Word Poetry

Leepsa, you can reach the sky,
And shine like a star,
The path looks long, but it’s not too far.
Do believe. Your willpower is your ticket to reach your destination.
The train has already left.
Each station brings new experiences, not the crowd of hurdles.

In Winter
The darkness takes over
Some mornings I wake up in the black
fetal under 3 layers, swaddled
until I uncover an arm or a leg
I’m hit with a stinging chill and remember that it is Winter

My dreams are different during shorter days
In them, my teeth fall out
or the house burns down
my plane leaves the airport because I went to the wrong gate
my party invitations get lost in the mail

My uncertainty is highlighted
these stories, little dramas 
magnified
so I will study them

It's time to take your medicine

I thought I heard inside my dream

The bars of steel are nothing

Not as strong as they might seem

You can climb that distant mountain

Stand inside the mist

Hand your prayers to Angels

Every prayer that's on your list

Perhaps love does really exist, but the beings we are surrounded by don't know how
Perhaps there is no such thing as soulmates, but if you're blessed with loving someone who respects you back, you should stick with 'em 
Perhaps the tides come in and then receed to show us what, if anything, will be left behind after some turbulence
Perhaps we shouldn't compare struggles, feet can manage socks and hands can manage mittens

Perhaps love does really exist, but the beings we are surrounded by don't know how
Perhaps there is no such thing as soulmates, but if you're blessed with loving someone who respects you back, you should stick with 'em
Perhaps the tides come in and then receed to show us what, if anything, will be left behind after some turbulence
Perhaps we shouldn't compare struggles, feet can manage socks and hands can manage mittens

If you want to milk the Earth as a cow,
Then nourish the soil with seed and plow;
For when it’s set with deep grown roots,
Like a plentiful tree, it will yield many fruits.
 
 
 
Inspired by a Sanskrit poem by Bhartri-Hari, as translated in the Clay Sanskrit Library edition:
 
Rajan, dudhuksasi yadi Ksiti dhenum enam,
Ten’ adya vatsam iva lokam amum pusana;
Tasmims ca samyag anisam paripusyamane
Nana phalam phalati kalpa lat eva Bhumih.
 
King, if you want to milk this Earth as a cow,

The River Chu has split the hills in two
To send the jade-brushed water east and back,
Around the two opposing hills anew
As a lonely boat sits still in a sunlit crack.
 
 
Original Chinese poem by Li Bai

Nothing is so dear, a noble warrior said,
Than glory bought by armor pierced in blood
Amid the cries of those who’ve fallen in mud—
For what is life if honor’s been left for dead?
 
Emaciated, poor, or stuck without life’s luck,
It’s to the bold and daring that the world goes;
Whether in women, war, or what ambition sows,
With courage alone we come up from the muck.
 
Some say the day-maker rises with the sun
As the lord of night shines down from the moon:
For all that’s fire, a life without water is none,