Water Haiku

Water nourishes ~her soul is the best teacher ~ flow with the changes.

#haiku

Caroline Gerardo copyright 4/26/2018

PoemADay

Rescue the Chick

a little poem for the rescued chick

A Poem a Day

National Poetry Month

It is a myth that birds smell our fingers.

Chickens can't sense Carolina Reapers.

Menagerie of rescue pets   lingers,

Turtles, frogs, & pygmy goats are keepers.

Every time  my daughter calls out for help

The dogs know to share room and never yelp. 

Caroline Gerardo copyright April 2018

Black Sheep Poem

"We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,

    Baa! Baa! Baa!

We're little black sheep who've gone astray,

    Baa—aa—aa!

Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,

Damned from here to Eternity,

God ha' mercy on such as we,

    Baa! Yah! Bah! "
(Kipling was talking about a shamed by a scandal
young man who enlisted as common soldier to hide
from society when he qualified as an officer.)


Innocents die.
We carry protest signs,
We enroll in "kindness training"
We take days for racial fairness class.
We offer thoughts and prayers as wine.


Public High School is a place where children are parked.
They are bullied by huge jocks and popular mean kids.
They are taught that only the college bound survive.
They wait in line; but, the system fails to change.
They play on their phone, the internet is all.
They wear the same jeans, shoes, t-shirts.
They conform, dye their hair to match.
They don't step on cracks, in fear.
They practice duck, hide, run.
They don't build houses.
They don't produce.
They don't plan.
They exist.

They are technicolor centers of the kaleidoscope where movie stars are heroes
They believe they will last as a crystal never breaking or fading or falling
They are earth to become seed and dust for poppies on the road side


Does the black sheep have wool to sell?
We are not creating a kinder world.
We must produce change.

Caroline Gerardo A Poem A Day National Poetry Month
copyright April 23, 2018

Boys Poem

Baby Boys Who Swim Great Poem

Friend of mine's oldest son is "on the spectrum."

Teacher sent him to the Principal's office for play 

shooting with his fingers on carpet circle time.

Friend of mine's younger son has leukemia. 

He is doing extra chemotherapy because they

can't kill all the bad cells in the first rounds.

Friend of mine's oldest son dropped out of Stanford

this Quarter because of his video gaming addition, 

to come home and push grocery carts at Ralphs.

Friend of mine's younger son has ADD and drug

additions which keep him depressed in bed 

they want to send him to a camp in Utah.

Friend of mine's oldest son was arrested 

the police pulled the door off his car and broke

his nose, but found nothing in his possession.

Friends of mine on Facebook seem to have 

Achilles without a fatal flaw, Babe Ruth,

and Michael Phelps as their baby boys.

Caroline Gerardo copyright April 20, 2018 PoemADay 

Part of my poem a day for National Poetry

Wren Poem

Wren on roof

Calls to sea

Come home

Come back

Return to me.

Copyright Caroline Gerardo April 17,2018

Camelot Poem

Abandoned School Drama Building

Music drifts in the dust
 teacher chose Camelot
10000 practices begin
learn to sing or dance
sew creative costumes
the ghosts haunt past.



Copyright April 18, 2018 Poem A Day for

Rattle Snake Poem

Poem A Day

Is it possible to consolidate thoughts into meaningful forms?

Prepare the sway to drain off, as not to stagnate.

The constraint builds a chain link fence around a treasure.

Trench for a silt fence, around the squirrel holes and rabbit dens. 

Use a narrow shovel as not to injure some infant mice.

Hit a rattle snake in error.
He scurries away, as men do with broken pride.
Then he surfaces at night, a foolish attempt 

on the first warm night of spring.
Amelia, a barn owl who hunts from the roof of my house,
spots him moving in the moonlight.
A fight ensues, and she wins, taking the meat of his 

body to the sky, leaves a piece to rot in the meadow.
A game of hide and seek;
for bow flys to discover and clean up the mess.

The odor of death is the same for all of us.
We reside on this earth inside fences, caves,
and cabins safe only as long as chance allows.

I don't believe in a God who knows the moment Amelia will

die, or why your soul suffers worse than a guy in a Maserati.

Be careful when digging, and it is not a gas line may blow,
or to disturb a den of dormant terrorists, yes, we live

here in fragile tissue balance where barbed wire that keeps
us inside also cuts to death.

Caroline Gerardo © copyright 4/16/2018

Pumpkin Snake

Pumpkin Snake

Spring snakes singing out

heat crusts their burrows

signals to waken to find

silver feathered mice, 

that hide in pumpkins,

and apple blossoms on the

earth waiting for them to

play and scare me silly.

I'm building a silt fence

over the mesh wire buried

in front of the chain link

to keep out the rattlers

a critter evil surprised

strike me when I forget 

leather gloves, snake chaps

and sharp shovel to keep my

garden safe from some crazy

king who steams his subjects

with nerve agents and say they

 meant to kill the bugs and rats.

DIY:
 mice walk the plank for peanut butter
dump pirates miles away for condors
don't murder garter snakes or frogs

Copyright Caroline Gerardo April 2018 Poem A Day

t

ABC Poem

 I'm missing teaching the alphabet

Answering every question with a: "yes, here's how."
Believing I fix things after watching a UTube video.
Cleaning ears of our Golden Retriever named Honey.
Dancing to music composed on a Stratocaster guitar.
Enlightening your mind to constellations over earth.
Feeling appreciated by the gestures, notes, & smiles.
Greeting sunrise with a rosary and packed lunches
Having courage to do motherhood and fatherhood solo
Investigating the clicks on the home computer for evil
Judging after hearing lies from blinking eyed faces
Knowing car repairs when no Moms know how to
Listening for the front door to open when your home
Managing the payroll check with the mortgage money
Nagging when you can study longer, or do an extra lap
Organizing the drawers, bagging stuff for the Veterans
Planting heirloom tomatoes next to the herb garden
Questioning the Principal about school safety plans
Reading the tandem books in your syllabus
Searching graveyards for new rose cultivars
Tallying statistics for Frosh JV and Varsity Lacrosse
Underlining the legalese to change the contracts
Verbalizing prayer, plans, praise, and elation.
Waiting for your call that requires my advice
X husband pays for nothing criticizes particulars
Yawing in the morning under dark Tule fog
Zzzz is not sleep it is the diligence of my mind.

Love,
Mom




and more
Stopping the leak of the river of the world
Planning for
Saving for goals

Copyright Caroline Gerardo April 11, 2018 A Poem a Day

Roland Reiss

" Ars longa, vita brevis occasio 
praeceps 

Art is long, life is short, opportunity

 fleeting,

experimentation perilous, and judgment 
difficult.

:Ὁ βίος βραχύς,

ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,

ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,

ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,

ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή."

Hippocrates

Roland Reiss Poem 
on my 10th day of 
National Poetry Month 
Poem a Day

Roland Reiss at Claremont Art Museum 

celebrate a return to history ~

not a retrospective, peeks in his past. 

Color bombs cultivated to outlast. 

Miniatures in plex-cases reveal 
narratives laid out in minute detail
diorama  natural   history. 
lifelike scenes offer a view of story.

Watch a television melodrama
endings determined in the spin around
movies playing out without the three acts
from a peephole, viewers discern the facts.

The paintings also share high principles
buried brushstrokes under dirt road washboards,
glossed color medium gives such a sheen,
stinking aroma of permanent green.

Amaryllis opens on time Christmas
captures forced a 17th Century bulb
and tulips as the Dutch Masters did save
Reiss tames cadmium yellow to behave.

Disney, The Capital and winged airplanes 
humming low under Matisse colored sky.
Not wild lupine, these cultivars create
music by the Master that is first rate.

Caroline Gerardo  ©  copyrights reserved April 10, 2018

Please see his exhibition
"Unapologetic Flowers and Small Stories"

Poem To My YOUNGER Self #wtwrites

A Poem to myself many years ago.

Fear nothing

the highest

silo cannot 

stifle growth.

Practice hourly,

daily, dream,

drum until

arms ache.

 Plan new

climbs they say

cannot complete

or flew before.

Wake early

smile before 

the sun hits

 smoke horizon.

Save money

harvest like

a worst year

store energy.

Love many

when they rip

the soul, plant

seeds for more.

Make mistakes

save the scabs

mix in the mortar

build YOUR life.

National Poetry Month Poem a Day

Copyright  ©  April 10, 2018 Caroline Gerardo

Moshen Namjoo

Moshen Namjoo on poetry, form and rhythm. 

 در شعر، شکل و ریتمن

USC Lecture April 2018

Yosemite Closes

Yosemite Waits For Storm

Yosemite closes due to impending blizzard.
Language is a storm that prevents camping.


4/6/2018 Copyright Caroline Gerardo
Poem a day
National Poetry Month
This one is short

What a Monster Needs Poem

What a monster needs

Press cider vinegar to rinse off slime.

Cheer up bath bombs, aroma fills the pond.

Orange fake suntan removal of thyme.

Peroxide to turn grey hair into blonde.

What a monster needs

Coconut oil to scrub sharp amber teeth.

Bramble rose wire to keep mouth silent shut.

Perfume necklace of a bay laurel wreath.

Duck tape on bloated rotten stomach gut.

What a monster does to hide his hate.

Caroline Gerardo copyright April 5, 2018

Winter Tangerine poem # 5 

Prompting a poem a day for April 

but no promises about keeping up 

Egg Shell Poem

Lost Egg Shell

Tiffany blue skin

chocolate spots

No yolk

No chick

No violent death

Not a suicide from nest,

Not a reject dumped out,

Probable murder by raven.

A hedge sparrow, a house martin,

& a goldfinch calls out in sorrow.

Mother skulks in shadow,

she prays the chick peeps. 

Did the crow pick the moss nest

as I pick the bowl of Jelly Bellies?

Avoid 

caramel corn, buttered popcorn,

cantaloupe, toasted marshmallow,

cinnamon Harry Potter boogers...

Flavor is only in the shell,

inside is gooey duck jelly 

that protein a crow hunts.

The mother sees Lazuli Bunting baby

luminous in sapphire, sapphire, citrine

but he is a russet potato feathered boy.

don't judge by the colors,

one nightingale shares

300 love songs

Above the flavors I don't bite into

Copyright  ©  Caroline Gerardo April 5, 2018

Ghazal Garden

Ghazal for an entry without a fee.

A black lettuce wrap sandwich for my sin

Don't tell my vegan daughter she'll cry sea

April is poem a day month for old me.
Anxiety grows at night under cardboard.

Sparrows tumble from my throat, is to say

Snakes eat Araucana eggs on their way

Amelia’s boys keep cabins in the wood.

Aphrodite’s sacred birds kept at bay

Solitary life,  they did not dismay.

Peaches, blood oranges feed the blue jays

Paul, young son loads the truck for market day

Coffee becomes compost, chicks are traded

Silkie Bantams warm in Matelasse beds

Sunflower seeds dry in a crumpled way.

Tires go flat over the dirty road frey.

The boy shares his lunch with a passeridae

She calls tik tik as rock sparrows do fly

Wish him good fortune, yes, which is to say

Waste not, be kind, work hard C. G. each day.

A woeful story ///  you want to replay.

Daughter told me never eat at Chic fil A

The C. O. O is ju ju ~  ~        Dan Cathy

we should shake our fist at chicken and say

Off to hell the phrase "my pleasure" all day.

Copyright © Caroline Gerardo April 4th 2018 
images, video and poem no permission rights granted

Rosary Morning

Chumash Indians were not better off.

We assume wrong-facts from history

We see living off nature as poverty,

the economically poor are unhappy,

those who don't drive to urgent care,

those who don't own a Range Rover,

those who lug Luis Vuitton luggage 

Having builds desire for emptiness.

I was in a hurry this morning to work.

The gas light blinks on, I can't make it.

On the front seat I had red cabbage and 

purple chard, first of spring to share.

With my olive drab twenty dollar bill

I put a brown bag of the vegetables to

the random man behind the formica

counter top, "twenty on seven please,

and these veggies are from my garden."

He peeks in the bag, incredulously,

"Oh my mother had these," he says in

heavy Pakistani syntax English accent.

A red headed woman in a XT 5 2018

Cadillac SUV is cursing at the credit

card machine slot for her gas pump.

She tells me, "this God dam place

is the worst station for miles around."

I smile but don't answer, not wanting

to engage in her rage morning event.

Behind black tinted windows two

children in cars seats in the back fuss.

She tells them to "shut the f... up," 

and storms into the cashier office.

I'm not certain I ought to leave the

children in her vehicle alone, so I

stand in front of her shiny new car

which has the driver side door open.

My fuel finished pumping and she

doesn't return, I see the children

are two and five approximately.

Cars park, pump and disappear.

Still, the flaming red head does

not return. I lift my shoulders,

give a shy wave to the children

who now silently watch me.

I wonder if her credit card

is hacked, or overdrawn or?

Here she comes, blue veins

in forehead popping out mad.

"God dam Indians why don't they

go back to Mexico farms," rants.

Her information is dead wrong.

Bigotry hot as wax searing skin.

I correct her mistake in thought.

Dig rock clay with iron to find

water to plant the three sisters,

rise bread in wood fire oven,

laundry washes sin outdoors,

kneel to scrub the terra cotta

In 1824 the Chumash revolted,

 burned red head's Cadillac to dust.

In my mind; but I say to her,

"Your Grandchildren are beautiful."

Knowing they are likely her own,

wish I had shared a life changing

snappy way to turn her her around.

I return to the safety of my truck.

The aroma of coffee fills the cab.

I think of the holy water font at

the Mission and recite the rosary

as I drive on to work I pray.

Caroline Gerardo copyright April 3, 2018 # 3 of my poem a day for #NationalPoetrymonth

laundry fountain

bread oven

ancient hoe 

mill

sundial