Upcoming May IBPC 2021:

[Michael (MV)]

 
Voice your recommendation(s) here, and

Please let us know ASAP if you are not going to be available to represent the Writer's Block -

then we will know not to consider your poems further for this month's IBPC.

I/we will be looking for consensus - in keeping with a communal workshop environment

Which 1-3 would we like to see represent the Writer's Block in the finals?

After the 3 are selected, then will each author post - in this thread - the poem as the poet would like it forwarded,

and ALL the needed info/statements

Ideally, the only poems that really need to appear here are the final 3, when announced, hopefully by the 1st of the month, if not sooner

^^ the intent is organizational - if poems appear here before the selection of the final 3, then there is a congestion -

Until the final 3 are announced, please maintain poems & workshopping to the Workshop Forum. Thanks.



************

any newcomers or returnees this month, Welcome!

and here is a home link to the IBPC rules: http://ibpc.webdelsol.com/rules


In this thread, from the poems posted in the workshop forum during the course of the month, recommend/nominate by title & author.

Nominated poets, please acknowledge the nomination here in this thread.
Please reply by accepting or declining the nomination - in this thread.

Please note & observe: This is not a workshopping thread.

In this thread, poems that are ultimately selected to represent the Block are then posted here
as the author would like for the poem to be forwarded
along with all IBPC required info.

When the 1-3 poems are decided upon, and permission granted by each author of the selected poems,

along with all the info needed by each author:



1/Your name

2/e-mail address

3/statement that the poem is your original

4/and unpublished work

5/and that you don't have a poem committed to represent another board in the current IBPC. One poet one poem one board
for each monthly,

6/and the poem as you would like it forwarded to the finals.

^^ All of the above is the usual needed info as part of the process.


I will then forward the 1-3 to the IBPC finals.


Thanks

Michael (MV)
 
 
 
 
 

[Kenneth2816]

Bob's Bearded Collie

[BobBradshaw]

I nom Ken's "The Penitent" and Eira's "Circadian Disruption".

[Michael (MV)]

I 2nd Bob's Bearded Collie


Michael (MV)

Bob's Bearded Collie

[BobBradshaw]

Ken, Michael - thank you
Bob Bradshaw
email: bobbybradshw@yahoo.com
This poem is unpublished, my original poem, and isn't represented in any other forum for IBPC competition.


My Bearded Collie


I brush my bearded collie’s fur
the way I brushed my daughter’s
flowing hair, tenderly.

Perhaps Sheri is too like me. Does she feel
she's never lived up to her potential,
years lost like unpublished poetry?

My sheepdog has never seen a lamb
though I imagine her
chasing after them in the park,

her deep barking at shadows
the result of her shaggy fur
obscuring her eyes.

She’s most content lying in grass,
gazing up for hours, as if admiring
the sky’s endless sheared wool.

Her large eyes studying me
remind me of a long-haired
professor of mine,

a shy young man reciting Keats
to the winsome female students
gathered up front at his classes.

Or like the overweight poet laureate
of our college, who ambled along
like a bear who’s entered

an abandoned Klondike cabin,
following its instincts
the way miners follow a vein of gold

or a poet follows a line of verse.
I think of Coleridge conjuring up words
as he strays off path.

Careful not to block William’s straighter path,
he talks, talks, talks, throwing ideas
at William the way a sheepdog

shaking after a bath
flings off beads of radiant water.
Sheri gazes at me, about to interrupt

but notices me lost
in wool gathering, Kubla Khan on my lap
as I invest another evening,

eyes half closed, revising a poem.
Where is my Mariner
after decades of work?

How do I justify my last 30 years?
Maybe they're just bungled lines
searching for a perfect close.

I have no promises to keep tonight
and yawn, stroking Sheri’s head.
Drowsy, she settles by the fireplace

and its panting flames.
I watch as her left paw twitches,
nuzzled by a lamb. Behind a veil
of fur, she counts sheep.

[Kenneth2816]

Thanks Bob. That particular poem is ineligible

[BobBradshaw]

I nominate Ken's "Town Square" and Michael's "inspired by those little bird-men".

[Kenneth2816]

Thank you. I second birdmen

[Kenneth2816]

Town Square

On the courthouse lawn, old grey men
pass a bottle they hide in the mouth
of a cannon dragged from the field
of some long forgotten skirmish.

They swig and swap lies about wars
and women lost, sons whose names
it is now hard to remember, forget
for a time their pain and loss, until

they snooze on benches beneath
chestnut oaks that themselves were
once young, but now missing limbs,
holes cement-filled, whitewashed.

On windy days, the metal lanyard
of the chain-fall striking the
flagpole sounds like a church bell
calling home the lost and the broken.

Original unpublished work, not representing another forum. ashworthken@yahoo.com

[Michael (MV)]

I 2nd Ken's Town Square;

and with Bob's collie poem,

and my acceptance of the 2 nom-nods - Thanks Bob, Thanks Ken - for the poem,

as of now, Cinco de Mayo,

these 3 are confirmed to be forwarded to represent the Writer's Block in the finals.


Good Luck to the WB in the finals



Michael (MV)

[Michael (MV)]

Thanks, Ken, for accepting & for providing all the needed info.

Good luck in the finals



Michael (MV)

Town Square

On the courthouse lawn, old grey men
pass a bottle they hide in the mouth
of a cannon dragged from the field
of some long forgotten skirmish.

They swig and swap lies about wars
and women lost, sons whose names
it is now hard to remember, forget
for a time their pain and loss, until

they snooze on benches beneath
chestnut oaks that themselves were
once young, but now missing limbs,
holes cement-filled, whitewashed.

On windy days, the metal lanyard
of the chain-fall striking the
flagpole sounds like a church bell
calling home the lost and the broken.

Original unpublished work, not representing another forum. ashworthken@yahoo.com

[Michael (MV)]

Thanks, Bob, for accepting & for providing all the needed info.

Good luck in the finals



Michael (MV)

Ken, Michael - thank you
Bob Bradshaw
email: bobbybradshw@yahoo.com
This poem is unpublished, my original poem, and isn't represented in any other forum for IBPC competition.


My Bearded Collie


I brush my bearded collie’s fur
the way I brushed my daughter’s
flowing hair, tenderly.

Perhaps Sheri is too like me. Does she feel
she's never lived up to her potential,
years lost like unpublished poetry?

My sheepdog has never seen a lamb
though I imagine her
chasing after them in the park,

her deep barking at shadows
the result of her shaggy fur
obscuring her eyes.

She’s most content lying in grass,
gazing up for hours, as if admiring
the sky’s endless sheared wool.

Her large eyes studying me
remind me of a long-haired
professor of mine,

a shy young man reciting Keats
to the winsome female students
gathered up front at his classes.

Or like the overweight poet laureate
of our college, who ambled along
like a bear who’s entered

an abandoned Klondike cabin,
following its instincts
the way miners follow a vein of gold

or a poet follows a line of verse.
I think of Coleridge conjuring up words
as he strays off path.

Careful not to block William’s straighter path,
he talks, talks, talks, throwing ideas
at William the way a sheepdog

shaking after a bath
flings off beads of radiant water.
Sheri gazes at me, about to interrupt

but notices me lost
in wool gathering, Kubla Khan on my lap
as I invest another evening,

eyes half closed, revising a poem.
Where is my Mariner
after decades of work?

How do I justify my last 30 years?
Maybe they're just bungled lines
searching for a perfect close.

I have no promises to keep tonight
and yawn, stroking Sheri’s head.
Drowsy, she settles by the fireplace

and its panting flames.
I watch as her left paw twitches,
nuzzled by a lamb. Behind a veil
of fur, she counts sheep.