48 Poems

 

All I needed was 48 poems

to submit to the

Emily Dickinson Poetry Contest.

 

Took out the manila folder

labeled “Poems”

and made a pile of the worthy ones.

 

Read through poems

I wrote in high school,

when a poem achingly expressed something.

 

Read through poems

labored over for years,

refined by line, by word, by letter.

 

And read through poems

mangling language and

abusing affected alliteration. A lot.

 

But could only come up with

35

good enough for Emily Dickinson.

 

Disheartening:  

59 years;

35 good poems.

 

I should have stayed

in New Jersey Institute of Technology

and married Miriam

 

(the girl from church

Mom encouraged me to take

to the high school senior prom).

 

Better to have restricted

poems

to birthday and anniversary cards.

 

Poem 36.

 

 

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