Papa's Poem Corner Episode 22: Tuesdays With Poetry

I took a poetry workshop class this past semester and have decided to share some of those works with you all on here (this did, after all, start out as Papa's Poetry Corner). I think today we will get a poem and a Haiku. The first was a poem that had to somehow mention or be about coffee (which I don't drink).


The Impenetrable Drink

A poem about coffee seems so simple a thing—
except to a man who’s never tasted the drink.
He’d sit and stare at his impatient screen,
trying to find the deeper meaning
in something so common, smelly, and wet;
that little black bean he’d sooner forget.
After hours of failed attempts at sonnets,
he’d eventually settle for ten simple couplets,
and he’d never get close to connecting a string
of words that could pass as poetry.


This next one is a Haiku, and--to be clear--does not follow the traditional format for English Haiku of 5-7-5 (which is not a true translation anyway, but instead some random system that English speakers to try and copy the Japanese form as best as they could. They got it wrong). It has no title.


Green fields for miles,
flowered waves’ gentle flow.
Sweet scented summer.