Category: National Poetry Month

Ruined Garden: A Poem by Mike Cole

He Walked through a garden he used to know

Whose beds took many months to sow.

The garden had been overgrown by weeds

Left untended and unwanted.

And so he walked those haunted grounds,

Not a crop left to be found.

He walked among the trellises,

Whose vines had long not bore a seed.

Crooked and bent they stood,

With splintered and hollowed wood.

So he sat in the garden a while,

waiting in the cold.

It’s National Poetry Month! This will be the second annual National Poetry Month series! For this month I am breaking down my poems and discussing the meaning behind each. To kick things off, we have ‘Ruined Garden’. The idea came about when I visited my old High School. Years ago I had planted a garden with other students as part of a club. Every so often we would harvest the vegetables, some we ate, the rest we’d donate to the local food bank. To my surprise, when I visited this year, the garden was decrepit. An overgrown relic of a bygone era. As with most of my poetry I like to make it a blend of experiences, a reflection of both reality while also keeping a certain magic to the poem itself. This poem I tried to reflect the magic of what the garden once was while also emphasizing what it had become. This poem leans on the more literal and I thought it’d be a good way to start off the month. It is Free Verse, as has become common with most of my poetry. I am a fan of couplets and having the poem continually rhyme throughout. Over the years, I have experimented more with adding imperfection to my poems and typically use it to emphasis poems that should be broken. When you have a rhyme, everything is neat and clean. People love it, I love it. When you add a sentence structure that does not have that perfect rhyme, you notice it, such as in line four. There are many words that rhyme with weeds, but by choosing not to, it simply stops and you have to jump to the next rhyme. This was repeated in the end of the poem to add a sense of finality and to reiterate that all is not well in the garden. There is a lingering sense of open-endedness as you do not know what happens to the man in the garden.

Hope you enjoyed! There’ll be two more poems this month, so stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading!

Without You: A poem by Mike Cole

You were the tide as the waves came to shore

And as the waves lapse, it makes me sad that I can’t see you anymore.

Your ship is now far out at sea

No lighthouse to guide you, no place to be.

Perhaps there is land beyond my horizon,

But for now, I must wait, on this sandy shore.

To end the month of April, a poem about my father. Here, I conjure up images of a life that was never meant to be, of a past best left forgotten. My father was a sailor for most of his life, taking to the sea to escape the realities of everyday life. I never was one much for sailing but can understand why my father loved it so much. There is something freeing about being on the open water, an experience I yearn for as I try not to be trapped by the mundane. My father passed away in 2019 so this is my ode to him. It is a poem about longing for what cannot be, as I stand on sandy shores looking out to sea. It speaks to my admiration of my father as a child, what now seems so distant a memory. Lighthouses guide lost ships that cannot find harbor, and the tragedy lies in that my father drifted too far out to sea.

Tasted like honey: A poem by Mike Cole

He took a sip and it tasted sweet,

She took a breath and felt the heat.

Like lovers they danced and steam began to form.

Miles apart, a desire was born.

A dream, a sigh, a chance to deny.

And yet neither did, the trance had its hold.

It’s been interesting to write love poetry to say the least. I’ve played with Dark themes and more excitable themes. This poem is a personal favorite as I’ve leaned into the more figurative and image driven. I’m a fan of imperfect rhymes and free verse. Coupling lines together is enjoyable, but there is just something about the mismatch at the end that really speaks volumes. It creates an emphasis on the last line, adding a sense of finality to what is a fast moving poem.

You Never Knew Me: A poem by Mike Cole

You never knew me, nor I you.

Two strangers, passing through.

The wind whispered as we walked,

No words uttered, no words talked.

So strangers we remained, only ever passing.

For in love, nothing is ever truly lasting.

A poem I’m sure many can find themselves acquainted with. Unrequited love. The brief, fleeting thought of acting on attraction, but letting a moment pass. It’s beautiful but ultimately tragic.

With this poem, I tried to capture an idea, a moment. It emphasizes what is unsaid and plays with the idea of saying more, without explicitly stating it.

The lines are coupled, following a simple AABB rhyme scheme. I like to weave tints of tragedy into love poems to make them more human and with the end of the poem, you get a sinking feeling. The flow is thrown slightly off rhythm and lacks much of the excitement of the earlier lines. It is abrupt and signifies that this is truly an end, not a beginning.