I Wish I'd Written This

One Sentence Poems revisited

White Flowers

Some
might miss
that
split second

when
your eyes
drop
their blinds

and
your lips
begin
to open

but
for me,
as
the clouds

decide
to rest
and
every car

stops
for gas,
it’s
like noticing

that
first whiff
of
summer air

as
it pauses
beneath
my skin.

Austin Davis is a widely published poet and his first full-length collection, Cloudy Days, Still Nights, is being released by Moran Press this spring.

Where most are ... Where most are too shy or numb to investigate, you lodge, mossy and shadow, awaiting dictation. Karen Stanislaw, fighting for her right to poet, is in current wrestle with - relatives and muddier Saturnian forces - the idea that she's not honored "enough" survival and security concerns. Visitation My brother sits across from me in the prison visiting room, his jumpsuit the color of coffee-stained teeth, and says, “Keep the letters coming. Whenever I read them, I’m free.” Scott Hughes typically writes fiction much longer than one sentence. https://www.writescott.com/ The Book of Hours The sun sets on enhanced interrogation, even as it rose, exponentially, on drone strikes, like the sum of collateral damage became a euphemism, beyond our peripheral vision, & we held the shining black eye of history in our mouth, as if we imagined God in our every breath, as if we are, all of us, alone in the complicity of others. henry 7.reneau, jr. writes words in conflagration to wake the world ablaze.

Job

I carry my burdens,
sing my songs,
hold goodness within,
not much different, it seems,
than a common wooden chair,
the bells of a working clock,
an ordinary vessel of clay.

Larry Schug says, "I could be considered old, though I am terminally immature."

Wisp

Candle
flame flickers
and quickly you
turn from flesh to
silhouette and weave
through the curtains then
exit the open window and float
above the storm-swept garden where
the frogs that survived the devastation insist
to stay and croak aloud undying love to one another.

Karlo Sevilla writes from Quezon City, Philippines, and suffers from a lagging inertia of consciousness.

One Cannot Use

One cannot use
a pen and a pistol
at the same time,
and that is all
I have to say on
the subject of
poetry as therapy.

J. R. Solonche has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early '70s and is author of six collections of poetry.

Wind Song 

There’s so much
going on here
it's always worth
getting out of the car,
and if you listen
really quietly,
you can hear
the stream flowing
and these people
who survived
by eating weeds
and even talk
proudly about it.

Howie Good is on the pavement, thinking about the government.

Guthertz

I wish I’d met him after
I stopped hating myself,
for he was kinder than I was,
more easily pleased, and unlike me,
comfortable seeming feminine,
which made him more masculine
as he slowly bit and sucked my lips
until they stung slightly,
vibrating, his blunt hands warm
and strong as we embraced
by a lawn sprinkler,
ratty jeans sodden,
heard atonal wind chimes,
our breath catching,
and a breeze rustling
through the eucalyptus.

Hannah Bleier is a special education teacher living in Brooklyn.

Ballast

I ride the air balloon
of your love, soaring

higher and higher as
I drop the ballast overboard:

my ego, that anvil,
that anchor made of lead.

Steve Klepetar knows it's the month before the month of May, and spring comes slowly up this way.


One Sentence Poems is a poetry site I subscribe to by email. I have shared pieces from it before, and thought it was time for some more.

They tend to be short. Not that they have to be, but it must be harder to sustain a very long sentence. The rules say:

• It must truly be a sentence. 
• Start with an uppercase letter. 
• End with a terminal punctuation mark. But don’t die. 
• Semicolons are discouraged, especially when used to merge what should be multiple sentences into one long sentence. 
• Format: There must be at least one line break. Some indents ok, but we can’t handle highly scattered formats. (We prefer left-justified.) 
• The sentence must be grammatically correct (subject + verb), with generally conventional punctuation. 

I've selected from recent posts a few I particularly like, for whatever reason – whether because they are beautiful or interesting (some are downright disturbing!); whether because of content or form. There were many more worth sharing; I selected for variety. 

Every time I read one, I think, 'I must try a one sentence poem!' (and also when I sometimes find one amongst the poems shared in our Poets United community). But then I forget. One day....

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.