I should say here that while I consider myself a reasonably “serious” poet, I play with poetry a lot. I think of the goofy, not-so-serious ones that I write as “pomes.” Dorothy Parker called hers “doggerel.”  These are the snippets that show up in the writing group or in whimsical moments. They are not meant to be great, profound pieces of poetry, full of fresh language and original metaphor, just exercises done for fun.

In my experience, poets can burn out from the self-imposed pressure of having to write “good poems.” To mess around with words in a metaphorical sandbox, throwing some up in the air and seeing where they land, calling that a “pome”—that’s some of the great fun of writing.

Here’s a pome that came out of the last meeting of my Saturday writing group. I brought paint chips with some nifty names and shared them. Some people wrote about particular colors or memories associated with those colors. I wrote a list pome using some of the names I liked best. Love the sounds of these colors!

Paint chips

First hear the greens:
Etna Green
Wine Bottle
Jalapeno
Tousled Grass
Dancing Leaf
Go-go Green
Mist-ify
Whispering Pines

Then play the blues:
Bay City Blue
Wine Country Twilight
Half Moon Bay
Biloxi Blues
Lone Wolf
Sonoma Sky
Tahoe Blue

Toss in a whisper of Cascade Gray
A creamy First Ascent
The adobe of Amber Stone
And the dirt brown of Earth Bed

Listen to the purples hum:
Eclectic Plum
Prairie Purple
Mystic Grape
Plumes
Beach Blanket

And the pinks:
Sing So Sweetly
Rich Confection
Love’s Token
Crushed Berries

Finishing on a high note:
Jazz!