The Goal is Progressing. :)

Well, you may have noticed I've been posting quite a few poems recently.  All of them have been from my poetry challenge for 2013.  I'd like to reiterate here, I welcome any comments and critiques. 

As far as my goal has been progressing, I consider it to be going well.  I've settled down to more steady poem-writing (I haven't written eight in a day since the first week, I believe).  I try to write one poem every night before I go to bed.  And let me tell you something:  it's harder than I thought it would be. 

Every night.  Sitting down with my pencil and my cool little journal.  Having to pound out a poem no matter how tired I am.  I've missed a couple of nights, sadly.  I always feel a little bit of failure when I wake up and remember I didn't write a poem the day before.  But I get over it, and write two just to make up for it.  I'm up to 164 poems so far.

Writing poetry this steadily, and having them all together, has brought something to my attention.  I have certain phrases that I use a lot in poetry.  Words I like to work in.  Pairs of words that I often use as rhyming couplets.  So sometimes I have to make a conscious effort to not use a word in today's poem.  If I want to cover the same topic that I've covered before (which happens a lot), I have to find new words for it.  Which I like.  But also disappoints me that with my tolerably good vocabulary I still reuse words all the time.

I'm getting lots of practice at poetry writing...

Letting Go, 4.4.13

I cannot try
To change the words
I had to leave unsaid

I cannot always
Control the thoughts
That pound inside my head

The strength I hold
Within myself
Is often not complete

The mistakes I make
Time and again
I know to not repeat

Meeting Nature, 1.20.13

On the shaded slopes
We talked, we laughed
We learned about each other

I climbed the mountain
To learn more
Of Nature's hidden wonder

The trees would whisper
And lean down
In order to converse

The flowers smiled
And sang with me
A joyful chorus so diverse

Feeling, 2.22.13

If only there was fire
Or even an icy rage
An element of power
To break this dusty cage

Locked inside the weakness
Close behind the wall
A tired lonely person
Ready just to fall

Weathervane, 4.1.13

The weathervane
Could rightly show
The way I feel
And what I know

So quickly turned
From here to there
Never sure
Of anywhere

But where the wind
Does choose to blow
Off it turns
And away I go