April is National Poetry Month.  And it’s also Occupational Therapy Month.  And Cancer Control Month, Alcohol Awareness Month, Stress Awareness Month, International Guitar Month, Keep America Beautiful Month, National Anxiety Month, National Humor Month, National Welding Month, National Garden Month, Uh-Huh Month….

Uh-huh, so the Houston Chronicle publishes a daily poem selected by books editor Fritz Lanham.  Today’s is titled “Cherubic” by James Tate.  My reaction after reading the below is, this is more disorganized than my patients!  Most of my patients are circumstantial in their thinking, or at most tangential.  The following content seems to display flight of ideas, to my inexperienced eyes:

I took my daughter Kelsey to the train:
station. As the train was leaving, we waved
and waved to one another. I never saw her again.
She went on to become the first woman on the moon.
How she got there nobody knew. And she never
came back, as far as I know. And she never wrote
me a letter, she never called. I just hope she’s
happy, my moonbeam. Every night I’m at my telescope.
I’ve seen dinosaurs, snow leopards, flamingoes.
I saw a one-eyed dog wagging its tail. I saw a
mail truck. I saw a sailboat, but, of course,
there is no water. I saw a sign for water pointing
to the earth. I saw a sign for hamburgers
pointing to the earth. And I saw a little girl
fall off her tricycle. A poof of atomic tangerine
dust, that’s all. I never saw the girl again.
The tumbled tricycle’s wheels kept spinning.
Sleep, I said, sleep, little baby.

I like this one (http://www.ddaze.com/04LVResource/zVillanelle.htm) suggested by someone who commented.  It’s “Voice Mail Villanelle” by Dan Skwire:

We’re grateful that you called today
And sorry that we’re occupied.
We will be with you right away.

Press one if you would like to stay,
Press two if you cannot decide.
We’re grateful that you called today.

Press three to end this brief delay,
Press four if you believe we’ve lied.
We will be with you right away.

Press five to hear some music play,
Press six to speak with someone snide.
We’re grateful that you called today.

Press seven if your hair’s turned gray,
Press eight if you’ve already died.
We will be with you right away.

Press nine to hear recordings say
That service is our greatest pride.
We’re grateful that you called today.
We will be with you right away.

And the commenter Salicional also mentioned the following poem by Austin Dobson.  It’s called “When I Saw You Last, Rose”:

When I saw you last, Rose,
You were only so high;–
How fast the time goes!

Like a bud ere it blows,
You just peeped at the sky,
When I saw you last, Rose!

Now your petals unclose,
Now your May-time is nigh;–
How fast the time goes!

And a life,–how it grows!
You were scarcely so shy,
When I saw you last, Rose!

In your bosom it shows
There’s a guest on the sly;
(How fast the time goes!)

Is it Cupid?  Who knows!
Yet you used not to sigh,
When I saw you last, Rose;–
How fast the time goes!

And Chingo Bling reads “Wind and Water and Stone” by Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat who won the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.