COUNTING RAINDROPS

ONE raindrop

yelled as he fell,

"Ya-hoooo!"

TWO raindrops 

called as they fell,

"Wheeeeeeeee!

THREE raindrops

begged as they fell,

"More!"

FOUR raindrops

danced as they fell,

"Come on, jive!"

FIVE raindrops

sang as they fell,

"It's great to be alive!"

All of the raindrops

started to fall.

I opened my umbrella

to avoid them all.

      It does seem strange to be writing poems about rain when it is dry and sunny in Tucson.  Our big news is we might possibly have a shower on Saturday.  This poem is built on internal rhyme.  I'm not sure if I like that or not.  I'm probably going to play with it some more and see if I can do something better.  This is the fun of writing poetry; you can always come back and play with it later and try to do something else.   At the poetry reading I went to last night, Carl Dennis read mostly new poems he is working on for a new collection he calls, EXTRA ROOM.  These are poems loosely connected to the idea of "widening our circle of ideas."  Later he mentioned that in preparation for the reading he had been practicing reading out loud and had found several poems he just didn't want to read.  He said when he finds poems he doesn't want to read again (and again,) he knows something isn't right with the poem. He puts it away in his drawer. 
     I asked him, what happens to those poems in his drawer.  Dennis said that those poems get recycled.  Parts of them will end up in other poems, or he may just take the idea and start all over.  I did like the idea of reading aloud poems to find ones that bore you, don't sound right, seem unfinished, etc.  So, I'm going back over some of my old poems to find those that no longer please me to see if I can make them better.  It will be fun to visit some of my old friends again.
   
     So, today's challenge is to re-read some of your old poems and see if there is one you don't like.  Spend the weekend with that poem, making it better.  Have fun writing.  Have a great weekend and if you have rain, enjoy it.  Have you ever had a rain party?