Ever since I took up writing as a serious hobby some 20 years ago, I have devoted far more time and effort to prose than poetry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy poetry. Many poems, especially those written by the romantics, can stir my emotions and send my thoughts soaring back into a blissful bucolic past or forward into an intriguing imaginary future. A richly textured poem with striking imagery and subtle meanings can embed itself in my memory and be recalled with fondness months after I’ve read or heard it.

I’m lucky enough to have belonged to a number of writing groups that included excellent poets among their members. Betty Bleen and her husband Doug Montgomery wrote some excellent poems for Writers’ Ink’s anthology, Just Paper and Ink. I’ve also enjoyed many of the verses in Betty’s chapbook, Bad Red Shoes. The GEM-C Writers (originally based at Columbus State) have had their share of inspiring poets, too. I have no doubt that poems such as Chris Minton’s “Garbage” and Nora Holt’s “Just One More Time” made the group’s anthology, Lost and Found, better than it would otherwise have been.

I recently met another poet whose poems stir my spirit. I first heard Linda Fuchs read her poems at a Writer’s Ink meeting. More recently, she presented some of the same poems at a GEM-C Writers’ gathering at the Seton West Apartments. Linda admits that for the last two years, writer’s block has prevented her from writing any new poems. Maybe if she sees her work published here, that problem will disappear. In any case, the three poems below — “Fallen Flower,” “A Soldier’s Last Day at Home,” and “Country, City” — are well worth reading.

Fallen Flower

tried internet dating

your pic is arresting

your interests are intriguing

we text for many weeks

then we sexted

shall we Zoom

we’d rather meet

I’ll be wearing a pink carnation

you’ll have a copy of The Catcher in the Rye

I see you through the window looking for me

catching my eye you look startled

I’m not quite what you expected

my pic was from years ago

you also look different

bald pate

30 years older

50 pounds heavier

we laugh at our little deceptions

conversation starts predictably

where do you work

what is your favorite

movie

food

vacation spot

book

slowly you insert slightly racist ideas

and sexist views

then you say it is normal

and even beautiful

to sleep naked with children

horrified I get up to “freshen up”

I run for the door

trying to escape his views and lifestyle

I bump into someone on my way out

my carnation falls to the ground

A Soldier’s Last Day Home

lying suspended between two oaks

gently swaying she seems as

unencumbered

as a child playing GI Jane

thoughts march to a tour of duty

and a future as bereft of

the things she loves as

a widow on a funeral day

sunbeams filtering through lacy clouds

kiss her skin on their way to the garden

double hollyhocks replete with color

stand at attention like soldiers

babies breath and forget me nots

decorate the parade ground

tinkling brook in the background

whispers taps

squirrels chattering

of stashes hidden below

a brief interlude while she makes ready

for the changing of the guard

Country, City

climbed the backyard tree

saw over the house

to the cow pasture

escaped noisy siblings

stayed up until hunger

finally brought me down

nighttime train chugged

whistled its lonely song

broke country silence

Summer of ’63

“We’re moving!

Dad is tired of the commute.”

city noise unnerved

sirens all night

too many people on the sidewalks

and in the stores

Dad told us

“Now that we have neighbors

you’ll have to keep your clothes on.”