PAD Day 20: On Haiku, History, and Getting High

So I just thought of a new poetic form. In honor of today, I call it the "Four-Twenty." It's simply four lines that total twenty syllables. How many syllables are in each line is entirely up to you...man. The subject matter can be anything, although something appropriate to the day (a reference to mind-altering substances, some psychedelic imagery, etc.) would be cool.

Here's my example:

"Dispensary"? Wow.

We've come a long way

from Panama Red

in a nickel bag.

(For the record, I haven't partaken in many years - I'm just getting into the spirit of the day.)

Today's prompts:

WBP: Write a poem using at least three of the following words - bear, collar, flair, hear, praise, ramble.

NPWM: Write a poem that recounts a historical event. 

PSH: "The Prompt: Birds and Bees Are Better Than Us

The Form: Write three (3) haiku using this prompt."

I combined prompts one and three to create these haiku. Each one contains two words from the word bank:

praise the grizzly bear

with no tackle he swipes

salmon with one paw

collarless cat

rambles through our neighborhood

on no one's schedule

radar-eared deer

have a flair for vigilance

and hear what we don't

For the "history" prompt, I'll tell a story I may have told before in poetic form. It's rather narrative (as have been a number of my poems this month - some of the prompts tend to lead one in that direction.) 

Spirit of Glassboro
 
I was sixteen, at a competition in Virginia
with my high school band, when we got the call:
Come back to New Jersey—Johnson and Kosygin
are having a summit in Glassboro, our home town.
We arrived the next day.
 
It was June of ‘67. The Six-Days War in the Mideast
was just winding down. We hustled off our buses,
all starched up in our uniforms, and got in formation
just in time to play from the parking lot
for the dignitaries rolling by in their black limousines.  
My bandmate said he thought he saw Kosygin wave.
 
The President and the Russian Premier met
at Hollybush, the historic home of the college president
on the state college campus, for three days,
talking about Vietnam, the Mideast,
weapons systems, and who knows what.
They came out to address us, the people crowded 

on the grounds, while news cameras and reporters
swarmed everywhere. We gave the two leaders

a warm reception, reflecting well on us folks
from the “sleepy little college town,”
as the press liked to describe us.
 
In the end, not much was really accomplished,

but the Cold War may have thawed just a little.
And no matter what it meant to the annals of history,
it meant something to me that I was there.