Some poems just for the sound.
  

A PHOTO
of Obelisk Beach, November 1967

Blue
          blue
harbour and launch and sky
          me
                    you

you
nut brown (buttercup top)
and oh your song crown long brown hair I still care I stare I’m there
swear you’ll ever wear your hair so no never stop

me
under-a-rock shock white (shorts)
in doubt throughout about boats
glad Phil’s here he can steer we’ve packed the picnic and the beer

Phil
like a rib bone
standing near the tiller
Jo’s hand
with red hat front hatch
having us in order
Alex in the water
and Tony on the camera
with the grammar of glamour (ha!)

no, it’s all staunch launch smell
petrol bilge beer but sun and seagulls and sails as well
ah day! our day! still
                          blue
                                    blue
me half bare your brown hair your sweet pair
                                    me
                                                   you
we’re still there

      2000
     

The next one was posted in Pffa (Challenges, under The Final). Richard Hugo in his book The Triggering Town says that Roethke used to give his pupils one hour to write a poem to the following conditions -
Use five nouns, five verbs and five adjectives from the following list:
      tamarack, throat, belief, rock, frog, dog, slag, eye, cloud, mud
      to kiss, to curve, to swing, to ruin, to bite, to cut, to surprise, to bruise, to hug, to say
      blue, hot, soft, tough, important, wavering, sharp, cool, red, leather.
Then the poem must have
1. Four beats to the line (can vary)
2. Six lines to the stanza
3. Three stanzas.
4. At least two internal and one external slant rhyme per stanza (full rhymes acceptable but not encouraged)
5. Maximum of two end stops per stanza
6. Clear English grammatical sentences (no tricks). All sentences must make sense.
To these rules, Hugo added,
7. The poem must be utterly meaningless.

LAPHROAIG

How arch the lurch of birch and larch
as tamaracks rise to kiss blue sky.
To curve the hot sweet caves of starch
Belief leans on a single ski
as though to church prepared to march
and sings a simple cymbal score.

The river’s snare beneath the snow
will frig the dog and dig the frog
whichever way the weir may flow
with waltz or jitterbug or frug.
Belief carved in relief is so
available in your Laphroaig.

The aye-aye’s eye of air e’er errs
in seeing what the ski is saying -
to say the sun-scene’s sawn by curs
is just a thought Belief is sowing
on the cool breeze that kills the firs
and brays to bruise the red snow sighing.

      2001
     

This one was posted in Pffa in Scansion Mansion under the thread Metrical Challenges #7 , on terza rima. The subject was to be Life.

MAN’S MIRROR

Man’s mirror is the forest good.
His hair is spruce, his chewing, gum;
his fingers, of the fiddlewood.

O gymnosperm, that pines to come,
behold the cherry and the box,
the fir, the date, the rose, the plum.

Her No has nettled, spite of docks.
He’s ash from flame-trees. He can’t stonker
all that bushfire in the rocks.

The redbean has him off his tonka,
but he extends the olive branch.
She sees the nuts, and stoops to conker.

He boughs and leaves, though seen to blanch;
the weeping willows wince and sigh.
They hear him mutter towards the ranch,

Life’s a beech, and there nude I.

      2002
     

This one ended up in Experimental, the thread with the same title as the poem. I’ll leave the riddle for your ear to work out.

. . . please stand clear . . .

ffffffive (six)

nnnnnnn-
iiiiii-iii-innnne
one sixty-six sixty-six one

seventy-seven

seventy-seven

seventy-seven

* * *

seventy-seven

seventy-six

seventy-four
ohhh threeeeee
threeeee
twooooo

ten!

fffffive (six)

      2003
     

The next was posted in Pffa in Watering Hole in the thread Can we please stop writing poetry [that makes sense]. The example - cats and wind - became thematic.

‘Why with the wind would cats’

Why with the wind would cats
     reaching as once trees tried
     for what makes hesitate the hide
or to the joisted fork where slats
like gills that gash the sharkskin hats
     of all the aether's underside
     with snide accord deride
a book of nots and nomads and begats,
take bush with lions under mats
     staining a chaise of pride
     still false, still undenied
in settee-settled sunset flats?
     The tortoiseshells abide
     lying and lying and lied.

      2003
     

From NaPo 2005, day 22. A knowledge of the national anthem wouldn’t hurt.

CANADIAN CLUB

meaning no disservice mcgee
you yukon icon you
we
stand on garden four
o
say canada u c
by the dense curly

brumaire its 40 blow
but pour
the rye smile and pass the frits
those windchill vipers lappin its
local slivovitz
from lake luitz to shining flanks
maple cakes staple yanks rocky bakes mountie banks
in a can
a
doo dah

native love in all bi-
sons an epo p
we
stand on gardiner expressway
4
d
o
yeah eh
we
stanley cup
for the

      2005
     

The last one was posted in Pffa in Watering Hole in the thread Word Association Game, anyone? at #14,774, in response to the spellings wikkid and nekkid .

ACID, APHID

Acid, aphid, bifid, avid,
flaccid, fetid, florid, gravid,
fluid, humid, hybrid, horrid,
insipid, intrepid, invalid, torrid,
languid, limpid, lipid, livid,
liquid, lucid, lurid, vivid,
orchid, pallid, placid, pellucid,
putrid, rabid, rancid, mucid,
rapid, rigid, sapid, solid,
sordid, splendid, squalid, stolid,
stupid, tepid, timid, torpid,
tumid, turbid, turgid, morbid,
viscid and squid,
pyramid and id.

      2006