Poems submitted by Anna Wright
National Poetry Month 2020

Agrobacterium tumefaciens interactions with Mangifera indica

Young mango plant

Young growing seed

Push from the tumbling mess of weed

And gain the sunshine, gain the air-

Gain the microbe -but beware!


There lurks one special microbe here

Awaiting cuts and scrapes

He enters wounds and then insists

The host cell replicate


By conjugating with a plant,

He crosses all the lines

And forces all your cells to make

The food of his design


You’ll replicate incessantly

And form a barky ball

Abnormal growth for all to see

From one microbe so small!


Your kingdom is his kingdom,

Though he never was invited

Genome contaminated

When he thinks he is a virus


Beware this little microbe

Who seems to’ve lost his senses

Keep growing, but when cut

Prepare to booster your defenses

Jimmy Hendrix Stamps

My Jimmy Hendrix stamps

        are colorful.

They are not mine, for I cannot

        buy them

but I will use them

        in my mind

        just the same

Whenever I wish to make things

groovy.

The Poet's Dilemma

Of all the thoughts that pass through my head,

Of all the dreams and inspirations,

Only a few are kept and saved–

Countless poems never written.

 

Words may come as on a breeze, but

Countless thoughts are never chased.

Words may dance beautifully in mind, but

Unwritten words are always erased.

 

Writing a poem and staying on queue

    is not a very easy thing to do.

For when words are put to page,

    the mind wanders and poems change.

The main intent is distorted and dropped,

    dangerous potential in every new thought.

 

For how can a poet dismiss

The happening all around him

And focused, voluntarily miss

The very things that cause him bliss,

When the act of writing bounds him?

 

A poet’s dream is to express

in words what he does behold him,

But every moment not in rest

Is worthy of a poem.