Zumwalt Poems Online

Archive for November 23, 2011

Imperfect information

Imperfect information

You and I face off
with battleships on secret squares
sequentially taking pot shots wherever we chose.

A thin board separates our lines of sight
A thick carpet, underneath.

This is a sequential game
even when I attack out of turn
each and every move
is built on the one before.

Round after round
we proudly announce
a target square.

Sometimes we hit
Sometimes we miss
But never fail to attack.

Salvo, my friend
When you are most relaxed
and think all is calm waters.

As long as there are ships afloat
There will be missiles launched
across these now choppy seas.

Salvo, my friend
All shots at once
against our better judgment.

As long as there are missiles to launch
There will be ships targeted
aggravating these now choppy seas.

But once it is clear
there is some chance at sinking even one ship
We pull back,
bend the rules,
re-arrange our positions,
midway,
put some ships
in reserve,
deny any cease fire
and secretly fill out our battle reports.

-zumwalt (2011)

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Giving Thanks!

There is so much to give thanks for this year, both in my personal life and regarding this zumpoems.com site.

Thanks for all those that have visited here!  Special thanks for those that take the time to “like” or rate the poems or comment.  This is just a wonderful treat.

I never expected so much traffic to this site or so many subscribers. Very thankful for the wider exposure this has given Zumwalt and many of Zumwalt’s poems.

Thanks to wordpress.com for proving such an excellent, easy to use platform.

Special thanks to WordPress for featuring this site this week at http://en.wordpress.com/tag/poetry/ (Feature on top right.)

Special thanks to those that have nominated this blog for the Leibster award.  That is a great honor.   I have debated about following the instructions of these nominations and creating a post of five blogs, but cannot choose only five from the many, many great sites out there.  I have tried to provide a platform for showcasing blogs at http://choiceposts.wordpress.com but I know it is not the same, and the traffic is still relatively low, so not much of a way of providing recognition.  Maybe one day… 🙂

Please take a look at those blogs in my blogroll — those are just some of the many great poetry blogs out there.  Also have tried to provide links of must read poems at Excellent Articles and Posts.

The best part of blogging has been discovering the wealth of great poetry and articles out there. I never realized how many truly talented poets are out there until starting up this site. I am  amazed at people like Brian and claudia that are doing so much to further encourage so many poets (check out their http://dversepoets.com/ site if you haven’t already.)  Particularly wish to acknowledge those that always find the time to visit so many poetry sites and provide such encouraging comments to the poets they visit.

Poetry is an activity like jogging or playing tennis that one can do for their own enjoyment, and that in itself is a justification for creating poetry.   I particularly admire those that take this activity to the next level, crafting, revising and ultimately creating poems that provide inspiration, joy or just fun entertainment to others. I have found at least a hundred such poets out there, and for me, many of them are creating work much more interesting than the work found in poetry journals.

So, thank you for visiting, and for those that maintain a blog site, thank you even more!

Wishing all that visit, or avoid visiting, or plain don’t know about this site, a Happy Thanksgiving.  That applies to everyone, in all countries, even those that have never eaten Turkey (or tofu-Turkey) and never plan to!

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