Best Groundhog Poems
This February will not usher spring,
wisteria like grapes hung on their roods;
more pewter shadows does the season bring.
Now I've misplaced all the beatitudes
to lambent grasses flocking on the mount
as spring green creepers tendril up the posts,
the lilac blossoms teeming like a fount
of amulets to stay the latent ghosts
that haunt as far as April with their rime.
As Puxatawny Phil goes under ground
I've six more weeks of gelid hush to mime
the turgid verses of this numbing round.
I rummage blessings as the winter girds,
yet somehow can't remember any words.
Deemed significant culturally,
a fantastic and old comedy
is this film I love,
which is the tale of
a weatherman played by Bill Murray.
This weatherman Phil has been sent
to cover the groundhog event.
He’s so hard to please,
and that’s because he’s
an arrogant cynical gent.
There’s a blizzard and Phil’s forced to stay
in Punxsutawney for one more day.
He awakes. Something’s wrong!
“I Got You Babe,” the song
by his bedside is what he hears play.
It’s the same song from the day before
when he woke up at six. Out the door,
he goes onto the street.
Things repeat and repeat.
This is something that he can’t ignore.
In a time loop he’s stuck! Each time when
he is hearing “I Got You Babe,” then
that man, once so vain,
begins going insane.
Groundhog Day comes again and again!
When he understands that there won’t be
any punishment whenever he
does anything wrong,
it isn’t for long
before Phil behaves most crazily.
He drives reckless and binges on beer.
Since tomorrow will never grow near,
he drives right off a cliff!
He would not do that if
there were hope, so he’s lost all his fear.
There’s a woman that Phil’s come to know,
and he talks to her every day, so
he can learn more and more
how to make her adore
him! His feelings for her start to grow.
With his efforts to win Rita’s heart,
Phil begins to appreciate art.
He learns French and to play
the piano! Each day
in the townspeople’s lives he takes part.
Seven years come and go. By year eight,
Phil has changed. But will this change his fate?
Knowing everyone’s needs,
he is doing good deeds,
and in Rita’s eyes, Phil’s looking great!
It’s his last Groundhog Day when Phil learns
his life’s lesson. This time his world turns!
Through the great power of
unconditional love
and his good works, a NEW day Phil earns!
“I Got You , Babe” plays next to his head.
But it’s NOT Groundhog’s Day, for instead,
Phil wakens to see
unbelievably
true love won! Rita’s with him in bed!
March 27, 2018 for the FAVORITE COMEDY MOVIE Contest of Alexis Y
Juggernaut winds howling south;
Arctic colds, chill, in their mouths.
No respite through winter days
Unless north creep sunshine’s rays.
And the groundhog comes too late
Relegating to its fate
Year’s first month a gray estate.
1/2/2019
emerges from burrow
sunrays fade through graying clouds
early spring crocus
2/1/2022
Groundhog Day (Pennsylvania German: Grund'sau dåk, Grundsaudaag, Grundsow Dawg, Murmeltiertag; Nova Scotia: Daks Day)[1] is a popular North American tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den, and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
white skies . . .
a grumpy groundhog
emerges
2-2-22
© Connie Marcum Wong
*I wrote this a few years ago, but don't think I ever posted it?
Enter the 'A STRAND (1065)' Poetry Contest. 2-3-22~N/A~
Sponsor Brian Strand
“Let go your hold
Your hands are cold
And it’s getting old
When I am un-holed
My soul’s been sold
So they can behold
That a marmot’s found gold
Since they think I’ve foretold
And cast a dark spot
Or maybe not
Coz all I got
Is a long shot
See my nerves are shot
Since I don’t know squat
And danger is fraught
If I show what is naught
Yet they still seek
Punx Phil’s mystique
And ask that I speak
But I only squeak
Then they’ll all peek
At my chubby physique
Of which they’ll critique
Plus there’s still six more weeks”
Take that long walk along the creek
where the ducks chose to hide
won't be long now., let it flow
leavin' nothing to decide.
Give back those days in mist, a sun's last ray
lost to wind and left to time
soft voice traveled on my mind
tomorrow's just another groundhog day.
Lookin out wide window at a frosted place
fingers unwound from soft bluegrey lace
song swimmin in your brain.. does it matter
or did it ever
though you still see a lovely face..
Wonder now, was there anything left to say
look down and remember
that smiling face of December
and tomorrow's just another groundhog day.
A groundhog named Phil, loved to play
In the sun, he would loll
Away the hours, after filling
Up on plants, grubs, and all
At nightfall his small den entered
For a long nap each day
As summer passes he is
Fattened, in his den to stay
He dreams of spring and amore
When he leaves his small den
To find his love and again live
He doesn't want the pen
Every year he has to please man
Come live inside a cage
To predict when spring will spring warm
This job fills him with rage
This year Phil is running away
Hiding deep in the woods
No one is going to stop his
Amore is this understood?
If you do find him where hiding
Don't place your hand inside
He will fight like a banshee
Winning is his sole pride
Sponsor: John Lawless
Contest: Punxsutawney Phil Speaks
Written: January 30, 2015
(a double Memento form)
Midway between the Equinox
of winter and the spring
appears
a prophet most unorthodox.
For weather, Phil's the king
of seers.
He lives on food you'd feed a dog,
each winter has one goal:
to sleep.
But February this small "hog,"
awakes and leaves his hole
to peep!
And though there be no clouds, no rain,
his shadow's something bad
to see!
Into his hole he goes again. . .
For six weeks, winter-clad
we'll be.
But if no shadow should he make,
oh joy! Above the ground
he'll stay.
And no one cares if Phil's a fake.
The critter is renowned
this day!
A groundbreaking weather struggle has evolved today
over the length of this Year,s chill
Early Spring said Staten Island Chuck
forecasting through the muck
whilst he was disparaged as a quack
by Puxstawney Phil
Whichever rodents predictions fits you best
it might be time to second-guess
whether Puxstawney Phil and Staten Island Chuck
need to take a new meteorologist test!
I come out of my hole
everyone is staring at me,
what exactly do they want?
Why won't they let me be?
Every single year that passes
I always have to endure pain,
look to the sky you stupid people
I can tell it's going to rain!
They keep waking me up
every, stinking, bitter, freezing year,
I just want to be left alone to sleep
every February second, brings me to tears.
Just because your stupid calendar says
to come by and knock on my door,
"Stay right where you are please
I'm feeling rather ill and poor."
The door gets knocked down anyway
they let in the harsh, Winter chill,
"I'm trying to have a bath right now
and I've taken a headache pill."
I've tried my best to run away
they grab me by the scruff of my neck,
haul me out of my protective home
and I yell, "WHAT IN THE LIVING HECK?!"
I try to wriggle myself free
just want to scream and shout,
but all I can do right at this moment
is stare at these stupid people . . . and pout.
Copyright © Cynthia Jones
Feb.2/2015
Poor groundhog. Being manhandled. LOL
Who knows just how he met his end?
I found him floating in my pond.
Swollen, bloated abdomen;
the rest off to the Great Beyond.
The weather has been hot and dry;
the pond: a bit of water there.
He may have jumped; poor little guy.
Smooth-sided walls became a snare.
Suppose that I should shed a tear;
forgive me if I do not cry.
One wrecked my garden crop last year,
so I will simply say goodbye.
Walks through the back yard
it is looking for some friends
so they can play cards.
Copyright © Cynthia Jones
May.27/2012
This is my own style of poetry.
After your butterfly alighted my dreams,
I never forgot your kiss,
You became the object of my vespers,
The refuge for my injured toiling chest.
I await your spectacle, your curtain call.
Your fragile teasing dance.
Like Groundhog Day, I predict your fluttering
Wings, the wavy flurry of your bowstrings,
Again and again.
What wonder comes next?
Are you counting down my dreams?
Since 1886 thousands of people have been traveling to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania every Groundhog Day to see if they’re in for 6 more weeks of winter or if spring is on its way.
Yesterday Phil the groundhog saw his shadow on his special day…predicting 6 more weeks of winter is about to head our way.
A fun fact: the German’s brought this tradition with them to America with one slight contradiction…In Europe they looked to hedgehogs for their end of winter prediction.
But they couldn’t find hedgehogs in Pennsylvania and, at first, were unsure what to do…
until they noticed Phil and his abundance of relatives and thought…groundhogs will do.
Since then every year people gather in Punxsutawney anticipating the news about their clime…it doesn’t matter to them that Phil’s gets it right only 39% of the time.
I mean come on people if you’re really want to know what nature has in store…turn on the your TV set...that’s what Doppler radar’s for!
No, we tune in to Punxsutawney on Groundhog day not for the magic but the mystique.
because in a world that’s constantly changing it is tradition that we seek.
In a world that’s moving not always in the direction we would like….but always much too fast…we return to our traditions and our ceremonies that remind us of our past.
Perhaps in Phil we see a simpler time, with less responsibilities and woe
when all we had to worry about was the an early spring or a little more winter snow.
As for me I don’t care if Phil is some kind of climate prodigy or if he’s not a weather whiz
Because I live in Florida and in Florida…no matter what Phil sees…
we have no idea what winter is.