Monthly Archives: September 2018

September Poem #30

just breathe
inhale, exhale,
you are having a moment
right here, right now, you are present
listen…there is birdsong

~kat


The Phoenix

 

phoenix

i will vanish;
the flesh will die
my hands, my skin
and bone, it feels
like hell, so real…
i say, enough
my scars, my heart,
a touch of blood,
your opus that
melts to nothing,
beware, beware
out of the ash
i rise like air

~kat

A Black Out Poem for MindLoveMisery’sMenagerie Sunday Writing Promptbased on Sylvia Plath’s Poem, “Lady Lazarus” as seen with bold (Black Out) text below.


Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanishin a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
Whata trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
Myknees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
Tolast it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feelsreal.
Iguess you could sayI’ve a call.

It’seasy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’sthe theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—
You poke andstir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I risewith my red hair
And I eat men like air.

 


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 30 September 2018

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There is an air of despair and hopelessness, as bitter old men ram through a questionable candidate for the highest court in our land, to reign over us for a lifetime. 

Our nation was riveted to ‘credible’ testimony laced with accounts of a lifetime of pain resulting from trauma and responded to with pent up privileged rage. It left us tearful and aghast, this spectacle that summed up the chasm between us. It left us with more questions than answers and a clear view into the soul of an elite powerful class in the final throws of power. It revealed to us that there is nothing the powerful will not do or say to keep their power, the rest of us be damned. 

There is a pattern to the assaults on equality, dignity, and fairness that has transpired over the past few years. Among those in power are the privileged, old white men and their fawning little women, and evangelical pro-lifers who are happy to sell their souls if it means edging them closer to a dystopian heaven on earth a la Gilead (see Handmaid’s Tale). Those who suffer abuse at the hands of this power base are disproportionately female, young, sick, poor, marginalized, ethnic, immigrant, or people of color. Heaven, it seems is only for the chosen and we are all painfully reminded daily who is chosen and who is not. We know them by their fruits as their tome reminds us. Rotten to the core, but ever righteous according to this twisted doctrine, their transgressions covered in the blood of the lamb (aka the meek). That referenced verse is ironic in a terrifying way. 

It’s not for me to say who’s telling the truth. The fact is, truth doesn’t really matter. What I do know is what cannot be unseen…the spectacle of this candidate for a position on the Supreme Court’s performance. It smacked of his being temperamentally unhinged, rage-full, vindictive, and blatantly partisan as revealed by his own words when he repeated wild conspiracy theories against democrats. If he is pushed through to that esteemed seat on the bench, will we ever be able to trust in the wisdom, justice and impartiality that our founders envisioned? I think not. Of all the tragedies that have resulted from this week of blight, this is the worst and most far reaching damage anyone can imagine. It is stunning to witness. Democracy unraveling.


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 30 September 2018

and the moon’s made of cheese
there, waiting in the dark…
to feed your narcissism
if you remember all who came before you
life has a way of surprising us.
thoughts, words mean nothing
when tossed into a cesspool
tick tock so very slowly
she weeps fallow fronds,
as smoke with no fire
truth hid, on holiday
morning will never bring peace
never too late for a do over
dreams never end
believing a thing,
wounds too deep to heal unaided,
it just was’t in the cards.

~kat

A ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week.


A Six Word Story

It just was’t in the cards.

~kat

This week’s Six Word Story Challenge comes from Kirst at KirstWrites. The prompt word is Game.


September Poem #29

weeping,
the survivors,
unearthing buried mem’ries,
wounds too deep to heal unaided,
none to stop the bleeding

~kat


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