Category Archives: Poetry

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 May 2019

I’m ranting today…if you’d rather not read it, jump below to this week’s reVerse. Peace!

You say impeachment like it’s a bad thing. Oh I jest…not! This past week was rough for anyone who is paying attention, and I admit, I pay far too much attention to what’s happening in the world. I can’t help it. I am a child of the radical 50’s-60’s-70’s. Being an activist and a participant is burned into my soul…like the bras I burned back in the day. But I digress.

It is no longer a mystery what the grand old party (aka, Trump’s party, formerly known as the Republican party) thinks of most of us. To be clear I’m speaking about the GOP, as in anyone who is not white, male, straight, rich, born in the US of A, unless of course your parents were here illegally when you were born, or you happened to be a true native who was here before the white scourge. They despise us.

They despise the children they continue to rip from parents at our borders with no plan to reunite them, they despise sick children whose parents have the audacity to expect healthcare for pre-existing conditions so that their children might have the chance to live, they despise the children that they force to be born, gloating, “you’re on your own now”, once they’re here, they despise school children who dare to come between them and their right to hoard arsenals of their beloved guns. It’s no secret that they also despise people of color, people of faith who are not bible-thumping, evangelical, so-called christian conservatives; they despise the outcast, the refugee and the prisoner, the sick and the needy. Don’t be fooled by their smug “family value”, pro-life drivel. They don’t care about any of that or us. They only care about the votes their lies get them from fools who believe them, thus keeping them in power.

Oh, and this week, they made it clear that they hate women. Unless of course they want to get their rocks off, engage in a little consensual rape (because no means maybe) or have a little fun, a little innocent assault, because boys will be boys, you know. Keep the viagra cheap and flowing like skittles, but not birth control for women. No make that expensive, inaccessible and for god’s sake don’t let insurance cover it, or pregnancy for that matter and make the women pay more for that insurance if they want to have a family…it’s only fair. Men don’t get pregnant. Appoint misogynist predators to the bench, elect them to high office, to the presidency even. And when nasty, uppity women dare to act like individuals, dare to expect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, make life a living hell for them. Remind them of their place. Remind them that as long as men are in power, they own them. Because women, according to them, are only objects of lust, hysterical, and weak. They need to be managed and punished severely when they get out of line.

It is head spinning to see how swiftly patriarchy is making its last stand. It’s ugly. It’s terrifying. I am outraged that more of us are not outraged. But like climate change (oh they hate the planet too, which is obvious in the way they rape earth’s resources for gain), we will reach a point of no return if we don’t stand up to this evil and stop them. Complicity and ignorance are not options. Impeachment you say? That is the very least that we should do. Our democracy, all that we hold dear, hangs in the balance. Yes, it’s that bad. I took a break from the madness yesterday. We should all do that, to recharge before getting back to it. But get back to it we must. If not for us, then for our children and our children’s children.


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 May 2019

petals bursting in brief, fragrant splendor
but for the leaves whispering in the breeze
it was perfect
deny their humanity at the gates
for tender hearts, anger oft’ turns inward
fated by the whim of a breeze
I won’t tell you why
patriarchy
is a lie
yep…it’s that kind of day
when Love rains like
like angel kisses on my face

~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.


Playing Magnets with the Muse

I could linger here
forever, surrounded by
velvet blue skies and
flower dazzled oceans
of green, the warm breeze,
like angel kisses on my face

when Love rains like
honey on our heads
the storms of life
seem less bitter

~kat


Magnetic Poetry


May Day 18

carpe diem already

time
enough
is a lie
some dreams won’t keep
while we waste the hours sleeping on them

~kat


Poetry form for the month of May: Tetractys/5 lines/syllable count 1-2-3-4-10.


May Day 17

old
white men
wielding
patriarchy
are a dying breed…but not soon enough

☹️~kat

It is feeling more and more like “Gilead” these days. 😳


Poetry form for the month of May: Tetractys/5 lines/syllable count 1-2-3-4-10.


The Edge of Darkness (with the Muse)

Photo by Kat Myrman

the edge of darkness

there’s a place
where the old,
the abandoned,
the persecuted
disappear into
shadows, there,
at the edge of
truth…I won’t
tell you where
the dark meets
the light, and
I won’t tell you why
I listen, in times
like these, to trees

~kat

A Blackout Poem based on today’s Poem of the Day at Poetry Foundation, “What Kind of Times Are These” by Adrienne Rich. The theme on the Muse’s mind, it would seem is all about trees today…and the current state of things. it is so interesting how that happens. I hadn’t looked up the poem of the day until after I had spent time with today’s tetractys and the sapling growing in a bucket in my back yard. Strange indeed.


What Kind of Times Are These
by Adrienne Rich

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
Meeting(s) the unmarked strip of light
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.