Category Archives: Shi Sai

A ReVerse – 8 January 2023

It seemed a good time to assess the past several weeks of verse by crafting a ReVerse. I had every intention of doing a sevenling daily in the new year for January…then work, duty, and caregiving got in the way. Still, it is a good start to a new year, one of which I am optimistically hopeful. 

Even though 2023 promises to be a shitshow on the world’s stage. The inmates truly in charge of and running the place here in the US now, and elsewhere insanity is raging unchecked…unprovoked aggression and cruelty, war crimes, nuclear saber rattling by unhinged egomaniacs, lingering COVID. It’s a mess. But we are a resilient lot, we humans. And there is still, there is always a reason to be grateful for each second of breath, of life.

Take care of yourselves, be kind, don’t lose hope, embrace the moment. Peace to you.


A ReVerse - 8 January 2023

the trees will show me
a wise soul will surrender
in our hearts we know
the winds come
the sum of a life
wisdom to ponder
beauty in simplicity
anything but bleak
singed with loss, happy milestones, grief…
for all these beautiful years…decades
there's something in the air, conjuring the dawn in afterglow
was it barbarians at the gate caused Rome to fall, or complicity?

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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. 

A ReVerse Poem

Off topic today for Na/GloPoWriMo2022. Couldn’t really go there just yet. but if you would like to give it a try, here’s a link:CLICK HERE. 

Thought this was a good time for a ReVerse. Maybe bring me some closure. it’s been a rough year 2022, but i’m really trying to write a little bit every day.

Have a lovely end to your weekend…
A ReVerse Poem 

death comes a-calling
letting go to ride the wind, to fall to pieces,
on bursts of breath
Shadow follows close, a breath away
we don’t want to be late
(to) day’s fiery dénouement
we’ll tip whistling kettle to cup,
act like everything’s okay…
curse the Muse, blow out the candles one by one
think i’m gonna go unplug
the moments after the rain
because ignorance is bliss
after all these years
life cycles on,
don’t look back, but if you do,
(there’s) a cricket crooning loudly
this is what growing up feels like
spring on the cusp.
i don’t want your opinion
left in the wake of a visit from death

~kat


A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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.

A Year in ReVerse

Photo by Kat Myrman – Summer 2021
I stopped blaming the muse a long time ago. It’s not her fault, my aversion to upstopping my mind and letting the words flow like raindrops, like they once did. I left myself behind in pieces, managing the simple routines that got me by for these past several years in holding. Years of wandering, wondering, worrying, angsting, working too hard has gotten the better of me and I was quite content to lock myself away in shelter while the plague ravaged the outside world. The beautiful words that once swirled in my head begging to be released in prose or poetry muted to a whisper…only a few blips managing to break free in the past year and then some. Seasons have come and gone, children have been born, cherished pets have crossed to the other side, and I still work way too long and hard, but I am not content to let this wave of apathy have the best of the best of me.

How I have missed this place and you…and for that matter, me. I’ve spent the past week or so rereading my own words. I suppose it is my way of trying to find myself, to breath life back into my heart and mind…and it may be working. It got me to this page…it got me through almost a year of blather, sparce as it was. What resulted had much to say to me. “Whisper the answers you seek”…I am whispering, but know I will not be content until I am once again shouting from the tops of the trees…and so there is only this for now. Precious words gleaned from the gray…no promises of more to come…know it is my heart’s longing to return.

A Year in ReVerse

oh i can list a few reasons
soft as a whisper,
or not...i forgot 
days of rain, incessant raining
maybe not, doesn’t matter much now, 
sing the song of the night
dreaming in green
the world turned blue
the page, left wanting
sunlight lingering into the evening,
i dress myself in tears these days
winter coming soon, too soon, just saying
hard to let go when the sickle falls
memories of seasons past,
whisper the answers you seek
when all that is left of us is dust

~kat
A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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. 


Sunday’s Long Overdue, Long-Winded ReVerse Poem – 4 April 2021

Hello dearies...it’s been a long dry spell, with only intermittent blips of light peeking through the dark of winter...and me taking time to breathe after holding my breath for so long. I have missed this place and you, and the Muse has been an elusive imp for several seasons now, giddy I suspect with the woods that surround my house and weary of my rote tiny existence behind these walls of COVID-induced shelter.

You may have heard. We had an election here in the US. Sanity won, but only by a heartbeat. The losers, sore and swift to cry foul, attempted a coup, failing, still loom, waiting for their golden god’s next marching orders. I am happy to say that I am learning to breathe again...big breath in...big breath out...my head filling again with words, tossing around and jumbled, ready for the picking. It feels good to be back...slowly but surely I am.

Sunday’s Long Overdue, Long-Winded ReVerse Poem - 4 April 2021

and me breathing...
thank you dear strangers
do not linger
compassion prevailed
their footprints in the dust long disbursed to the wind
age of Aquarius dawning
tick tock tick
full cold moon on ice
wash away the pain
when the air swelled, when time shifted,
words upon beautiful words whispering,
the clouds fell to earth tonight
it shouldn’t surprise us
how you dance with the wind when tempests roar
my weary bones need no persuading;
liberated only in name
bound in symmetry
here on the brink
only to be nipped
now heartless, empty
weary of promises, promises impossible to keep
the irony of it not lost

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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...or in this case, the past several months.


Sunday’s ReVerse – 29 November 2020

A look back at the last few weeks of verse by line. The nightmare is almost over. Four years of chaos is spiraling like a whirlwind. I suppose the most shocking thing for many of us is the number of people who voted for the chaos. America, we thought we knew you. Many of us believed, given the chance, you would choose decency, honesty and compassion over corruption, lies and hate. Those of us who declared, “this is not who we are” are learning that, for almost half of us, it is sadly who we are. Who they are. How we had hoped for reconciliation, for healing, for bridging the divide that has broken us. Half of us are okay with lawlessness, with separating children from their parents, locking them up like animals and throwing away the key, half of us are okay with racism, misogyny, white supremacy, isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, from our allies, aligning with dictators, our president turning a blind eye to a virus that is raging out of control, killing us by the thousands. It is shocking and heartbreaking to see the truth. The coming years will be challenging. And it may surprise you to know that I still have hope that we can do better…be better. It won’t be easy but at least for me, it means treating others with kindness. It is the least and the most that I can do. I hope you’ll join me.


Sunday’s ReVerse - 29 November 2020

innocence slipping away
fading away in waves
we shouldn’t be surprised at all
the forever greenness of our minds
when blood was thick and skin was deep
we pick and choose what to believe
but opinion can’t make it so

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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…or in this case, the past few weeks.


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