Category Archives: Shi Sai

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 March 2017


Another week, another Sunday. It was an emotionally exhausting week. I realized late on Friday that I have been holding my breath since November. Well, not literally of course. That’s not something I would recommend. But I have been holding my breath, figuratively, watching the world crumble with each executive order, congressional bill and lie that has gone unquestioned and unchallenged.

Some of us dodged a bullet this week. We, as in 24 million people still have healthcare; we, as in senior citizens, immigrants, the mentally ill, refugees, women, mothers, and those who hope to be. It was a tiny victory, but the battle rages on. While I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, the world lost innocent souls to terror from radicals as well as from coalition forces. “Bombing the hell out of them…” as our fake president likes to boast, is not a sustainable nor advisable foreign policy, especially when innocent victims are part of the collateral damage of such actions. It only makes things worse.

I breathed on Friday. For the first time in months I didn’t feel helpless or hopeless. Resistance to this speeding runaway train is not futile. Still, those wielding power in the name of privilege, greed, hate and yes, even religion, will not let go of the reigns willingly. But they mustn’t win. It’s personal. It’s important that those who are suffering know that they matter. It’s important that they feel loved and that they know there is a seat at the table for them, for all of us. Because we’re in this together; because…Love is all. ❤

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 March 2017

what are your intentions?
it is the sweet things
heaven’s awaitin’
selling love over death
death disguised herself in fleeting sweetness
sometimes what you search most for
(is) first to root in frosted earth
breeze by, nose upturned,
they whisper in soft kisses
sleeping with me, then leaving,
what was it with these people
proving they are fools
especially one whose gentle nature informed her conscience early in life
Love is all

~kat

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A shi sai or 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 shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 March 2017


Happy Sunday. Though I try to spin goodness and hope into my day to day I must acknowledge the fact that I am also a creature of my environment. I imagine that I am given a clean slate to write upon each morning, new in its graces, but it is not long before I realize how daunting that is. It is a balancing act on a fragile tight rope. It is exhausting. It’s impossible to blot out the never-ending stream of lunacy that bombards me even on the sunniest of mornings. Even if I try avoid all media and the cacophony of negative spin, lies and negative vibes, it is always there. Reality.

How does one rise above? How do I continue to press toward the light when I know that darkness is an inevitable end of each day. This week we turned our clocks forward to save the daylight, but the night still comes, cold, dark, sometimes scary, haunted by shadows that block streams of artificial light. Even the moon is a reflection. Try as I may I cannot hide from the darkness of the night any more than I can hide from the dark elements of reality.

But I’m still an optimist at heart. It’s there. The ugly. It will always be there. At the risk of appearing totally bonkers I still greet the blank slate I am given every morning with hope because beauty, goodness, love and truth are also realities in this crazy world of ours. They may be harder to find in the harsh light of day or hidden in the shadows of the night, but they’re there too. Today, every day, has great potential.

I leave you with this week’s Shi Sai and the paraphrased words of the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the frantic little man behind the curtain.”

Have a great week. Spring is almost here! 🌱🌸🌻🌸🌱
Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 March 2017

like breathy kisses
the old house was a writer
ever chasing the light
those who twist the truth
impossible to hear
it’s better this way
a fading memory
set in rock and sand
blossoms of love
from heaven’s vantage
stones etched mysteriously
eden softly dawning

~kat

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A shi sai or 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 shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 5 March 2017


Happy Sunday. Wow! Normally I would be trying to make sense of the lines that I lifted from the past week’s posts. But today, as I sit outside in the bitter nip of winter, the birds are trilling as if it is spring…like mercury colliding…moments of unexpected clarity…consume me…

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 5 March 2017

Simplicity, just being it, is best
Everything happens for a reason,
the past best left to ashes
but I always smile as if…
to have a do-over
Touched by the divine
its light burns fog into mist
A life of worry
It’s a waste of time
The cruelest fate
It is such a waste
But plenty
had to see if the rumors were true
to slip anonymously through the crowds
feel their presence ever so near
as a great flash of light consumed them
beware of the glitch
I see your heart
the loveliest flowers
Color me

~kat

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A shi sai or 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 shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 February 2017


Happy Sunday! Today’s Shi Sai is a bit like a ping pong ball that has pinged out of play and is now ponging off random surfaces. It happens. Sometimes my little experiment with words goes off track. At least at first reading.

It is only after a second read through or a third…maybe a half dozen more that I am able to decipher what spilled out of my brain over the course of the past week.

Sometimes I wonder why I do it. Why it is so important for me to write day after day; words upon words and more words. I tell myself I do it for myself; that it keeps me sane. That much is true.

And there is this other thing. I suppose it’s also true, for me at least, what they say about writers and artists. We long to be remembered, to be understood, to be known. I admit this part is true, too. I am entering the last decade, or if I’m lucky, the last two or three more, of my time on the planet. My life has mostly been about deepening the rut of survival, raising kids, sleeping, working, sleeping, working.

And there is a third reason why I create words, art and the like; to counter the negativity best expressed in the saying, “Life is a bitch and then you die.” I don’t believe this; that nothing matters. Everything and everyone does. Matter, that is. Like renegade ping pong balls we bounce off as many surfaces as momentum and gravity will allow because inertia is not an option, because not ping ponging is death.

Oh…and we bounce off each other too. That’s the best part. The messy, magnificent part. My words, this blog allow me to bounce off more of you than I ever imagined possible. And so I write. A lot. It’s as if I am saving the best part for last. When all is said and done…and written, it’s not a bad way to go.

Have a great week in and out of the rut. keep pinging! ❤

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 February 2017

I think I’ve missed the point.
we call it prayer
the power was ours all along
pools of vibrant life force welling
at water’s edge
fire meet ice
the heat was rising
what of the shattered remains?
I can be spontaneous
it’s not that I’m not strong, you know
it’s early morning drenched in dew
breathtaking
elusive
hear the truth
be windows
truth
nectar of the
fog
she had a mind and wasn’t afraid to use it
you likely know a scapegrace
when days grow long
memories of dying stars
we’re all but lost but for the brave

~kat


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 February 2017

Another week, another Sunday of looking back. The second line of this week’s Shi Sai was troubling to me when I read it back for the first time. “God is not there to listen”. What does that mean? Why am I troubled by this?

True enough, the world is a noisy, obnoxious place. I am guilty myself of zoning out; muting the cacophony that grumbles for my attention day after day, endlessly, mercilessly, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I do it to maintain my sanity. Does god worry about maintaining sanity? I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

Just what is it that I expect from a god, a deity or a higher power? Does god exist to make my life heaven on earth, or more specifically…

…to help me pass the exam I didn’t study for?

…to land me that promotion or raise or fortune that I didn’t work for?

…to move the traffic along; to give me green lights all the way to work because I indulged my own laziness by hitting the snooze button once too often?

…to heal me or my loved ones; even thwart death, making us all immortal in a world where everything dies?

…to win the argument or war that I have stirred up in god’s name…when it is really my own selfishness, greed or self righteousness that needs defending; that needs to win?

…to make this person or that love me, appreciate me, see me?

…to fix my furnace, car, toaster or unclog my toilet?

…to fix the mess I’ve created for myself and others through my own actions?

…to make everyone just like me, and if they refuse to get in line, to make them go away…forever?

…add your own “please god” here…this is by no means an exhaustive litany…

We let ourselves off the hook too easily by repeating “god is in control” when the shit we’ve hurled at the fan comes back to slam us in the face. -kat 2017

We’d really like to be able to “let go and let god” and “surrender all” but those “come to Jesus” moments usually hit us when we are in the thick of chaos of our own making. It’s the ultimate “get out of jail free card”, absolution and immunity from accountability. An “in control” god gives us reason to praise and celebrate when the going is good, while taking personal credit for our own good judgement for having had the faith to believe. And when things go bad? We cry out, stomp our entitled feet and gnash our teeth toward god who we believe has “forsaken us”; who has stopped listening.

It’s complicated. What do I really expect from god? In all my wailing and pleading and groveling I think I’ve missed the point. And the point is not whether or not god is listening. 

The point is, am I?

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 February 2017

the dreary gloaming makes me weary
God is not there to listen
a stubborn squatter with a frosty bite
“Tomorrow,” he sighed
I don’t need chocolate or flowers
bits of bread and stale saltines
sight is relative
the deafening silence had an unintentional consequences
I just don’t want to be left behind
it has no value
frail shells of starved flesh
the sea is calling
a speaker’s nightmare
what’s most important to survive
nature secretly longs
bread, day old, crumbs to sustain
what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall

~kat – 18 February 2017