Happy Sunday. Again this week’s Shi Sai is the perfect snapshot of the week that was. More ugly came out of the shadows rearing its snarling oppressive self in the world politic, but an amazing thing happened. People once ensorcelled by the droning spin started to wake up, started to speak up and declare, “it’s not okay,” “words matter” and “decent people don’t talk like this, or act like this.”

Oh there are still some mesmerized by the extravagant display of privileged unfettered power. Some who believe that words don’t matter, who’ve forgotten what it means to be a united people where everyone matters.

But somehow, even though the latest raging rants cut a little deeper, the truth found a way, like healing balm, to expose the ugly for what it is. And that gives me hope.

Have a wonderful week, breathe deeply and press toward the light! ❤️

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 30 October 2016

how she presses toward the light
Finishing a poem.
always breathe
the sand shifts,
might look you straight in the eye,
it’s impossible
it can break a heart,
so he scanned each face in the crowd…
(She) closed her eyes, breathing deeply, losing herself in the musky aroma of damp earth that filled the air
‘midst the thorns she thrives ascending
like moths to a flame
they were ensorcelled
we choose our poison
dark coffee in a porcelain cup,
but only from dusk to dawn.
~kat

The Shi Sai, (formerly known as a ReVerse) is a new form I came up with during Poetry Month in April 2016. I’ve actually been writing shu sai for years but was inspired to give it a proper name. It is a poem created by taking one line of verse from several poems of an author’s own collection. The shi sai is done as a review of a series or collection of poems and therefore, each line should flow in chronological order of the dates the poems were written (from oldest to new). The lines chosen should be the author’s favorite from each poem. This form works best if the author resists the temptation to read the full new poem before all the verses have been added. (It helps one to resist the impulse to change a line to make it “fit”.