Category Archives: Social Issues

Spiral

May is National Mental Health Month. Take care of you and yours…don’t suffer in silence. You are not alone. Peace and Healing ~ kat


back
forth and
rutted deep
sick spiraling
gloom’s unrelenting
misfired synapses
serotonin deficient
darkening blots on gray matter
…depression…
darkening blots on gray matter
serotonin deficient
misfired synapses
gloom’s unrelenting
sick spiraling
rutted deep
forth and
back.

kat ~ 21 May 2016
(An Octet/Palindrome)


What is the Truth?


Truth cannot be
found in endless
Google searches, it
is not the
prize of intellectual
exercises to be
weighed and
measured by
heady debates of
facts nor
is it an illusive
commodity that
can be bought and
sold on the
stage of public
opinion to the
highest bidder with
currency to sway.
Truth resides in
the deepest
chamber of every
living heart waiting
to be
discovered, waiting
to be acknowledged for
it is and always has
been and you
know it.

You already know.

The Question then
is, Do you have the
Courage to
live it?

~kat – 7 May 2016


Faithless

Social media is a wonderful way to connect with family and friends. But it’s also a place where it’s easy to throw out topics you wouldn’t dare bring up at Thankgiving dinner or in mixed company…not as in male-female, but in the political polar opposites so many of us find ourselves. Differing views, honest debate and discussion, are enlightening…But the climate of nastiness is too much.

I’ve gotten good at biting my tongue (it’s a wonder I still have a tongue!) but I find sometimes I just need to get the junk out of my head. So…I write. Tonight’s poem is one of those rants. My heart grieves over what we are becoming.

Woe to all the frenzied faithless
Wide-eyed, gulping baseless lies
Called to act in fear and hatred
Marching to faux battle cries.

Woe to all the masses blinded
Trusting in only what they’re fed
By charlatans, as they’re reminded
All Hope is gone, their God is dead.

Woe to all the haughty righteous
Building walls to hide their children
Claiming charity, their soulless
Lives beholden to greedy men.

Woe to hippocrates and fools
Who seek their heaven here on earth
Excluding outcasts, changing rules
Ensuring that their rights come first.

Woe to the people who’ve lost their way
Who’ve fallen to idolatry
The truth is just a breath away
For ears to hear and eyes to see.

kat ~ 30 April 2016


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 17 April 2016

A familiar sunny Sunday morning scene…lounging in while my cat, Casey, waits patiently for shadows of squirrels and birds to flutter by. Routine is a wonderful thing. Once entrenched, you hardly even notice it, and when you do it’s beauty and simplicity has a way of calming us amidst the chaos of life.

This week like so many recent weeks has presented with political undertones. But unlike some election seasons peppered with idealistic aspirations for the future, this cycle has been just plain angry.

And I get it. Things are not as rosy as we’d like them to be. Anger is a natural response to disappointment. But sustained, unchecked, venomous, fear-fueled anger accomplishes nothing. Like a raging fire it eventually burns out, but not without casualties.

Our better selves know intervention is called for to minimize the damage. Pure lunacy is adding more kindling and logs to the pit, which current politicians are loath to do. Alas, are beset with lunatics!

This week’s ReVerse is smattered with sparks of this hotbed of incessant blustering. Embers sucking air. But come Sunday I rely on the cool balm of routine. Casey chasing shadows. Sun-streamed bliss on a mattress. A call to pause and breathe. I live for moments like these! And I hope you have a Sunday time and place where you can rest and recharge too!

I would be remiss if I did not pause to remember the victims of recent natural disasters this week…Japan…and now…Ecuador. Peace and healing all.

And so…be safe this week my fellow word-pressers. Flex those word-bending super powers of yours, penning the light as well as the darkness. Each have their place; the light to warm and inspire us and the darkness, exposed, allowing us to release and to move toward healing. And one more thing…don’t forget to breathe.  Peace.

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 17 April 2016

This I can’t deny
Truth settles on shuttered minds, spinning in sound bites
suffer(ing) no regrets
promises to keep
each twisty turny
I remember when
Sowing seeds, midst fussy plots of weeds, their empty plates to fill
…because EVERYTHING is better with a little Sriracha!!!
It’s too late to regret
There’s nothing left to do but rise
There were a few brave souls but even fewer customers
Intrepid trekkers
engaged in trysts with metaphors
drunken noodles sweating steam
When the rose bush bursts in bloom
Sometimes fear is good.
Politicians count on this.

~ kat


April Poetry Month – A Poem a Day #2

Today’s poetry form: Free Verse

* Free verse poems have no regular meter and rhythm.
* They do not follow a proper rhyme scheme as such; these poems do not have any set rules.
* This type of poem is based on normal pauses and natural rhythmical phrases as compared to the artificial constraints of normal poetry.
* It is also called vers libre which is a French word.

I often write free verse at 3 am mid-REM. This is one of those brain-flushing poems, particularly poignant for me. Free form is my raw unfettered side with no boundaries to keep me from spilling out. Its form title, “FREE Verse” echoes the soul of this particular piece. Both of my parents suffered from severe, undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. Each eventually ended their own life to silence the madness. I have chosen life. The lunacy stops with me. I am free.

Childhood Crazy

He was obsidian in a naugahyde recliner,
a red hot cigarette tip, heavy with ash, suspended in the blank space between us,
Inconsolable shell of burdensome flesh smoldering in silence,
clock ticking, refrigerator humming, faucet dripping,
Sepia Jesus scowling from the frame on the wall.

He was white deafening noise.
A dizzy streak of laser precision, constructing pyramids of tin,
preoccupied with aliens, reincarnation and escape plans,
dismantling, rebuilding, obsessing over the unfitted, left-over parts,
ever seeking the subtle smiling approval of happy, golden-haloed Jesus.

Terrifying and thrilling, monster and superhero,
doomsdayer, naysayer, cheerleader, dragonslayer,
fragile broken parent figure, angel, demon, candle burning at both ends.
A short-fused powder keg, self-combusting,
disillusioned by fickle wishy-washy Jesus, pulling a trigger to end the pain.

His poison festers in my cells, lethal shards of DNA,
catching waves of white and crimson coursing through my veins, settling in my brain.
A childhood refrain of mania to gloom, neglected, undiagnosed crazy.
Daddy, if we had only known, we might have saved you.
Consoled with pharmaceuticals, severing the chain…at least I can save myself.

kat ~ 2 Apri‪‪l 2016‬‬