clean up needed on aisle 5

clean up needed on aisle 5

my mind is a junk drawer
it gets me nowhere
you know, I feel everything
I think you see what I’m saying,
Judy, at the Dollar General checkout
I’m going home now
but not before I check the clearance aisle
like I need more crap in my downsized life
i just might be a closeted hoarder
I’m just kidding (but you’re thinking I’m not)
the crazy rant of lunacy
and a smile that hides sadness
I’ll have you know that I have overcome every adversity, untouched
she’s super woman, mistress of her universe
they will remember that when I’m gone
such brilliant fool
who believed she could have it all and died trying
c'est la vie
“You know you don’t need us,”said the junk on aisle 5
have a nice day Judy, keep the change

~kat

Well…today’s challenge was a bear! (See what I did there? 😊). And it took a very dark turn before I knew what was happening! That said, I feel I must make the following disclaimer …the reference to first person in this poem is a purely fictional representation prompted by the weird list of prompts below…haha! I am definitely not a hoarder, closeted or otherwise, I am certainly no Wonder Woman and I am most definitely a bit “touched”, as they say, by life! So glad we cleared that up from the git-go! 🤪

NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge – Day Eight: And here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem:

1.  Begin the poem with a metaphor.

2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.

3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.

4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).

5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.

6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.

7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.

8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.

9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.

10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).

11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”

12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.

13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”

14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.

15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.

16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.

17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.

18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.

19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).

20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.


fish stick Jesus … thoughts and prayers

Fred Whan’s Fish Stick Jesus
David Howlett’s Naan Jesus
Toby Elles’ Frying Pan Jesus
Fish Stick Jesus

He was sighted on a fish stick,
on a pancake and grilled cheese,
Some say it was a miracle
so the faithful flocked to see.

They found him in his glory
on a toasted slice of naan
he gazed from ripe banana peels
and from unrinsed fry pans.

I know you won’t believe it
but they saw him in the clouds
as if coming for his chosen
from amongst the gathering crowds.

Ever watchful for their savior
leaving no stained rock unturned
the hopeful ever seeking
eager for his grand return.

So He came to them in person
wide-eyed, lost, without a home
in the hopes that they would know him
welcome him in, as their own.

But they ne’er saw him coming
turned away and closed their ears
for he looked too much like “others”
that the righteous ones all feared.

“We’ve just enough, we’ve none to spare,
don’t bother us,” they said,
and hovered round their idols
of his images instead.

When end of days for each one came
they waited at the gate
to give account of their life’s deeds
and learn about their fate.

“We saw you everywhere,” they said,
“and gave you proper due…
enshrined your image high and low
we stayed forever true!”

To their surprise the Master then
did shake his head and say,
“I only came to see you once
‘twas then you turned away.”

~kat

NaPoWriMo2023 Challenge – Day 7: a list poem. For today…after being buried in expense reports, power point presentations, spreadsheets, for about 12 hours straight, my brain is a bit fried. But never fear, I found this gem in my archive, written almost a decade ago. It fits the list requirement rather well, I think. Tomorrow, if the fates are kind, I’ll prepare a fresh baked poem. Until then, Peace and Love my lovelies! 😉


poison

poison

perfect, lifeless boys
in the sunshine
dead or dying
in this new battlefield
in schoolhouses
here, where guns
are business,
this country
where we dare not want
or mention the poison
claiming them
in such great numbers

too long in this season
is blinding us to what we love

~kat

NaPoWriMo2023 Challenge Day 6: off topic today. Just could wrap my brain around the ask. Soooo….It’s been a while since I wrote a blackout poem. I found this stunning poem by Molly McCully Brown. The title grabbed me right away because I live in Virginia. Her words resonated with me and my own experience here. My take after gleaning from her words resulted in another poem right from the current headlines. I wish it wasn’t 😟
Virginia, Autumn
by Molly McCully Brown


October, I’m dragging the dog away from perfect birds
lifeless on the pavement. By the water, boy in dress blues
with bayonets, the blistered hulls of boxships. Everything
is sunshine. Everything is dead, or dying, and this isn’t
a new thought. I grew up here, but farther from the ocean.
Each April, they took us to the battlefield, marched us
in schoolhouse lines up courthouse steps: here
is where the war ended. Never mind that it was fall
before the final battleship lowered its flag; never mind
that we still haven’t fired the last gun. What business
do I have wanting a baby here: in this body
where I can’t keep my balance, this country
where we can’t keep anything alive that needs us,
or dares not to, not even the switchgrass
pale and starved for groundwater? And still,
I do want. I search the news for mention of the birds,
whatever poison or disease I’m sure is claiming them
in such great numbers
: meadowlarks, house wrens,
chickadees, starlings. Once even a gray gull, pulled
open at the chest before we found him, hollowed
of his organs. It takes a long time—too long
for me to understand the sun in this season
is blinding, and the birds are flying into windows
all around me, fourteen stories up. Flying into glass
and falling. What we love is rarely blameless.
Is it a failure that I wouldn’t trade this brightness?
I imagine pointing upward for my daughter:
Look, there, how it catches in the changing trees.

Copyright © 2023 by Molly McCully Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 5, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.


poetic justice

poetic justice

there once was a shyster named Don
a scammer in chief, a vile con
to court he was dragged
by a porn star he shagged
how climactic, his just denouement!

~kat

A limerick today…straight from the headlines! You can’t make this stuff up! I shouldn’t be enjoying this, but I am. I can’t look away. Not sure I captured the theme…but the past few years have been over the top inappropriate. Hoping this brings a little levity to this absurd train wreck!

NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day 5: write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.

restless

restless

it’s never really quiet here
not even in the late, late night
my heart beat thumps inside my ears
it’s never really quiet here
is it ghosts, god, or me I hear
the words so many words to write
it’s never really quiet here
not even in the late, late night

~kat


NaPoWriMo2023 Challenge – Day 4: Today, let’s try writing triolets. A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetramenter (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) — ABaAabAB.