Tag Archives: current events

day 254

no cause for celebration

they got him
justice will be served
swift and cold
as the rush
to opposite camps
widens the chasm
that is breaking us
into us and them
good radicalism vs bad
the long arm of the law
applied only to non-loyalists
and our nation’s leader
fomenting hate
for non-cult members
on faux news…
they got him
for the senseless death
of yet another victim
in the growing number
of those who have become
martyrs to a culture
of unregulated militias
a legacy left to survivors
to sort out if they hope
to have a future
I used to hope
for the future
now I’m good
if I live to see
another day
that is enough
even if it’s not

~kat

I have been struggling this week. No one…no one should die an untimely death at the hands of an assassin with a gun. Not Charlie, not Fletcher and Harper, not Melissa and Mark and their beloved dog Gilbert, to name those recently added to the list of casualties from gun violence in this country. It is heartbreaking.

But what is even more disturbing is the way that these events are dividing us. There is an all or nothing test being applied in this most recent tragedy. People of all persuasions are being pressured to join the posthumous edification of this person, who in life wanted LGBTQ people executed, stated that people of color were inferior, that women should not be allowed to vote, or have autonomy over their own body, and most deplorable, that a few deaths a year from gun violence was a “fair deal” to ensure 2nd amendment rights for all people over the age of 18. No flags at half staff for children gunned down, no medals of freedom proposed for congress members who are not maga, who were gunned down in their homes. But for this guy, because he helped win DT an election, and was friends with JR and JD, we should all come together in unity to honor his life. I feel terrible for his family, his wife and young kids, but I can’t, I won’t feed the narrative that he was a great patriot and a hero. He was not.

So this where we are. Gone are the days when we could be civil with each other, listen, and debate, and even learn from each other. There is only one approved way to be and believe these days. And if you‘re not on board, you’re out, the enemy, evil…I’ll spare you all the descriptors.

If I am an enemy, then may I be opposed to hate, to cruelty, to misogyny, to racism, to dictatorships, to white supremacy, to monsters who prey on women and girls, to liars, grifters, and pro birthers who don’t give a damn for children once they are born. There is more, but I’m weary of this coup. And we’re it even a full year into this nightmare.

I started the year with the intention of sharing glimmers with you every day. While I was writing this…I was visited by a pair of deer…and a few hummingbirds too (though they were too fast for me to catch a snapshot)! Nature and life moments never fail me.

Much love, peace, and glimmers to you!

~kat ✨✨✨💚💚💚✨✨✨


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.

alternative mentality

alternative mentality

science warned of global warming

hoped the world would heed their call

now ancient forests burn and fall,

tempests rage, o’er oceans, swarming,

plagues, death, riots in the streets

and through it all, our leader tweets

nothing to see here, all is great

it’s all a hoax, you’ll see, just wait…

our only hope is his defeat

~kat


For today’s challenge at Ronovanwrites, write a décima where the word FALL must be one of the B line words. Then the other B line(s) word(s) must rhyme with FALL.

A Décima is a 10-line poem with 8 syllables per line. The rhyme pattern is: abbaaccddc. Further study of this form indicates that the subject matter of a Décima tends to be more socially conscious than some poems, taking on topics such as philosophy, politics, dogma, and religion. It can also be in the form of satire, criticism or insulting to an enemy/opponent in a situation. 

Sometimes you break the rhyme into two stanzas using the following rhyme pattern.

abba/ccddc


Cinqku #6

 

Couldn’t resist…besides, we all need something to smile about these days…

sharpiegate1

photo credit: Chip Somodevilla 2019 Getty Images

sharpie-
gate is proof
in permanent
black scratches that trump is
crazy

~kat

sharpiegate

A compilation of social media response to Sharpiegate.


A cinqku must always have 5 lines and a perfect seventeen-syllable count. The lines typically follow a 2,3,4,6,2 format. There is no title requirement on the second line. As for syntax and diction styles, it follows the free Tanka style originally. There are no metric requirements for a cinqku poem. Additionally, the final line must contain a cinquain or kireji turn for emphasis.