This is my final poem from a stranger met at the Bown Crossing Library. Poetry for Strangers will continue, after a short break, in the new year. XO and happy holidays to you all, wonderful readers!
Just at library closing time, several people came up to say hello. One was Nataraj, who looked interested in my poetry project at the typewriter. He said with excitement, “I used to write poems in college.”
The Stranger: Nataraj
The Word: Awesome
The poem I wrote:
“I love that idea so I believe that it’s true.” – T.K.
Still I can’t understand the list of things
that I can’t understand. Any ritual, done
to the body with love, becomes a form
of good or should. And who can say it
isn’t awesome or something close
when science lifts from our customs
a vein of truth—for survival is a language
honed over centuries to keep itself alive.
The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.
December 20, 2018 at 9:53 am
Guilty Pleasure
The bachelor for the show has finally been found!
Twenty-five eager young women his way are bound.
On the first night they all meet;
with a kiss, each one he greets.
After all twenty-five introductions are done,
the handsome bachelor begins to have fun.
They talk. They drink.
They smile. They wink.
Conversation vignettes are scripted and edited in
with girls whose names are Tiffany and Brandilynn.
Words repeated such as amazing and awesome
are swiftly planted, fertilized, and blossom.
For the next ten weeks from eight until ten
I am glued to my TV, waiting for someone to “win.”
January 5, 2019 at 10:01 am
Awfully Awesome
My karma killed your dogma.
It was quite catastrophic.
Please, keep your ma on a leash
Or, at least, well out of traffic.
I want to go to Katmandu.
They say it’s awfully awesome.
I want to see what cat men do
When they’re not at playing possum.
They say that there’s a mendicant
Who beggars our belief.
He does what men don’t, won’t and can’t
While begging for relief.
And so that begs the question-
Why must he be mendacious?
The wide gaps in his stories…
We suss as so sus-spacious.
All of us feeling wanting.
I suppose that is our wont.
We are lackeys lacking,
Unable to avaunt.
Your dogma chased my karma,
While barking, down the street
Until it was caught up with me
But still felt incomplete.
You know it is as they say-
Dogma is a bitch
Frantically scratching irritations
But not relieve itch.
January 5, 2019 at 12:57 pm
Also Awfully Awesome
To be “filled with awe” does not conflate to “awful.”
Don’t you think that’s awfully odd?
Linguistic rules aren’t always lawful.
English is perverse and often awfully flawed.
“Somewhat in awe” falls quite short of “awesome.”
In this day, “awesome” is transcendent.
While “fullness” plays its role as possum,
“Some” is unsurpassed, unrivaled, and resplendent.
I would be thoroughly confused
If English were my second tongue.
Our argot seems much abused.
Meaning is mangled as our words are wrung.
How did being “full” of “awe”
Come to be as it is thus?
As the words leave from my maw
They’ve joined to mean the odious.
Go figure that the “sum” of “awe”
Adds to that much more.
Suffixing “some” breaks language law,
Broken now from heretofore.
And so, it’s awfully awesome.
It’s totally terrific.
That I find it noisome
That appends are less specific.
Were I were a King,
By decree I might repair
Words and rules by banishing
Those I find unfitting and unfair.