Junk Drawer

Floorboard time capsule spy stash treasure chest,
secret identity told in tchotchkes,
smudgy paraphernalia sitting chaste,
where are the doors opened by all these keys?
Yesterday’s faded clarities have chased

postponed questions from this walkie-talkie:
Why shouldn’t I eat up the cold, red plums?
What messages live in these inky streaks?
Who speaks from the holy medicine steam?
This drawer collects the whimsy of your choice.

Decant the junk onto the floor. Vacuum
off the layer of homogenous dust.
Now you have to winnow, to make more room—
so meet each object anew and adjust
the boundary between preserved and decayed

memories. Then close your shrine to sweet rust,
your miscellaneous matters of trust.

How to Write a Poem

First off, give up trying
to write a poem.
Just give it up!
Do something else instead:
basketball with a homeless kid,
laundry, taxidermy, nap.
Send roses to the obese neighbor
in the blue house up the street.
Email your dead mother.
Call three friends and make fun of them.
Walk across town barefoot
in search of the burning bush.
Gargle with baking soda,
brush your cat's teeth.
Wait for a moment when your heart is quiet,
then grab a pen and paper
and quickly scrawl
your soul's most recent dream -
not a poem, not a poem.

why there is still hope for us to reconnect with our source-body-self-earth

with thanks to the online etymological dictionary


these are my sins: (and their true meaning)

sin (with; truth)
sincere (of one growth, sound, pure, whole, with the crescenting moon)
sinecure (without care)
since (in the evening)
sine qua non (an indispensable condition)
sinews (to bend)
sing (voice, oracle, incantation)
single (individual unbroken)
singular (remarkably good, unusually rare)
singultus (a sob)
sinister (more useful, more advantageous, veering leftward)
sinuous (curving)

no no i mean these are my syns:

syn (together with)
syncopate (to shorten)
synergy, synergetic, synergistic (to work together, cooperating)
syncopy (to cut through)
scintillate (to spark)
synaesthesia (sense with)
synapse (clasp, fasten, junction)
synaptive (connected, copulative)
synchronistic (simultaneous)
synchronized (same timing)
sinclinal (to lean together)
syncretic (reconciling different beliefs)
synagogue (to gather together)
syndic (publically advocate)
synecdoche (part for whole)
synechia (continuity, to hold with)
synonymous (having the same name)
synopsis (to see all together)
syntactic (ordered, arranged with intention)
synthesis (put together)

succulent (to suck the juice)
snuffaluffagus (shaggy lumbering goddess)
sesquiquadrate (two celestial bodies separated by 135 degrees)
cinquant (fifty; homonym: 5 aunts)
cinq (five)
(-with-)

please praise my sins/syns/scins/skins, for they are magnificent and holy, praising creation

This Week's Prompt: Palimpsest

During this time of reflection and gratitude, revisit a prior prompt or finish something you started before. This is a fallow week as winter deepens.

Think of it as a kind of palimpsest:

Example Palimpsest: Codex of Ephremi

Wikipedia: A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book that has been scraped off and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = (palin "again" + psao "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice. The term has come to be used in similar context in a variety of disciplines, notably architectural archaeology.

Keyword labels: poem, palimpsest