Today’s prompt was to describe a place or object and end the poem in a seemingly irrelevant statement.
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In A Southern England Cafe
Espresso pours into earthen mug Settled on laminate wood-effect Tabletop with faux-iron leg Bumblebee-embroidered cushions line A railway sleeper banquette The barista busies with cleaning Their precious monstrous machine Whistling and whirring Behind bouncy radio tunes Soft spring sun glow Spreads through the windows Five-thousand protestors demonstrate on Downing Street.
the denizens of this bucktoothed, ramshackled land weary-eyed, stiff-browed, sharp-nosed land like to toast grapes and flatbread to this land these people like to square off their fields of land gated like a precious secret patch of land and salute a half-masted flag in love of this land they kill for this land, they bleed for this land they starve for this land, they die for this land praise the lord and the heavens for this land then later curse gods and angels over this land become heathens and heretics for this land torture neighbours and friends for this land trample wives and children for this land lynch medics and journalists for this land deny humanity and life for this foreign land their greed will come for your homeland next
Day 3 challenge was to write a surreal poem, with Kafka’s parables as inspiration. Being a biologist, I always look to nature and its mindboggling oddities and the surreal comes naturally.
Kafka’s Vivarium
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Violently violet worms slithered toward their salvation; a needle-prick-thin well of jelly effervescing and seething. They shoved their way through, squelching and writhing, competing on who goes first. In the chaos, a war breaks out, two use their bodies to wrap around a third and, slowly, they stretch that number three til it tears, gushing gory guts galore.
The seagulls scented the delicious spillage and came with sharp bills and broad appetites to pluck them out one by one -a sharp pop as they were suctioned out the goop. The forecast in this glass Castle was unpredictable today, it would start raining down. Cascades of cicada casings come crunching and clacking. A guttural growl shook the substrate – disturbed by the hubbub, sending Cockroaches crashing into the glass. It shook the branches of trees, disturbing the fanged bats from their rest.
The great Rat had awoken. There was judgement without Trial — insecticide ensued.