Author Archives: Chado

Queer Fish, Definitely


Through varied ocean habitats
Queer fish, shimmering, roam the range.
Bewildering diversity
To us, on land, appears quite strange.

From Goby to the great Whale Shark,
Their weight can rise to twenty tons!
Such queer fat whales—one might remark;
(But this offends the skinny ones…)

Some are bloodthirsty; others timid.
They burrow, swim, walk, fly, breathe air…
Do not irritate. Leave them placid
To their submarine affair.

Aquatic warning/parting wish:
Avoid the highly venomous fish.

 

Queer Fish, But Definitely

There are more than 40,000 kinds of fish in the world.
Their habitats range from the profoundest depths of the seas to cold lakes and brooks on mountain timberlines.
They show a bewildering diversity in their ways of life.
The smallest of fish is a Philippine goby, less than a third of an inch long and weighing a fraction of an ounce.
The largest is the whale shark, found in all warm seas. Some individuals exceed twenty tons.
Some fish burrow in the mud, some swim, some walk, some fly, some breathe air.
Some are timid, some bold and bloodthirsty. Some are placid, some easily irritated. Some are highly venomous.
One, found in Australian waters, weighs nearly half a ton and has poison barbs a foot long.
Some of the deadliest are among the most beautifully colored.



PROMPT #4

write a poem in which you take your title or language/ideas from
The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both
its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts.

CHRIST IS KING

 


RIGHT KISS INC
GR SIN IS THICK
KITSCH RISING
ST NICKS HI RIG
SICK NIGHT SIR
KNIGHT CRISIS
SIN SICK RIGHT
IS GRINCH SKIT
KING SHIT SIR C
STINK HIS C RIG
HISSING TRICK
STRIKING HIS C
RICK SINGS HIT
RICH GITS SKIN
S RISING THICK
C RISKING THIS
THICK SIN RIGS
ICK HIS STRING
TRICKS IN HIS G
HISS TRICKING
NGH CRISIS KIT
RISKS ITCHING
I STRING CHIKS
SHIRKING TICS
SICK HI STINGR
SINK RIGHT CIS
NICKS GI SHIRT

Surreal Prose and Cons

Umbrella to sewing machine on dissection table: I salute you, old ocean/Breton scorns Hippies/Semi-automatic writing bursts from deviant posers in suits and ties/Euro-egghead Marxist manifestos/Hughes was right/the New no longer shocks/who reads Lautréamont?/surreal like a permanent collection at the Whitney/Breton scorns anarchists/politically incorrect smoke fills café/Man Ray meets Apollinaire at debutante ball/nightclub for nihilism’s fools/Dada’s brooding child/Artaud screams Van Gogh! as they forcibly administer antipsychotic meds/subconscious dreams of inevitable commodification/expect predictable juxtapositions/Breton scorns punk-rock/revolutionary footnotes to an arts thesis/who even reads Maldoror?/dregs of surrealism sold as T-shirts/waiting-room posters/hip postcards/neurosis celebrated/cerebrated/fetishized/fades

The shock of nothing new is so surreal;
Rebellion filters down and fades away
In images that T-shirt merchants steal.
The shock of nothing new is so surreal!
Nor Freud nor Marx can anything reveal,
And Maldoror has nothing more to say.
The shock of nothing new is so surreal—
Rebellion filters down and fades away . . .

 

 
  PROMPT #3:  write a surreal prose poem

 

Into Your Light

Poetry, when we first met
(I was too young to read back then…)
Your gifts were gold, and mine the debt.
My childhood was enriched again
And I grew older, full of hope;
I was not yet a misanthrope.

You intimated truths divine
And so I followed in your ways.
Hypnotic flame, I made you mine
To guide me in my dull, dark, maze;
Deep in a cavern, unaware—
Until you led me out of there.

Your lyric beams, whose light is sure
Discerned my unpoetic state.
Shining from realms where thought is pure,
You gave me sight, unlocked the gate.
Some despise your ancient beauty—
Others heed your call of duty.

Loosed from the cave, in sunlit weather,
Freeing souls from those sad regions,
Muse of mine!  We fight together;
Mocking dullness, slaying legions.
You (and Plato) are owed the thanks.
Guide us rightly. Lead the ranks.

 


PROMPT #2:

write a platonic love poem, not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love –
The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections,
and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.