handsome […] as the chance juxtaposition
of a sewing machine and an umbrella
on a dissecting table!

Lautréamont, The Songs of Maldoror,
Canto VI, Verse 3

UMBRELLA:  A glorious and bountiful life I lead,

reclining in blissful indolence upon

This regal deluxe dissection table.

SEWING MACHINE:  Ah friend, do you not miss the pelting rains

Against whose downpours humans unfold you ?

Were I not summoned to this dread platform

Shirts, skirts, blouses, jackets would I bring forth…

UMBRELLA:  My memories of rain, they fade. Regrets

for bygone inundations have I none.

Enough, for me, this placid, blessed vale.

DISSECTION TABLE:  Lovely, this chance encounter between you.

I embrace you with cold and shining steel, etc, etc. 

PROMPT # 5:

write your own poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive of a blessing

But seriously fellow poets, I cranked this surrealistic silliness out as pure formality,
so I am able to say with a clear conscience at least I attempted the prompt. 

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.

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