Cotton Moths are at the Cutting Edge of Scientific Discovery

They have created a machine
that clones more cotton moths.

Due to the complexity of the process –
and the loss of moth scientists
to the irresistible pull of the moon –
the machine can create only one moth
in the bright dark of the night.

The clone is dowdy brown and static
seeks neither light nor linen
and drifts effigous to the ground
without ever meeting its kin.

The whole miraculous event plays out in early Spring,
in a tiny ensuite in suburban Australia,
where dull, fluff-winged corpses
pile up slowly in the corner behind the door. 

**

It was brought to my attention that I possess a poetry blog! Truthfully, I’ve written a few poems and edited them to submit places, but life has been busy and leafing (figuratively) through all available journals looking for a good fit for them is o v e r w h e l m i n g . Anyway, here’s one I’ve written in the meantime with no thought to submitting anywhere. A bunch of little cotton moths did, one by one, wind up in my ensuite on successive evenings, and in the morning each was dead behind the door. Only about five collected there but it was a bit much death in the bathroom if you ask me.

Rhyming my way out of a funk.

Down in the dumps.
Blocked. Got the morbs.
Not in the mood.

Not to be rude; but
I’m outta bandwidth,
I’ve lost my groove.

Rotting in bed,
(figurative).
Empty of head.
Batteries dead.

Victim of apathy.
Lazing unhappily.
Caught by the feed.

Lost in the scroll,
losing control
dopamine bleed.

That’s just the way of things
life takes a hold of you
and begins to squeeze.

If it won’t let go, I let go
let out all my breath,
and wriggle free

and reset.

**

I started writing this while still really blocked and bogged down, trying to write myself out of the funk, and thought it didn’t work again. But then I finished it up today, which was a productive day in general. Anyway, you can totally tell it was written in two different frames of mind. Eh.

Gotta get better at that emotional regulation stuff. Would love to read a book again sometime!

Tempest Technician

Unwittingly, I scheduled inclement weather
It arrived all broody thunder at my door.
Didn’t so much roll as rip on through the house
shedding sparks of angry lightning down the hall
whipping the air to frenzy, fraying nerves,
and grounding in the kitchen with a crash.

Tempestuous timpani of tools by a tool
ready to rain on my parade, with loaded questions
already answered in his head,
misogyny drowning out all that was said
by any voice that could not compete
with this booming human hurricane. 

What fomented that one-person storm?
It was set in, I saw its history borne on canyoned brow.
Shattering our peace with sour disposition
black aggression left shadows on our moods
we weathered bystanders in a room
left ringing with the echoes of the scene.

His dark shroud wrapped tight around my neck
made my ribs a cage to a familiar forgotten bird 
shoulders shooting back to a longtime lofty home. 
I would not have invited a tornado into my house
had I known it was tearing about.
Nor a man so furious to be here.

I breathe it out, the aftermath, the mess.
This home clime is calm and warm, by choice.
That cacophony was never mine to bear
that ash cloud he carries everywhere
I’m sure; it sits heavy on his head
and fills whatever space he’s in.

I know the reddened face of ritual drink
and the acrid petrichor of a rostered squall.
Always, there will be debris in his wake
always, he will try to look away,
but here, I house a sunny day
no storm may linger. 

Some people.

**

This one isn’t from an April prompt. We had a service technician over to check the dishwasher and he brought his foul mood with him. Honestly it was like we were shell-shocked when he thundered out, and I felt bad for his fellow technician who had to bear that one-person percussion section in a small, closed space, and without earplugs!

Some people, man.

Imagine the Omelettes

Ancient goose, you were cut loose
out of time, to be deduced.
They painted you on weathered rock
spoke of you well past epoch.

The biggest geese have ever been
uncovered from the in-between
exhumed, examined, laid besides 
more megafauna’s weathered insides.

To hear your growly, earthly sounds
to have been there on the ground
before you were encased in stone 
and lost to land you used to roam.

A fearsome fowl; though sad it's gone
I’m thankful not to stumble upon.

**

Prompt 18: Go to an old draft, find what’s good about it, and write a poem / fix the old one.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-06-04/australias-giant-prehistoric-bird-is-more-goose-than-emu/103907202

Seasons Progressing

The trees are undressed or untressing,
drought incessant, repressing
the eucalypts’ growth, stressed into messing
the footpath with leaves
they don’t usually throw.

The rest are just ready for resting
now the cool’s coalescing
and winter is testing
the waters the west hasn’t sent
to prepare for the cold days ahead.

The let-down of leaflitter has dressed
the streets in warm russet sunsets
rustling round corners making nests
in gutters and eaves and in clouds
of sweet white alyssum
in gardens below.

**

Prompt 16: Outside inventory. Go for a walk and catalogue what you see, and write a poem with it.

Got stuck on day 15 prompt, kept attempting to write like five different poems about it and realised that I’m way behind now! Even when it’s quantity over quality, sometimes I can’t let a thing be what it is. Terrible habit of editing as I write, which isn’t super useful but is also just how I work.

Physics

If I am as you say, bright as the sun
which pulls like a magnet our only earth;
and solid as our earth, which holds like a magnet
our lonely moon; and beautiful as the moon
which draws like a magnet on every tide;
then you have no choice but to come closer
and be held by me.

**

Prompt 14: write a one-sentence poem.

Fatal Applause for Fungivores

My potted peace lily is a warzone.
Fungus gnats have taken over the study.

They are born and they commingle and then
they die. All in about four litres of potting mix.

For years the gnats mattered not; unbothered
their population waxed and waned.

But here, in the dry air, they seek moisture:
in my cup, on my skin, in my ear??

When I am playing guitar, trying to move cleanly
between chords, the little bastards fly up my nose.

The gnats’ days are numbered. You can blame god, or me.
Or maybe a jumping spider, if I can coax one to take a look.

**

Prompt 12: couplets. At least four. Reworked something I had in my drafts, which I had never considered for couplets, but I think was ultimately suited to them. I’m not a huge fan of couplets, but have found a few poems over the years that I enjoyed. Sometimes each couplet seems so far removed from the others that I get annoyed. (I’m not one for overly cryptic poetry, or even the cryptic crossword.) I sincerely hope a ghazal is not on the prompt list for this month!

Ambrosia

First, we perform an act of God.
To the still-living roots of a hardy plant
we graft the severed torso of an other,
frail, but loved for its fruitful decadence. 
We perform this rite year after year,
cultivate rows of chimera with youthful visage
and world-weary, harvest-hardened feet.

Next, we tend the vineyards.
We train our mutant children to open their arms wide
embrace the sun, shrug on sleeves of canopy
bejewel themselves with sweet gems of sugar-juice
plump and plentiful, and without blemish.
We cast a web of cotton over their green faces
covet them from greedy beaks of birds
whose small bodies, born to eat fruit and sing 
flock to our regimented crops, herald
the summit of sweetness, and harass the mesh in hope.

Finally, we reap what we have sown.
We unburden heavy weather-weary limbs
pluck each turgid orb of juice from its communal cascade,
tenderly rinse the day from dusky frosted skin
and gather them, glistening, in big wooden vats.

Then, with childlike glee we make like the birds
and sing; make like human beings and dance.
We stomp every treasured fruit into submission, 
split them open and macerate with violet feet
from which point on, we perform more acts of god.

We must; for we have tried standing in the fields
with our feet buried in cool red earth,
our arms outstretched to embrace the sun
but still, our bodies succumb to time
and age, to bitterness and heartache. 

So, we make the fruit-mash into a remedy
for thinking too long, a panacea for life;
wine-dark and potent in its healing of hearts,
in it’s ruddying of our foolish cheeks.
We bedeck ourselves in jewels, 
shrug on sleeves of finery and seek
to grow glorious and face the world
with the enviable perfection of grapes.

**

Prompt 11 – Take a draft and write into the poem, rather than cutting out. I tried to add into this with the description; it was already supposed to be a bit decadent, and I added to that, hopefully without padding. I still will probably revise this, although as it worked well for this prompt it’s still a bit sloppy from where I’m sitting. It feels like I’m almost there with it.

Never got to use the word vermilion in it.

At this point, the produce aisle feels like a Vegas slot machine.

You either get a crisp romaine or a week-long stay in the ER.
Customers shoot craps in the candy aisle,
conscious that chocolate and cockroaches cohabitate.
It’s poker at the delicatessen, scant staff stare flatly,
unimpressed at unsubtle sniffing from the line.
They have no tells, the ham could be salt-slicked
or slimy, but there are no returns of cold goods.
The chicken could’ve died with flu, or simply lost its head
like the lad who closed the lab, to save some money
for more important things (to be divulged),
but honey, them’s the odds. You live in a casino
you gotta pay to play, and the house plays dirty.
Don’t forget to wash your hands.

**

Day 10 prompt: borrow a stranger’s voice. Find something someone said on the internet and use it as your first line. I used this one as the title and first line, since it was a two-line comment. Tried to keep to a theme, as someone who doesn’t gamble and doesn’t know a lot of the rules, and as someone who doesn’t live in the US either.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is -g-r-e-y- also brown

The promised rain, the winds of change
a lie as ever once again.
I jumped the gun, my plans undone
before a one had been begun.
The sky is red, the earth has bled
into the air, into my head.
In shades of rust the birds have hushed
our days are bust, enshrined in dust.

**

Day 9 prompt: do something silly and write a poem in the resulting mood. I got myself all slathered up in sunblock and yard clothes and got all my tools sorted out to do some gardening before we maybe got some predicted rain, but then there was a dust storm. Whole sky turned red. Went up my nose. Got all sneezy and dirt-snotty, so now I’m greasy and I smell like dirt and sunblock and I’m attempting to catch up on napowrimo in lieu of accomplishing anything outside of the house.

I was actually gonna play guitar but my arms are all gross now. It’s easter Saturday. Which might be the chocolate day for the kiddies? Not sure. I only know it’s easter Saturday because yesterday my attempt to get milk from the local shops was thwarted by a public holiday. How dare.

Anyway, if you’re struggling to write currently and you get that moment of inclination but no inspiration to utilize it with, I can highly recommend just writing about any mundane thing to get your brain working while you can. Nonsense always makes me feel accomplished.

Also, the grey in the title is supposed to be strike-through text.