Best Kitsch Poems
sea-urchins in rock pools –
the flesh, a delicacy –
sparkle –
protected from the ocean
where anemones proliferate –
by a mist-glistening
heart shaped rock:
the keeper of my secrets –
a cache of memories
of mornings snorkelling
surface
eddy on the periphery
—homesick for my roots—
a keeper lost to shifting tides
white horses
masking risk in its wake …
a plastic wrapped sushi tray
on the kitsch kitchen counter
awash with the detritus of daily life—
a cold cup of coffee
milk skin
swirling like
liquescent marmoris
fluctuant under
fractured light
tender moments
where flaws hide in the spotlight
Laetrile induced
unsettling riptides
where occasionally colour swirls
marbling visions
the future liquescent …
I’m drowning in
proposals of memories
to be made with loved ones
family secrets to
be offered up
a dish that could be as
risky as Omakase …
smiling indulgently with my eyes
as a mirror-smooth ocean –
a north-westerly wind
whipping up the occasional white horse –
hides its turbulent depths
so a state of amenomania
settles over me
the final images
– as requested –
the secrets of my life
tucked away in an abditory—
eddying between past and future
the key to
unlocking it
—left in their hearts—
10/17/19
"Brand New"
I'd be damned to quit
Putting out some brand new s***
With a brand new drip
In my a step a brand new skip
Brand new tint
Steering wheel with a brand new grip
In a brand new whip
With a brand new chick
On my hip a brand new stick
With a brand new clip
The man who's lit
Got a brand new script
Just picked up a brand new zip
And a brand new brick
No better time to make a brand new flip
Never been brand new to it
It was time to get a brand new skiff
So I bought a brand new ship
Blessed with a brand new gift
As well as a brand new shtick
On my shoulder a brand new chip
Ready to take care of this brand new itch
Towing a trailer, in a brand new truck with a brand new lift
And a brand new hitch
Found a brand new niche
Only out for brand new not no kitsch
Accomplished it, and now got a brand new wish
Currently on a brand new mish
While solving a brand new twist
Companies advertising a brand new pitch
She got surgery for some brand new ti**
In a state of brand new bliss
In the air a brand new drift
The tectonic plates near a brand new shift
Soon in the sky a brand new eclipse
Purchased some brand new kicks
About to use some brand new tricks
All these brand new cliques
And brand new pricks
I'm going to handle it
In the dark, don't need no candlestick
It's my problem, so i'm dipping my hand in this
Stunning crafts like amulets
A planet full of inhabitants
Areas full of contaminants
Sitting atop their palaces
People obsessed with extravagance
Others starving and ravenous
Not all became graduates
Some got into accidents
Causing a state of paralysis
Folks so haplessness
This life is nothing short of fabulous
The verdict wasn't always unanimous
Still into cannabis
But not abstinence
Got it done, regardless of short handedness
Near and far from waters with platypus
I'm working on my own analysis
The results shall be nothing short of miraculous
By: Dalton Ogletree
Life without her
would never be the same
She was the loudest, proudest
most endearingly brash
sugar-sweet and pickle-sour
five-foot-two, force to be reckoned with
that anyone in Yell county had ever met
I confess
I was somewhat obsessed
with Miss Mavis' hair as a child
perhaps it was the fact
that she was the only white woman
I'd ever seen sporting an
honest-to-Oh-My-Goodness Afro
And her hair hadn't always
looked like that
I'd seen photographic proof
pictures from the 60's that showed
her having a mile-high beehive
lacquered with layers of AquaNet
utterly unmovable
much like Miss Mavis herself
Never married, Miss Mavis' house
was unapologetically pink
in varying shades
Pink carpet, wall-to-wall
pink wallpaper, curtains, bedspread
even the ceiling above your head
pink on the tiles of the bath
pink toilet?! pink sink
pink details down to the
homemade tissue-box cozies
Looking for all the world
like the inside of an old lady 'collector's edition'
Barbie house, with rainbow-colored clashes
of crocheted kitsch thrown about everywhere
piles of clothes draped over chairs
comfy but cluttered, it had a crazy air
of outrageous audaciousness
She was more comfortable
being herself
than anyone I'd ever known
so natural
as if to say
who else would I be?
It never occurred to her
to even try
to become someone else's ideal
She was that real
Restless soccer moms,
whose kittens have all become mature,
got plenty of suburban boredom
Time enough for sure
to get hooked on every advertised lure
As daytime soaps and gossip kitsch
are the mundane, daily double feature
So they buy themselves some
beautiful, youthful promises,
packaged in a slick cardio video
Victoria got some bedroom secrets
that frustrated spouses wanna know
Put the proper promotional letters
in the slotted payment space
Then they sit back and anticipate,
let that warm scented water luxuriate
their uncaged primal thoughts:
That lackluster romantic routine
with the half-interested spouse
has become so very predictable
Mannequin lovemaking so emotional sterile
When expedited delivery late evening come,
they strike their favorite sexy pose,
in their most come-hither revealing clothes
But such meticulously planned foreplay
gets the usual NITM treatment today
This last straw has stirred these tigress spirits,
but not in a good way
When the Good Wives Club start breaking bad,
there’s gonna be divorce hell to pay
Those Ladies Night Out
now grinds to an adulterous sway
Neglected desires are maritally hated,
lost fidelity mourned in Goth black
Intimacy ignored is so cold calculated;
bad math, write digits for call back
Cougars don’t like being domesticated,
coyote ugly do love to run in a pack
Foxy motives ain’t hen house overrated,
passionate predators are on the attack
Suburban lionesses on a stag hunting mission,
got dark jaguar urban jungle keen night vision
Painted panthers on a one-night-stand prowl,
coy cheetahs moving fast with their claws out,
Hot, feral women with cougar pent-up emotions,
are lethal loving leopards with spotted devotions
Passionate predators,
only lascivious hearts dare venture
If you got a taste for the forbidden,
then you got a wish to be eaten
Acronym alert:
NITM
(Not in the mood)
**Poetic shorthand —
Romantic Warrior
I’m a Pessimist
We will cry even more
The misery will increase
The suffering won’t stop
We won’t get away from life with ease
We are the gloomy creatures
We are sentenced to grief
What life but a nice covered book
We read, but nothing firmed in mind
The kitsch dominate the art
Wars run the world
And hate heads the chart
Love will diminish
We are heading to perdition with a leash
Made with solid gold and vile wish
Can we flee this darkness?
Can’t we just life break and build an utopia
I’m sick of sharing the oxygen
With wolverine people, bloody monsters
And haters whom pop up with no reason
The elements of life are five
Hypocrisy, hate, blood, lies and some love
We are brain-cuffed with something with something the call school
Pressed with something they call traditions
Free yourself with something they call art
And the pressure will finally lessen
But sometimes I think quieting life
Because them crazy bald heads as Bob Marley said
Will eat up you corn and ask for more bread
Because money is time and time is money
They kill more children, chewing their gummy
Simply because we are human-beings
We will kill each other and branch to several teams
Maybe you’ll say I’m a pessimist, in life I can’t pass
And if you ask: ‘’ how can you describe the glass is it half empty or half full?’’
I’ll say… it’s a foggy glass
The Library (Words to the Wise)
Shhhhh! No talking strictly enforced!
Most folks abide, except children, of course
And those who can’t read, don’t care, or don’t want
Goof off in the corners, or sneeze
As sharp, darting eyes of librarians haunt
Do you think you can do as you please?
The wisdom of giants exudes from the walls
Words that amaze, mesmerize, and enthrall
Lie untouched, undusted, forgot, and unseen
For racks of harlequin romance
Replaced in small minds by pulp magazines,
The classics have lost their last chance
Mindless amusement is what the world craves
Poe and Lord Byron must cringe in their graves
Dickens and Tolstoy and Steinbeck don’t matter
Now Paris and Brittany rule
All lost in celebrity gossip and chatter
The true kings and queens look the fool
But one in a thousand sees past all the fluff
They pass by the newspaper comics and stuff
To linger and learn from some eloquent master
Igniting a dazzling epiphany
A small step for culture to detour disaster
And rise above kitsch and banality.
Confidence fades away
Clothes to the wind
My cracking glass, the nightscape
Contorted into vixen reds and apparition dark
Seventeen
Kitsch eyes, as kitsch as a child
Crying in a kitchen scene over spilt milk
Shrinking under giant flaming wings of a morbid sun god
A flower in the rocks craving eleemosynary of sunlit droplets
Dew sticking heavy, a glue to papier-mâché the fine parasol
Poverty of any subtle scintella, a florid propinquity or velleity
Slinking into the puissant moon dust but with all the style
Of a dead inurement Sickert slick
My sui generis malapropisms
Cruel bowdlerization of a grouping wall and night
The hard outer shell of flesh
The ladybug, the thumb
The ladybird and stupid shibboleth.
_
Daffy, I said I'd write something called Bugsy :D
It’s Halloween and Winnie the Witch
flies on her broomstick with O’Bramovitch
mid-flight puss acquires a nasty twitch
both his nostrils flare, he begins to itch
his pitiful me-ow rises to fever pitch
shame cat's aren't fitted with an on off switch!
A Halloween black cat, folk may say is kitsch
poor Bram needs help, Winnie flies to Ipswich
landing at the home of a vet named Mitch
Mitch quickly mashes up some roasted flitch
Bram gobbles it all up without any hitch
he says his twitch and itch were just a glitch
Alas, Bram’s pre-flight meal - a Beluga sandwich
was the tasty snack which gave Bram a stitch
Mitch declares that cat caviar is far far too rich
so this Halloween treat Win will now have to ditch
Bram’s irate, caterwauling that Winnie’s a snitch
hissing all the flight back to their home in Bloxwich
Halloween Monorhyme Contest Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Caren Krutsinger
10/26/21
On Hollywood Boulevard
Grohman’s Chinese theater, The Walk Of Fame
Awestruck, frantic crowds tromp down the street
A swirl of accents divulge from whence they came
Myth and stark truth clash but rarely meet
A boulevard of tinsel, tourist mecca anointed
Foreign visitors now the sole true attraction
All a hyped-up charade, but no disappointment
Quiet on the set, lights cameras, action!
Remove tourists, hustlers, the Marilyn Museum
Costumed crusaders and peddlers of kitsch
And Hollywood is now just a mausoleum
To a cinematic history dynamic and rich
Just one district out of L.A.’s forty-two
Multi-ethnic, working class, urban blight
Yet in the hearts of dreamers passing through
It remains the movie land of sheer delight
8/1/22
6th Place
A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Contest
Yesterday cliche of a colored rainbow.
The archaic arc is a banal kitsch, too low.
Poets.... they don't stop using it although.
It's just optical science....no hologram show.
The hackneyed story... 'sun meets rain'.
The 'love' seen for years... again and again.
A tired metaphor.. nothing new to explain.
That pot of gold mocks.... the 'gays' in pain.
The VIBGYOR chroma has had long monopoly.
Poets of tomorrow....please search other simile.
Colors are now cold... don't hold them clammily.
Beautiful?!!..Oh.. Boring, ..Depressing actually.
Let's dig some Ozone holes in the sky.
How does it matter?
We'll see Ultraviolet...
We'll see Infrared...
Who says it's a disaster?
Let's turn, Black and White', the pretty colored laughter.
Don't let that shining visual smile live happily ever after.
31st October ,2018
i will probably die before you know the truth
before something original ever passes through my lips
about how you’re a ripple in the space-time continuum
a montage of things that isn’t supposed to exist together
a bismuth crystal wrapped in tattered bags
you’re kitsch to me
is it selfish to say that how i see you
is the only sight of you that is true?
you are something unexpected
i entered the dark mine that’s been too feared for years
and discovered that there is something about how crystals are beautiful
that passes through the general atmosphere, unseen
they reflect the light of what is around them
and they bend it
wrapping around necks and wrists
and fingers
and even the rocks that surround them
you’re the reason the antimatter and matter doesn’t cancel out
because you are the embodiment of it
and i will live in you, discovering you, and creating with you
like you’re the Earth
but we will not stay here; we will find our home
somewhere out there
and shoot off this place
like a rocket; like a gun
and put a crater on a land that is as big as you matter to me
you are the sun like a filter over my view
but that’s okay, because you are the view
and you have layers to dissect and analyze
and you will shine bright, nurturing me
the only one who will do so
the only one of your kind in this system
because i’m a distant, dusty mask on a shelf
it is very rare for me to speak to someone and mean it
to float away and stop possessing that mask
and become the ghost that i’ve been
and say I love you
for the first time after my death
for the first time in this distant shape-shifting spying game
it’s not a game any longer
now pull out the tarot cards and let’s create our own
because we are real
and real is something i haven’t been in a while
Last Halloween was scary
with evil brewing strong
when Peggy planned a party
and things went off all wrong
In tatty robe, her hair awry
she slaved all day with care
her neighborhood to satisfy
with an elegant affair
Fine treats she baked and broiled
and decorated in detail
until her appetite was spoiled
and strength had almost failed
The house she'd scrubbed and polished
to a frighteningly bright sheen
every speck of dust demolished
she worked like a machine!
But, oh- the guests arrived too early
before she was quite dressed
and between her looks, and manner surly
were somewhat less than impressed
And to make things even worse
they quipped in her living room
their clever lines, so well-rehearsed
“Oh Peg, we LOVE your costume!”
They waited half a second, while
still within earshot
and sniped with vicious smiles
about all her house was not
How her home was far too small
to host this gathering
with depressing rooms and narrow hall
too shabby for anything!
The kids came in rolled their eyes
at tacky Halloween kitsch
and consoled themselves by cracking-wise
about it all with Mitch
Now Mitch was Peggy's husband
and should've known her mind
but he said things offhand
that came off as unkind
Then Nan came in with Merrilee
a chef of snobby taste
who (nose turned up), quite warily
declared the food “a waste”
Then as the midnight beckoned
Peg raged against the room
(a “woman scorned”, I reckon...)
the party met their doom!
___
A Halloween poem to make up for my deceptively titled 'The Living Dead' poem... which has nothing to do with the holiday!
Creative side suddenly began to flourish
With mom's home interioir design.
Now I foster it, fully embrace and nourish.
Goals with my actions are to be aligned.
Vivid colors, textures, shapes, patterns, and sly styles
I could have spent hours choosing window blinds.
Visit furnuture stores in radius of miles.
Came unnoticed in myself. Was I blind?
I am not prone to impulsive decisions
Today fell in love with furtinute piece.
I have a dream house and in which I envision
It. My unborn child would play with my niece.
House is not big but pragmatic yet elegant.
Three bedrooms, dining room, a vestibule.
My daughter rattles a lot, whistles, sometimes chants
Songs yet it is never a ridicule.
I am hoping my vision is not a kitsch.
On Sundays we don't visit nearby church.
I'm hoping to discover my magic mood switch.
Next to the house there's a forest of birch.
Another side of myself is somewhat nerdy.
Software, data structures, algorithms.
Plus one's ground underneath has got to be sturdy
Yet I dream of theater, rhythms and myths.
My muse was not with me when I was a student
When I possessed all the time in the world.
Now I work, I am an adult, so prudent.
Wish my creativity could be sold.
I like extreme comparison, enjoy grotesque.
Use them in emerging poem fables.
It's burlesque: I sit the day thrgouh at my work desk
Struggling to make sense of Excel tables.
I simply adore tight six syllable stanza
Through it's harder to bring the point across.
But it is compact and mere extravaganza!
It's mine therefore I have to bear this cross...
on her lawn
four pink plastic flamingos
peak above a March snowbank
twisted forms caught in forlorn evasion
beak-body contortions like wrestlers resilient
in pretzel formation
unmanageable remnants of warmer days
denied the dignity of upright
plastic muck ups, a nostalgic weep of summer
wishing a solar Florida footing
their caught spirit of iced- playfulness
a pink flamboyance
teasing an icy surface
four plastic birds, frozen status
kitsch defensive
misplaced images like on-line love
wing swept longing
to flee this barren snowbank
nudging a tardy spring's erosion
with its courtship fringes
Poem posted April 13, 2023
kitsch
crowded
streets
fast
flowing
feathers
and
pointed
feet
jagged
distinctive
unique