Everything straight I am sure they can be
Picture frames off by a single degree
If off it is something I readily see
I’m uncertain why this is a bother to me
Stockings at Christmas hung all in row
The spacing is critical everyone knows
I put nails in the mantle to show where they go
Important to me that their place is just so
Items at dinner must be in their place
If not a straight line it would be a disgrace
The salt and the pepper then candle stick base
Butter and yes everything cause such distaste
A car parked just barely between the white lines
I don’t understand why to some it seems fine
To find something spaced that is plainly misaligned
It gives me such trembles that race down my spine
I’ve heard them suggest that mine is a disorder
They say I am obsessed if so just on the border
Compulsive I say not I’m just a bit smarter
To see disarray and bring all into order
All in all I say that I’m a fine guy
Perhaps a bit quirky I cannot deny
My positive spirit asks let this go by
But place things in order I so wish you would try
I was asked who I thought was my worst enemy
I hate to admit to admit but it just might be me
my dogs are obsessive compulsive
they compartmentalize their activities
If they get a chicken stick
they run to their gray mattresses to chew it
they have established their own routines
one always leaves the last bite of food for his brother
one will not come into the front door unless my husband stands there
no amount of coaxing, begging, crying or pleading can change his mind
opinionated? certainly
regimented? definitely
self-absorbed? Absolutely
my dogs are obsessive compulsive
The wind in our hair
Some excitement was what we were craving
Got more than we bargained
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
a neat freak is compulsive
excessive and obsessed
their day revolves around cleaning
a neat freak has a one-track mind
and will not budge their focus
their one true friend is bleach
a neat freak disinfects all day
intolerant to imperfection
time and effort never a problem
a neat freak will not rest
till every thing's in order
and every surface shines
let's not mince words
a neat freak is maniacal
and a neat freak i am not
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Khandahar is where all began IED ignited
my skull in the blink of an eye Kabul came
into view as the smoke clears my body was
being rushed through tunnels the hot sun burning
my flesh sand gravel stuck in my pores I remember
tears on my cheeks that burned like acid rain DOA
DOA medic screamed I thought are they talking about me
while my eye ball hung out the eye socket my nasal arch
was crushed my eye socket crushed my brain hurt
voices muffled as my body lay there stay with me
stay with me I was rushed off again through another
tunnel my brain hurt lights were shining in my eye
I could not speak where am I my mouth opened
nothing came out my vision could not focus am I alive
panic set in I need to know can I be I losing my sight
medic passes me notepad and pen here dear just write
Check door, handle, lock. Check them twice.
Life with O.C.D. - that's the price.
Do the same each and every day;
"Unlocked!" the inner voices say.
Holding you hostage in a vice.
The compulsive
Autism in the like of Julian Assange
And Greta Thunberg is a force for the good
Their passion can for them be tragic
they go to any length to follow the truth.
I had a tailless female dog, circled to find
the tail, till she got dizzy.
Obsessive people can be tiresome, have
great courage and suffer for their beliefs.
Heroes are for the quest for honesty.
We should be grateful.
Today again, I lied
Didn’t want to but I had to hide
Deceit, it’s wrong I know
Unintentional the lie just flowed
“Good God fix it” he says
I want to, but I have no ways
Another lie, cold sweat and terror sways
Better to just run away
“No! You won’t grow” he yelled
An empty aid, too old
Alright tomorrow then, I told
I lied to myself, that’s gold
Morning comes, today again I lied
It is crazy to be this compulsive about so many things.
I draw out three or four cartoons a week that I paint.
It may take me another week, but I work on four at once.
My daily poem quota is ten, but I sometimes write thirty.
Okay. I lie. I once wrote thirty in one day.
Out of three years, this only happened once.
When I am done, I am done.
When it is over, it is over.
I thought poetry would be over by now.
It has been a three year obsession.
It is nowhere near over.
I thought painting would be over by now.
I have over five hundred paintings.
Two hundred on the walls, three hundred stacked in piles.
Cartooning will never be over.
I have been drawing cartoons since I was four years old.
It is my go-to, do this and you can shut out the world hobby.
I am about to attack four new canvases.
My cartoonish mind is ready.
I love cartooning the best.
A sixty-four year obsession….
We watch Martha dig out buckets of stuff
From a nose that always has more than enough
Globs of boogers, and moogers, then she takes a sneeze.
We watch in fascination, as we eat our grilled cheese.
She must be nervous or something the new guy says.
You think? I ask as I study his face; his name is Dez.
She is digging so deeply, will she bring out gray matter?
I do not judge for in my weird family lives THE Mad Hatter.
We employees always leave work at the exact same time.
Martha’s nose is all stressed out and red but there is no grime.
We watch her get into her blue Chevy, and begin to dig.
It makes some of us go home and eat less like a corpulent pig.
I generally mean mine mien mental state
moost occasions heavily marinated stupor
long established as external trait
psychologically time tested trooper
impossible mission to kickstart sanity
doppelgänger regularly revisits his soul asylum
hellbent antimatter he cannot vitiate
despite therapeutic laxative merely exhausts
well bred literate smoking doobie brother
eliminating aforementioned pablum
witnessed courtesy one floundering grouper
among plenty of fish schooled
hyphenated (high finned haggled)
burn hushed scaled poem
courtesy one unionised rebellious party pooper.
Spellbound with colossal mental grippe
(i.e. all-consuming figurative cerebral
obsessive compulsive forced membership)
magnetic resonance imagine indicated jagged blip
and/or nsync microscopy
showed telltale genetic authorship
regarding above stated mental health crisis,
whereby Sigmund Freud analyst did flip
lid freeing leeches imported courtesy Philip
Hansel and Gretel a mere slip
o' lass whose nose she always did turnip.
I am a professional knitter, she said at her front door.
As if we could not guess it, we could barely see her floor.
Yarm was everywhere, in magnificent colors galore.
Variegated, twisted, baby soft, a knitted band aide on her sore.
Afghans piled high on couches were sleeping with a snore.
We knew she could make herself happy from here to forevermore.
fish, lizard, rainbow, cat, pirate, witch,
hat, broom, Peter Pan, Jesus, gypsy, flowers,
starfish, mermaid, peddler man, drums,
monsters, angels, faeries, fish, babies, raccoons,
skunk, hot air balloons, tree woman, Native Americans,
Mexicans, dream catchers, keyboards, stars, dragons,
chair, TV, Christmas lights, wizard, heart, sun, moon.
Can you guess what I am doing or where I am?
I am glancing around at my paintings in the guest room.
castle, queen, coffee cup, flying pigs, pirate queen, spider,
warrior woman, aliens, upside down girl, bumble bees.
Most of my guests are too fascinated to go to sleep quickly.
These walls are saturated with my paintings. I truly must
admit I am a little fascinated myself. When I am done, I
am done. I hope I am not completely done, but I might be.
Obsession, Fears, Anxiety,
Waking the mind of the suffering,
Losing the comfort of Normalcy,
Gaining the feeling of Confusion about one's own mind.
My thoughts and fears haunt me,
Feeling as though I might never close my eyes again
And feel the comfort of blissful dreams.
It seems you could never stay out of a casino.
As soon as you got paid, that is where you would go.
Your life became dependent on the roll of the dice.
Each crap table visited was as cold as ice.
Your financial ability was shrouded with doubt.
The money evaporated with each seven out.
With meeting your obligations, you didn't give a damn.
You got yourself in quite a financial jam.
Bill collections, repossessions, and foreclosures clouded your life.
Gambling was cutting you up like a knife.
Each day was an experience with monetary strife.
Those episodes are what decent people dread.
You must not be feeling pain now that you're dead.
All you have left are unpaid debts and liabilities.
I am forced to scatter you cremated ashes to the breeze.
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