A medieval old monk named Fitzsimmons
did fret about nocturnal emissions,
so got help and advice
on a drainage device
from a sage group of water technicians.
Exemplifying mother-instincts' best
Championing our orphanage caring-zest
Dear Meowna offers blest nurturing nest
Rearing up sweet kittens to the fullest.
While raising batches of cats midst her role
Our Meowna fulfills great life-building goal
Feeding well feline species to be whole
Guarding them against pests from drainage hole.
With her security-force that prevails
Protecting her children, she never fails
Not allowing sickness to touch their tails
Enclosing them from wounds of rusting nails.
For our Animal Welfare cause-fulfillment
God* favors along approval's settlement
Meowna props our fur-driven commitment
Inspiring us against crises' detriment.
*Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
May 26, 2026
1st place, "Ode To Cat 2" Ode Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by JC Brul; judged on 8/15/2026
Repugnant Rich worked in a drainage ditch
Smelling of sewer water, he developed a twitch
Detestable conditions for a graduate of M.U.
But he made a fortune and got off at two.
"Referencing an old poetic imagism sort of poem I wrote some four years ago--almost to the day---wherein lies a paradox," ... by The Poet.
MIRROR, MIRROR
I was in a room,
there, I saw a mirror,
and then I saw him,
I told him to get out,
and he did,
and he took the mirror,
and I was no more.
--The End--
Albeit, natheless
of no consequence
admissible ... thing
humiliating
how now brown cow ... speak
named ... must be unique
imagination
generalization
easy, perspective
yours or mine, fictive!
that stretch, what is there,
images ... despair
strays loss memory
rare remembering
instantaneous
matter strenuous
reason of drainage
mayhaps some carnage
yes answers reason
purpose--intention
... a dreamer affects
... or schemer effects
telltale prophecy
image precisely.
Never have I seen trouble as deep as
The catastrophe in Tamaulipas.
I chanced on a 6-kilometer crack -
A lot of information to unpack.
If you fall into the crack, it seems,
You'll be in China or the Philippines.
I tell you straight, put it on the level -
It is either drainage or the devil.
The pasture ahead torn in half
Trees growing tightly together in the distance
The undulating ground beckoning your entrance
The trees left and right in your perriferal
The barren land
Could be so grand
Animals grazing children flying kites
No probably more houses as the government fights
Cheap affordable housing They say
Affordable not everyone can pay
Greed is the factor that comes to effect
Company handshakes start to erect
No wonder this land is starting to flood
No natural drainage building on clay not mud
This land should have many green pastures
For generations after a gift from our masters
The twinkle of an eye
blinks in the same time span as a bullet fired
and the casing hitting the floor
Birds’ wings flutter at different speeds
but a hummingbird’s wings are much faster
a cow’s skull hangs suspended from a vein from the gut of a cat
But a good life is found wherever one can find it
as flowers can grow anywhere
I like gardenias best, my favorite
In Las Vegas two crows sit on a well lit sign of a casino
a child asks his father do we have enough to eat
the father huddled in a drainage pipe says, “Yes, we do.”
A child in Ethiopia asks his father
will I have something to eat tonight, daddy
his father answers, “No, maybe tomorrow.”
Life in general is full of anomalies
Americans' world knowledge of real life is limited
And so it seems is compassion in many of its citizens.
The Untold Story
The flashing headlights intensely illuminated the gloomy faces of the sweetgum tree
The tears fell from the sky like God's Shower , constant and cleansing
The troubled night shrouded the steady strolling figures like an unfulfilled corpse
The Killer parked his hesitant vehicle upon the eroded curbside
The indifferent priest discharged his shallow yet nessacery words upon the silhouetted congregation
"We are gathered today to mourn the death of Linda Whittington..."
The words were unclear due to the remorseful rain
Buffering the consolation like a badly tuned radio
Suddenly, an irrelevant relative broke out :
"She didn't deserve to die ...a moment of silence please"
The Killer smirked to himself
As the theatrical tears of distant relatives who arrived for the free food Conjoined with the Shower droplets
Headed towards the drainage
The Killer picked up a pair of sodden dandelions from the moist ground
And heard, staggeringly clearly , through the rain
"Thank you Magnus"
Magnus placed the now blood-stained
dandelions in the grave
And allowed himself to be encapsulated by the determined Darkness
~Whoever
Built pondage on the river
To benefice farming and husbandry;
Fruitful sources of food for the villagers.
Right-minded under the Nature.
Any pondage has strengths and weaknesses.
The builder must prepare for its consequence
Pondage can retain the water
From rain or streams of the upper forest.
Pondage can delay the water,
But drainage must be built.
If not, the pondage will evoke problems:
The water will overflow, collapse the dam,
Flood houses and, farms and destroy livestock.
Build a pondage on the mass
Is to retain the people’s thinking,
Must also build suitable drainage.
Otherwise, the people’s needs will overflow.
Limiting men’s minds is breaking their hearts:
The dictatorial way!
It is now only I who can sing the song of thought
The orchestra between my ears swells with emotion
Not only to guide, but to monitor sound
Sound I speak with empty fear and full intention
I am no prisoner to be withheld from autonomy
As well as no criminal to denote destruction
I hold my own hand to cross the street
It’s a journey from stuck to soaring
It is heard, a voice so mighty as the lost
A beacon of resistance, drainage of woe
It is a voice I seldom recognize
But one I take pride in nonetheless
I am not held back by toxic reliance
Or dread of trust falling
But rather wedged between the fingers
Of she who steadies her breath
My Granddad can’t stay on the straight and narrow
Robs garden centres with his bow and arrow,
Police knew his scheming
So now he is screaming
Speeding downhill in a plastic wheelbarrow
As gramps in his wheelbarrow got lots of LOLs
The river impeded his getaway goals
When used as a boat
It just wouldn’t float
Since when did those wheelbarrows have drainage holes
He dragged out the barrow as fast as he could
Expecting somehow it could do him some good
He thought it made sense
To ask Fred the Fence
“Who launders wheelbarrows in this neighbourhood?”
He sold the wheelbarrow and tried to go straight
Then Grandad found weeds all round his garden gate
“Oh for goodness sake,
I need a new rake.”
Went shopping at ten ’cause the store closed at eight
He snuck through a window by breaking the pane
And made his way through to the garden tools lane
The alarm’s manic blast
Brought police really fast
He grabbed a wheelbarrow and set off again
The base word “dally,” from old French used to mean to chat idly.
dilly-dally of dandelions - seeds on fire, blown
downward. inspire
molten icing— erupting,
disrupting the perfect garden of peace.
dilly-dally, those tongues wagging like puppy tails.
such excitement, seems friendly, enticing—
it’s dicey; the splintering
of rivulets, they run
dripping from waterfall lips, diving off the precarious cliff -
trampolines everywhere, but they’re missed. the kiss
of candy-sweet news, the licorice-twist…
she can’t place a hand over her own gaping hole.
the dog bites the hand that tries to scold.
the slap-happy hoarding of gossip - the girl
can’t get enough. when it’s not on the wire,
she turns to the swoon of reality t.v.
salivating, with ears like a drainage ditch,
or a sinkhole, a muddy swamp. she loves
it.
they
don’t.
run.
she’s
trouble.
11/19/2022
I gazed upon the crystal
only hard before the thaw
and as you warmed to melt
your gem-like qualities seemed
of mine to adore
unlike the slush of snow
unlike the muddies of rain
unlike a city's drainage
a heart needs only another
willing to sustain
for love is greater immortal
than the many painted temples
with flawless sculpted gods
far greater than most paradise imagined
above the ringing stars and their
singing elucidating bards
love is more the remnant sea
almighty rivers and streams
real lords of man and lands
within their never-ending travails
carrying life's speckles of gold
as well as life's sentient rearranging
sands
The sidewalk is littered with pavement crack weeds.
The road’s full of hot tar mirages.
It leads past the neighborhood’s untended needs,
Trash cans and one-car garages.
The curbstones have ceded their sovereign role
Of guiding the rainwater’s current.
As dammed as they are by their dandelion shoal,
They act as a drainage deterrent.
I noticed a penny pressed into the road.
Its owner had long since departed.
I pried up the copper and made it my own,
And felt one cent less broken hearted.
Lucille found a sport without a single hitch
A two-wheeler was definitely her niche
Until she lost her balance
Racing a scooter challenge
And landed in a water-filled drainage ditch.
Written July 14, 2022
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