Fruit like green oranges,
Small leaf-shedding thorny tree,
And sticky wood pulp.
No one eats Osage.
No one tastes these hedge apples.
The thorns make barbed wire.
Here I am at the crossroads
Staring blankly at the inky dark sky
Beaten to a pulp and helpless
By forces of darkness
Here I am lying in the pool of my emotions
Clutching at every straw
To maintain sanity and stability
Here I am a victim of a system
That dehumanises her own
Here I am cloned from a contraption
Built on the foundation of impunity
Feeding her children with frustration
Here I am a victim of a country
That glamourises wrong values
And deliberately relishes
Living a lie of romantic proportion
Here I am fearful of a tomorrow
Bleak and hopeless for my children
Victims of a country gradually
Disappearing from global map of decency
Say
You know what they call a burger
in the future
What
I can't believe it's not a burger
Because it ain't got no meat or
cheese in it
It's a bun but that ain't bread as we
used to know it either
With some or other kind of meat
substitute as the burger
And the side's have gone as well
And don't even get me started on the fries
Just maybe that was what was actually
in the briefcase after all
Tarantino just didn't want to spoil the
surprise until his big reveal when he
gets to say , i told you so
And Vincent the hitman would Kill Bill
or even Jules for just 1 more
bite of a juicy burger as bloody in the
middle as Mr Pink himself
Because at that point nostalgia has
become the newest kind of pulp fiction
that takes us back to the future
We spend our lives with people who despise poetry.
Now and again, we sheepishly ask them to read our verse.
Hastily reading our hearts but only once.
They're really married to their smartphones.
Conversing with strangers about cooking recipes
politics and bipolar tendencies.
We've no problem exposing the pulp of our souls to strangers,
That is both revealing and somewhat per/verse.
a pulp paradox
one million matchsticks
from one tree and one matchstick
burns one million trees
2019 August 19
*3rd Place*
Tree Themed Haiku
~~Tania Kitchin
Pulp fiction had nothing on him. He was a man’s man. A protagonist
of his own making, self-reliant, and self-assured. Marlow kept his wisecracks
to the bare minimum when meeting a new client. Dames were not as compliant as they used to be, and they carried their own derringers now.
More dangerous than ten years ago. He leaned back in his chair, enjoying a swallow of nicotine from his favorite cigarette. He had heard this woman was stacked. Mrs. What? He reached for his paper. Mrs. Stanton. She sounded stacked, a real femme fatale. A harsh knock came on his outside door.
not a woman’s knock, and yet, there she was.
“she’s a murderess
This mattered not to him now
Private eye smitten”
Written 4-29-2019
Contest: Pick a title, volume 4 – Haibun
Prompt #2: The private eye and the femme fatale
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
fresh pulp of orange
score slice peel from bitter rind
— eyes and nose sweet sip
3/12/2018
are you a robot? does your mouth flap
open and closed, but
you are somewhere completely different
guts
i feel a stir when Im present
vodka flavored kindred
harsh like my wake up
injured ego still mint
i profess prone particularly
to the idea of kinship
yet
i must break away from the school,
regrets are for simple fools
I didnt want to think this way
i found the least resistance
peace this instant, increased
from a raw existance
this is not a diet
food for thought
something to chew on
cue my crotch
the dirty deed of driving to find like minds
poppin wheelies
scaring all the adults
sensing the lost accepting
the great know where
drinkin juice with pulp
I like my orange juice with pulp
So every time I take a gulp
I swallow strands of fruity flesh,
Pretending that it’s just-squeezed fresh.
When all that pulp is strained away,
It loses some of its cachet.
What Nature’s chosen to produce,
In fruit, should show up in its juice!
Pumpkin Pulp a hunger real.
Toothless meal a vomit fill.
Rumpy flesh to hold the meal.
Tasty strands of flavour seal.
Pits of seeds for spitting out.
White tidbits all hard and stout.
Strands of web to reach the heart.
Spirits strong where pressures part.
Fetch the scoop to scoop out goop.
Scrape the wall and cause it droop.
Oust the pulp on old newpapers.
Save the seeds to fry in vapours.
Pumpkins lit and glowing lanterns.
Angled eyes shine light in patterns.
Flickered smiles from waxy wicks.
Labotomys, the night of tricks.
That big, elusive doctorate degree,
pretty much like an emperor's decree;
a kind of fetish that academes require,
sort of survival kit one must acquire;
within the realm of the university,
part of the myth of tenured security;
its twin is the rule: "publish or perish,"
a choice most faculty hate to cherish;
and yet they churn out books with little rest,
paperwork enough to clear a rain forest!
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.