so far I'm fairly unimpressed
I keep wanting to give you chances
~ prove your heart is true
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Neighborhood Gossip
He walks all alone and does evil things,
quietly making puppets walk without strings.
He's the only one who emerged from the wreck.
When you sleep, he'll stab you in the neck.
Am I Wiser Now?
I wanted to know what it all meant
so I visited the Asian continent.
Am I wiser now, back in my hometown?
I have jet lag and walk upside down.
Life Mission
The doctor gave me a slap and shook my head,
until he had fully scrambled my brain.
The nurse gave me a diaper and the doctor said,
"You've got eighty years to unscramble it again."
Unimpressed
He's well known and he's well read,
but I wouldn't be misled.
Even lettuce has a head.
Bee Orientation
Welcome, friend, to the hive
It's true, no one gets out alive,
but, before you're done,
you'll have lots of fun.
The machine lit up
like a small cathedral—
chrome saints hopping
under glass,
the silver gospel
of the pinball
spinning wild
between my hands.
It was my birthday—
twenty-one—
and free beers
rang up like prayers.
Each flipper slap
a hallelujah,
each tilt shrugged off
in neon glare.
The hours blew away
like cheap confetti.
The undulating sidewalk
tilted just before I did,
and the keyhole
danced just out of reach
while my cat waited,
unimpressed.
I woke up hours later
to my worried cat
meowing and
looking up at me.
I leaned in close
to reassure him—
and showered his head
with vomit, dismayed.
He left his verdict
in my shoes—
a damp reminder,
sharp and clear.
Tail high,
he walked away avenged,
his conscience
undisturbed by guilt.
He eventually
forgave me—
as creatures wiser
than us often do.
I cleaned my shoes,
drank far less beer,
and never puked on
my cat again.
She throws herself at the feet
of the unimpressed—
rolling, rubbing and yowling,
an opera of yearning
for the neutered elite.
They blink, stretch, then saunter off
for another nap
on the sun-pooled sill,
leaving her to flirt
with the legs of chairs.
Bewildered by the bopped nose,
the rebuffed overtures—
arching and warbling,
tail high with invitation—
she meets only
indifference or disdain.
Again she circles,
unsure if maybe
she’s doing it wrong.
Mid-kitchen now,
she flops down wailing
betrayal in the key of estrus,
as if to say:
Was it something I purred?
The kittens found my bag of words
And in their furry glee
They tapped them with their tiny paws
And wrote a poem for me
The mouse, a house bound hermit
Used its subtle tail
To add some punctuation
Lest the meter fail
The dog sniffed idly, unimpressed
For he was wary of those three
For he’s the only one it seems
They send outside to pee
So, if you’ve two kittens and a mouse
Hide those words inside a barrel
Or bear the brunt of what they do
For poetically …they’re feral
Deep in his lair with a scowl and a sneer,
Gargamel grumbled, "They're still not here!"
He plotted and paced, he ranted and swore,
Yet Smurfs slipped away like they had before.
Azrael yawned, unimpressed with the plan,
Another bad scheme from a not-so-great man.
"Turn them to gold? Make Smurf stew?"
But every attempt just fell right through!
He set up a trap with a cunning disguise,
Dressed as a granny with twinkling eyes.
But Smurfs just laughed and skipped away,
Leaving him fuming the rest of the day.
He brewed up a potion, bubbling and blue,
Chanting a spell—then POOF! He flew!
Straight through the chimney, out to the trees,
Landing face-first with a swarm of bees.
So Gargamel sighs, as he always must,
His dreams of victory crumbling to dust.
For no matter the trick, the chase, or the strife,
The Smurfs will outsmurf him—such is his life!
wilting in the setting sun
dissolving deflating
undernourished underfed
neglected rejected
unknown
a mystery
if any degree of pampering
can bring me back to life
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Nothing ever stays the same
And yet, in ways diverse,
Instead of real improvement,
It seems things are getting worse.
Perhaps if I were younger,
Optimistic thoughts would reign
And I wouldn’t find so much
About which I can’t help complain.
I will not list my worries
Or the reasons I feel stressed,
So, although the future’s waiting,
I think I’ll be unimpressed.
The tiger growled, puffing its chest
Yet the donkey didn't seem stressed
Tiger said, " your bones I'll chew
and make a meal out of you
But the donkey was unimpressed
Sunshine Boy, Sunshine Boy,
Drowning in the rain,
Waiting for the sun to kiss,
Your vaunted gravy train.
Racing for the Hall of Fame,
You found the finish line,
Winning in the wonderment,
Of Thee and Thou and Thine.
Surfing on the Silver Sea,
Of storybook and rhyme,
Mount Olympus victory,
Without a myth to climb.
Sleepy eyes and lullabies,
And milky ways in space,
Stretch across the universe,
And settle on your face.
Sunshine Boy, Sunshine Boy,
Many tears ago,
Did you lose the victory,
Beneath the virgin snow.
You broke the beaming hero,
In the race to win the past,
And lost the winning slipper,
In a stormy overcast.
Your sage is like the scandal,
Of a million scathing scars,
A pocketbook of fading faith,
Instead of falling stars.
The vortex of your virtue,
Is a vain and vaunted best,
A relic of your sacrament,
Without an honored guest.
The clouds are clapping near you,
But the crowd is unimpressed,
The morning dew is melting,
For the jester and the jest.
Sunshine Boy, your glory,
Is the story of our dreams,
But fate is not a fashion,
When you linger in the seams.
Flowers bloom under salmon pink sunsets
grass grows and runs away with itself
newly born baby birds fly or fall
Yes, spring is finally in the air but
why am I so unimpressed with it all?
I yearn for cold, the crisp cool wind
my tennis shoes rustling the leaves
as I walked to her house where
the main street ends.
Autumn is my Master who beckons
me to stand tall against the sometimes
bitter coldness that stays around and on
into the fall.
To be young and be cheated on,
Is when you are defeated on,
The subject you completed on,
The object of your eyes.
The treasure you repeated on,
The very one you seated on,
Was unimpressed you meeted on,
The day of your demise.
They rather would be greeted by,
The special one who treated by,
A dinner which they eated by,
To celebrate their date.
The fact you were upseated by,
The special one who beated by,
The romance that you skeeted by,
Is why you lost your mate.
An alien snatched my wife one strange night,
To planet Speed, they took her in flight.
But the alien confessed,
She'd been sorely unimpressed,
So back home, he returned her, contrite.
Flowered words of poets,
colors of artist,
guns of armies,
prophets of gods,
One never knows from where destruction shall come,
Yet the galaxies spin on
unimpressed with the doings of man .
you won't see me scream
you won't see me angry
i won't stomp my feet
i won't raise my voice
just because there's no drama
don't think everything's ok
stick around
you haven't seen
my fifty shades of grey
when i'm disappointed or unimpressed
i can run the whole gamut
in every shade and every hue
if i was happy
you would know
if things were ok
you would know
just because there's no drama
don't think everything's ok
AP: 3rd place 2023
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