Poetry

Nancy Ramsey

By

KJ Hannah Greenberg

Scree

Sometimes, mountains are formed from collected drops and things that hurt.

Such desultory rocks are remnants, really, of deep damages, others sorts of

Seized feelings, smidgens that never got released, upcycled, better purposed.

Gelatinous wildebeests notwithstanding, fumbling within close relationships

Regularly brings tremendous gaffes, pointed harms, perchance, also bitterness.

Additional layers of misery, every so often, omit rubricked places plus names.

Ostensibly, the adding of soft interpretations, pushing away misshaped limits,

Geographies, persons, culls no more sympathy from parties known for choler

Than does heaping stones over gammy birds, small children, weak minorities.

Collocations

Juxtaposing certain words brings the abrogation of useful meanings.

Kumquats’ failed utility, when matched with lamenting walruses,

Proves how seriously side partners ought to take red bumbershoots.

Consider that rhetorical perfidy can’t replace the worth of sea cucumbers.

Likewise, the motes of pugnacious lovers won’t cull any heartfelt returns

Of fleshy meshing, unicycles, occasional leopards, or catbird mating calls.

Rather, raspberries plus halfway washed, spotted piglets add collocations,

Such that homes with running water and heat persist as expugnable, yet

Populations with lesser conundrums fantasize success far into the night.

It seems that pollarded individuals don’t prosecute others, except when

Minging events provoke rapscallions to act in derpish ways, else to remit

The etiquette lent by their stepmothers, fraternity brothers, figs, barmates.

Some discourse gets horked whenever those louts deign to engage “proper

Society,” in disintermediation, in old-fashioned ateliers, grand soccer fields.

Original thinkers snub full price at museums; most hate social architecture.

It’s more than audacity that certain persons, notwithstanding cousins’ sons,

When hiring outsiders, fart from their mouths, likewise steal post-it notes.

Usually, indiscriminate others fumble to avoid official sumptuary matters,

Binge on droppings left by celery, ostriches, also book-of-the month picks.

Art by Nancy Ramsey

KJ Hannah Greenberg

KJ Hannah Greenberg’s whimsical writing buds in pastures where gelatinous wildebeests roam and beneath the soil where fey hedgehogs play. Her newest book is Dreams are for Coloring Books: Midlife Marvels (Seashell Books, May 2017).