Totally Disconnected

Start with a simple declarative paragraph;
minimum two lines. Best if it’s
first or third person and highly specific.

Journalistic styling is acceptable.

“Mary” is a good female name.
There are no good male names.

Proceed quickly to a scene from nature,
go light on adjectives and alliterations,
no similes. No birds either.

There are now two choices: human society is
losing touch with wild nature; or, we live in
an unavoidably wild natural world.

Mary had a little lamb.

Dammit!

Start over, this time naming the main
character “Sheila.”

Bring in a contrasting natural setting:
mountains, rivers, trees, Winter.
Avoid the color “purple,”  the nouns “wine”
and “rainbow,” and the adjective “fetid.”

Next, wow them with a shocking segue
to an existential emergency – birth, aging,
death, sex, whatever. Choose Sheila’s
three-year battle with stomach cancer.

The words “fog” and “mist” come to mind.

Give a call back to the opening. However,
“Hey Sheila!” is a sure loser, believe me.

Consider ways of using Sheila’s cancer and
death as a metaphor. Avoid clichés. Pause to
marvel that death could be a cliché.

Conclude with a magnificently profound
platitude. Use Google to make sure
it’s original. Read some Basho and try again.

As usual, title the poem Totally
Disconnected.

Publish.

Await the inevitable raves and
accolades: oh, thank you! Thank you!

Recall the phrase bloody ignorant apes,
that Winter in the mountains sticks like
fetid wine, rivers tumbling over Sheila’s
forgotten shadow, a foggy rainbow, a tree
lost in the purple mist, a falling bird.

Tell them they are so very wrong