Four Poems & Five Senryu by Ken Gosse

 

Time Won’t Tell (But I Will) 

 

I will no longer wait for fate— 

it stood me up on our last date! 

 

(So did Emily.) 

 

 

 

Lost and Dumbfounded 

 

Stop looking and stop needing 

since your memory’s receding. 

Fruitless searching for what’s lost 

will not reward your time or cost. 

 

So, regardless of your pleading, 

there’s no chance of your succeeding— 

all the efforts you’ll exhaust 

won’t find what since has been off-crossed. 

 

There’s no use in losing sleep 

for suddenly, like Bo-Peep’s sheep 

what you’ve learned that you won’t find, 

return like tails which wag behind. 

 

 

 

Catnaps and Laps (150 Words) 

 

At three in the morning, I sat on my cat— 

we had no warning and he didn’t scat! 

There, on my computer chair for a cat nap, 

I found that I landed square on Mewie's lap. 

I jumped up and stood but our cat didn’t budge. 

I expected he would, so I gave him a nudge. 

Asleep in my chair, clearly, he didn’t care 

if another derriere might prefer to sit there. 

I prodded and poked him till he raised his head. 

Much more than a whim, he preferred playing dead. 

I deftly slid hands ’twixt the seat and the cat, 

making clear my demands, and became his cat mat. 

As I moved him aside, he would stretch out his paws 

and a yawn opened wide in quiescent applause. 

At last, I could creep where my cat had just been 

and he lulled me to sleep with a Cheshirey grin. 

 

 

 

My Artifice of Intelligence 

 

When I read what AI’s written, 

I can’t say that I’ve been smitten 

by its poetry or prose 

in spite of everything it knows. 

 

It really doesn’t know a thing, 

but mashes mastery to bling. 

 

Sometimes, me too, but when askew 

I understand what words can do 

and though mine might be artifice 

I think they’re still more hit than miss. 

 

Exception noted—point well-taken. 

Yes, I often am mistaken. 

 

 

 

Self Disservice (Five Sadryu) 

 

Homo sapiens 

enable Earth to weed out 

Homo sapiens.

 

 

Mankind may persist 

destroying Mother Nature— 

but we’re on her list.

 

 

Climate change won’t hurt— 

as long as we don’t believe 

climate change will hurt.

 

 

Proving that we’re wrong 

about our Earth’s life support 

might not take that long.

 

 

Once all’s said and done, 

when Earth moves on without us, 

who is left? No one.

 

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humour in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he has also been published by Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.