Twenty Questions

Twenty Questions

A New Poem

by Karen Remus (c) 2018

Did the bug have a haughty demeanor?
Did the cannons cut loose in your head?
Did your dad take your suit to the cleaner?
Did he care that your mother was dead?

Did your sister come back from Toledo?
Did your bother come back from St. Paul?
Did you fire a photon torpedo?
At the cockroach ascending your wall?

Did you blow a big hole in the bedroom?
Did your car take a dunk in the lake?
Did you get out before you lost headroom?
Did your grandma get bit by a snake?

Did you drop out of high school on purpose?
Did they need you to work on the farm?
Did you dream about joining the circus?
Did you trigger the burglar alarm?

Did your fan do a good job of blowing?
Did your hair dryer fall in the bath?
Did I tell you I had to be going?
Did you say you would cut me a path?

     -Karen Kay Remus, Columbus GA, 2018

What and Why?

by Karen Kay Remus (c) 2017

What is the meaning of my life?

Why am I living in the Deep South?

Why am I forced to read Flannery O’Connor?

With her southern-fried often bloodied and insane protagonists?

Why have I lived fifty three years

And only attained the position of English tutor?

When I had such grand plans for my future:

Concert pianist, famed vocalist, Mozart-level composer

Edvard-Munch-esque painter, Stephen King-styled author

Comedienne a la Lucille Ball, Monty Python, or Steve Martin?

Einstein-equivalent discoverer of universal truths

And solver of age-old, world-wide problems

Like over-population, pollution, habitat destruction

Animal extinction, world hunger, fossil fuel dependence

War, violence, and the Orwellian decline of society?

Why am I living in a declining Orwellian society?

Wherein the lunatic president of this country

Was installed by the lunatic president of another country
In direct opposition to the Constitution of this country?

Why do I wake up every morning asking why?

Why should I get up and go out into the grind

When the highest authority in the country

Lacks my own skill level and makes

Over one-hundred times my annual income

And still considers his income paltry

And calls his grand residence a “dump?”

And creates nothing except discord and derision 

Among the people he is supposed to serve?

I’ll tell you why:

To spur me to action

It ain’t over yet

It has only just begun

53 is the new 35, but twice as scarred and smart

I whip my body and mind into a weapon of mass construction

I move upon my sacred calling like a bitch

Empowering people to wield their voices, pens, and keyboards

More mightily than swords or light sabers

Status meaning nothing. Intention meaning everything

I am a cable for the current that inspires new generations to think critically 

And to rise up, speaking their own transcendent wisdom

The Seer's Confession

A New Poem by Karen Kay Remus (c) 2017

The Seer’s Confession
By Karen Remus, ©2017

I’m seeing a seer
The seer sees a see-saw by the sea side
He also sees sea shells but
Says these are secondary in symbolic significance
To the see-saw he sees

“Superfluous sea debris!” he snorts
“See-Saws by the sea side symbolize…”
[He suddenly sneezes]
“Excuse me.  I sneeze in sea breeze,” he says
“Gesundheit.” I say

“Donkey Shoe,” he says
“So where were we?
Ah yes:  sea side see-saws
Symbolize sideways synchronicities”

“What synchronicities are these?” I say
“Those between sea horses and saw horses” he says
“I see,” I say
“I see you seize the sea scene,” He smiles

“Shore do!” I say, “I also seize the day.”
He snickers and sneezes times three
“Sneezies in threesies defeat the diseases!” Says he
“…And release three times the nasal debrisies.” I say

He says, “I think you are onto something”
I say, “I think you are on something”
He says, “You really are something”
I say, “Geeze! I’m gonna call the cheese police”

He says, “Stop.  There is no need.
I confess:  I’m a cheesy seer
And a threesie sneezer, and moreover,
Son of Susie, who sold sea shells by the sea shore.”

The End Of Time

"End of Time Clock" or
"The O'Clockalypse"
Computer Graphic by Karen K. Remus
Copyright 2014

A Clock for the End of Time

or Zero Hours

An Apocalyptic Poem

by Karen Kay Remus

Copyright, 2014

I saw a clock at the end of time

It did not tick, it did not chime

The hands were frozen on the face

And only zeros marked their place