Paramagnetic Poetry by Krista

arms linked under clouds of pink sakura season sap is green on the breeze a chartreuse coloured perfume the brown of old leaf soon hidden as brightest lime sings from what used to be cold grey twigs skeletal underbrush now a valanced curtain rioting is glowing fey peridot like banker's lamps adorning branches willow branches glowing golden in preparation of unleashing leafy curtains alder branches gleaming more cinnabar the grey of winter gone as more greens join the visual chorus each hue a note that sings the season round the wheel birdsong and blooms now bring colour to every moment this is Spring

wistful under the blue skies elated as cumulus clouds billow beautiful fluffy towers wistful under the clouds of pink sakura filling branches with delicate petals stark is the beauty of magnolias richly pink on naked filigree twig bright is the yellow cup of daffodil against the emerald grass this is the feast that nourishes soul causes heart to unfurl like a fiddlehead

Walden pond is fantasy. A child turning the stand of trees along a fence line into the mythical wild. It's an author being brought meals and snacks as he stays at a summer cabin. So, luxury, can give rise to innovation, as this lauded literature is born of a silver platter coddled in crust cut cucumber sandwiches. We used to have oceans so thick with cod that one is said to be able to walk on the back of the school. Floating bridge of flounder, teeming mass suppporting bipedal locomotion. So many flowers burst in colour and life along the dike. A sod slope of bee friendly habitat, keeping the river and ocean out of the urbanized estuary. Beyond this protective structure, habitat for falcons, hawks, eagles, herons, cormorants, mallards, widgeons, wildlife galore. Can our lives be a dance that graces the world in harmony? Photons just are, the ocean just is, and in that being is so much magnificence.

I started bleeding on a Sunday. I was niave then. I thought the hospital could help, so I dropped my breakfast and headed to the ER. That is my biggest regret. I am celiac, and a bit germaphobic. Or maybe my fiancé was lazy. But I was ravenous, spotting, and somehow hopeful my baby could be saved. After the first ultrasound, they made me an appointment for another ultrasound in the afternoon. More hours dragging by, even hungrier, still spotting blood, in a little hospital gown, being brave. Making it light, because *I* AM THE STRONG ONE. And surely, another ultrasound meant the little one might be fine right? I wish they would have given me the gory details. I didn't know what I was in for. I was grateful that this part of nature had discreetly happened on a weekend. A little blood, and try again right? Just the messy stuff us women don't talk about. Keep the pads in the pants and soldier on, righto! Well, there was no heartbeat. And things weren't goin...

So the last PTSD attack was the damned housewrap, like my brain was covering the beautiful now with that fucking Tyvek. I like Twin Peaks, but sometimes I wonder if plastic wrapped women's corpses would be less funny and prevalent in the Zeitgeist if Laura Palmer hadn't been so popular in her undignified demise. Maybe I should have made a workplace sign: days without joking about raping, murdering or disposing of women's bodies in plastic sheeting. 0. This is not a metaphor. Why do so many of you think about it so often? Or maybe you are just so loud about it. Mike McPherson, looking at you! Maybe the next time someone calls me sensitive for being affected by this, I will swoon and claim to be the reincarnation of Thoreau. I was meant to write deep thoughts and lounge around sun dappled shores of ponds, eating picnics brought to me by attractive men, not deal with these glass ceilings and sexual harassment. Just let me machete through a small forest in peace. I...

Verisimilitude through obfuscation Just wrangle some smoke and mirrors Because people are viscous in their fears Everything is fake As long as the surface is placid Running well enough Until you can run away Band-Aids upon Band-Aids Calcifying please hold another day Cynical in the mire The fog is rotting dampening all fire Jaded from the moss Even integrity is dross Cyanide foam bog

  so someone burned down our temples bragging that he cleaned out Satantic clubhouses the woke kids are saying I need to educate myself because traditionally, the people that joked about setting me on fire evolved from burning Jews in an innocent time when anti-Semitism was like a dinosaur we won the war, Hitler had fallen in our grandparents time so the people joking about burning witches didn't know it was supposed to have evolved from anti-Semitism either citation needed I don't really know what to make of it either