Me, I Emu

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Always Sharking by Maria L. Berg 2023

dVerse Poets Pub

For today’s Poetics prompt, Sarah invites us to verb animals and use those verbs or verb phrases—like “horsing around” or “pigging out” or our own inventions like “eagle over” or “ant the whole hill”—in our poem.

This Animal Kingdom

He is always sharking—
dead-eyed stare, open mouth
full of sharpness
always moving—prowling
for the next morsel to come too close

Me, I emu
Unable to fly, I
present a feathery girth
over questionably designed legs
with a deadly kick primed
if he gets too close.

In the rare moments he’s not sharking,
he squirrels—all his pouches
full of nuts and seeds
(mostly mine and the morsels’ he sharks)—
but he squirrels lazily: I’ll find his burrow

When I don’t emu, I hornbill
I spread my striking wingspan, and
my caw, generated in my bulbous head,
carries elation under the thick canopy, then
using my curved, sharp beak I crack
the nuts from his hollow.

Me, I Emu by Maria L. Berg 2023

Today’s images

Inspired by today’s poetics prompt, I thought it would be fun to use some animal filters with my new light-wrapped forms in the mirrorworld, to see if I could make them verb. I really enjoyed searching through my filters and picking out all the different animals I’ve created filters of over the years. The shark and the emu filters pictured above, I created to use with the fireworks last Fourth of July.

Published by marialberg

I am an artist—abstract photographer, fiction writer, and poet—who loves to learn. Experience Writing is where I share my adventures and experiments. Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here, reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, https://buymeacoffee.com/mariabergw (please copy and paste in your browser) so you can buy me a beverage to support what I do here. It will help a lot.

13 thoughts on “Me, I Emu”

  7. I enjoyed your animal kingdom poem, Maria. The first stanza was disturbing, as I find sharks very scary, especially that ‘dead-eyed stare’. I identify with the second stanza, and my favourite lines are:
    ‘When I don’t emu, I hornbill
    I spread my striking wingspan, and
    my caw, generated in my bulbous head’.

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