Day Five #Na/GloPoWriMo

The day started with zero ideas. Then I read Kim Russel's Don't walk, swim. 

My poem today started off silly and overdramatic (as per prompt) but then it decided to go somewhere else. Here goes...

No means No

 

I hate it when you compliment the girls

I should’ve said boobs but was raised a prude

Then Kim wrote about the pair in her eyes

Crossing a line, lane –

Yet she continued swimming against the yack-tide

I thought, I could do the same

you know

Call them boobs, too

Use the nomenclature

To drill home my point—

I love you, but hate the precedence set

Me melons first, then a kiss

I just can’t do it

Use the B word

 

I’ll call them Cupid’s Kettle-Drums, instead

Like they did in the 1770’s

That’s more like me—

a warrior and a romantic

 

From this day on,

If blind people say, she’s asking for it

When a pair, or even a single breast

(post mastectomy)

Radiates in a low cut, or full-fills a cup

We shall rise

In the name of Boudicea’s bodice

We shall rise

All as One—Victorious Women,

Assigning meaning to words.

 

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Day 5 Prompt:

And now, here’s our prompt for the day — totally optional, as usual. The Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous two-line poem:

Odi et amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Here’s an English translation.

                I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you ask?
                I don’t know, but I feel it happening and am tortured.

I thought about this poem the other day when I read a social media post collecting sentences from Charles Darwin’s letters, including:

                “Oh my God how do I hate species & varieties.”

                “I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world.”

                “I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.”

                “I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.”

                “I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.”

I must confess, the idea of being so grumpy that you have come to hate clover and bees is highly amusing to me. Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. And special thanks to those of you who grace me with their comments. 

Zekreet, November 2025