Hi tildizens, the NYC subway often has posters with a poem and artwork on them which provide some relief from the ads that decorate the trains. On my commute today, I found this poem by Srikanth Reddy quite tantalizing.

Everything

by Srikanth Reddy

She was watching the solar eclipse
through a piece of broken bottle

when he left home.
He found a blue kite in the forest

on the day she lay down
with a sailor. When his name changed,

she stitched a cloud to a quilt
made of rags. They did not meet,

so they never could be parted.
So she finished her prayer,

& he folded his map of the sea.

Unfortunately, the single piece of related online discourse I can find is a two-line comment on a 2008 blog post of the poem. So tell me: do you like this poem? What do you make of it? Is it about a couple that splits up due to infidelity (as Google's gemini ai told me) or people that are connected despite having never met (as Mistral's le chat claims)? What of the kite? Why is it blue? Why might his name have changed? To me, it seems he must be a sailor (but different than the one she lays with?) and she relatively poor. We're reading a lament of a missed connection, perhaps.

an endless blue. my island shore.
my quiet voice. a crashing roar.
my little feet mark steps in sand.
a big red bucket in my hand.

cold water glides across my gills.
it tastes of dark and salt and kills.
i hunt for food hoping to make
what others all of me want made.

i cuff my pants and dip my toes
to cool myself from hot sand's glow.
my bucket drinks with thirsty lips
salt water, sand, and -- wait, what's this ?

in rest i lie where currents go:
to waters warm, bright, and shallow.
a sudden wake from surface stirs:
swimming around a big red blur.

i look at her. i look at him.
i puff in fear. i'm uncertain.
i dip my fingers holding shrimp.
i take a bite. we make friends quick.

The Skibidi Wonderland

Imagine a world with skibidi rizz

Where the rivers run with flowberry fizz

Every tree has a W gyat

Everyone is ruled under Kai Cenat

Everything, even the hills looksmax

Criminals will have to pay a fanum tax

Every December we celebrate Rizzmas

Where we get candy and gifts from St. Grimace

From the screen to the ring to the pen to the king

Every October we celebrate Hawktuahween

Everyone follows the sigma grindset

Everyone thinks with the sigma mindset

The skibidi sky has a rizzy aurora

All citizens have skibidi aura

Can you imagine a world where all is rizzy?

Can you think of a world where all is skibidi?

Can you fathom a world where all cheese is drippy?

'Cause I yearn for a world where I can hit the griddy

The earth, once scarred by shadow’s hand,
Now trembles soft, a waking land.
From soil soaked with roots that bled,
New shoots arise where death had fed.

The storm has passed, its howling stilled,
The air now warm, the silence filled.
With whispers light, the seeds take hold,
Their leaves like sparks of green and gold.

The soil hums with tender grace,
A pulse of life begins its race.
No longer bound by gloom’s demand,
It rises tall, a fearless stand.

Though remnants of the past remain,
They sing of hope, not loss or pain.
The cycle turns, as it must do—
To bury old, and birth the new.

Mythos

A tree unwatched does soundless fall

Without an eye its crash to mark

And starborn light in vain does call

While hearts incline instead to dark

So natural course unseen dictates

The wave of time as life begins

Nor, in our barques asea in fate

Ken we the source of distant winds

Now blown to gale, now to 'phoon —

We strike our sail, but none can dock

Our crafts beset do founder soon

For to the hours we're firmly nocked

In time's swift drifts all 'twined we are

Yet each must pass the stellar door

Through deep'ning age pass on afar

And thus return to astral moor

gusts of wind pick up in pace
and oaken leaves they make to shake.
chirps and flaps as birds make haste
and hooves all trample in escape.

above, the clouds, they morph and move
bearing an ocean in their womb.
forest florals stare in rue;
effulgence dims as darkness blooms.

the rumbling clouds envelope all.
a drip, a drop. and the rain falls.
and though the canopy may stall,
a dribble starts and rends the wall.

a torrent soars towards the floor.
the land, to sea, returns once more.
in time, the green but will restore.
in time, the clouds but will reform.

i wrote this at a creative writing workshop with the following three randomly generated words as the prompt: frequency, dribble, oak.