Ken Gosse generally writes light poetry using simple language, meter, and rhyme in verses filled with whimsy and humor. First published in The First Literary Review–East in November, 2016, his poetry is also online with Academy of the Heart and Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Home Planet News, Spillwords, Impspired, and others. He is also in print anthologies from Pure Slush, The Coil, Truth Serum Press, Peking Cat, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, he and his wife have lived in Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Germany, Virginia, and now in Mesa, Arizona over twenty years with two or more rescue dogs and cats always underfoot. Their four children and their grandchildren are scattered around the county, mostly at long distances.

Patoisery

More wordsmith than artist,
more beast than artiste,
not foolish, not smartest,
more layman than priest;

a jack-of-small-words,
perhaps a light thinker
chock-full of word curds,
a dabbler or tinker;

not expert or pro
yet a habitué,
an aficionado
who’s a slave of word play;

unkempt and unshaven,
not last and not least,
though I’m not a maven,
I write a fun feast.

Don’t Refuse Their Clues

Sometimes my muses don’t amuse,
but still, I don’t refuse their clues;
instead, my preference is to choose
and find some meaning in those cues,
some thoughts which I might place in queues
to use in some new poem’s cruise
which could enlighten or bemuse—
though none provide vast revenues.

My Abstraction Cataraction

Abstraction often baffles me
’cause I need something I can see,
hold in my hand and take command,
a thing that I can understand,
that helps me grasp it with my mind,
that doesn’t leave me feeling blind
to mysteries I cannot see
when something’s right in front of me.