The lunatic let his pet mosquito out of a matchbox outside our quiet house
as freezing eventide strolled over to see what’s up.
This was after a ball of thread attached to a beautiful woman’s manicured hand
led me out of one white maze, and into another.
When I realized she’d betrayed me I was standing naked in a deep pit and she
looked down and scoffed, as if I was supposed to know the difference
between anguish and tenderness.
The rest of the missing hours are unaccounted for — time took a break and laid
as the same woman, topless, on the beach. The gulls snuck a couple peeks
before retreating in reverse migration, back toward October snowstorms,
where the trees in my backyard were putting on their black coats.
Waiting Out Bombogenesis
KG Newman
What is the significance of this work to you?
"Waiting Out Bombogenesis" is about taking the long road out of the snowstorm in your life — and preparing for the next one... "Harnessing Hypomania" is a (perhaps fruitless) quest to help your loved one, even as you need help too... and "Flawed Superhero" looks at an unsure dad who needs his son and a comic book character to remind him of his strength.
What is the significance of the form you chose for this work?
In these three lyrical pieces, the prose form allowed me to expand the different scenes throughout each poem, allowing them more time to breathe, come fully alive and intertwine into the other (often contrasting) tableaus in the poem.
What was your process for creating this work?
"Waiting Out Bombogenesis" was written straight though, in one sitting and about an hour, while reflecting and looking out the window at an actual bombogenesis in Denver, Colorado, in April 2019... "Harnessing Hypomania" came together with the end stanza first, and I wrote backwards from there... "Flawed Superhero" was written the morning after watching a Spider Man movie with my son. I took him to preschool, drove to work with my mind still churning and then the poem spit itself onto my notebook.
KG Newman is a sportswriter who covers the Broncos and Rockies for The Denver Post. His first three collections of poems are available on Amazon. The Arizona State University alum is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP and more info and writing can be found at kgnewman.com. He lives in Hidden Village, Colorado, with his wife and two kids.