142. Poetry at Work Day

Featuring the Toaster Oven Series

Today I'm glad ...

For poet Tania Runyan's reassurance that those waxed, sprayed clementines (I read the small print after I opened the bag at home) probably aren't going to kill me as long as I don't eat the peel.

To learn that forsythia is edible, and tastes (so I'm told) both bitter-spicy and honey-sweet.

For an expert opinion that something I was a little (well, maybe more than a little) worried about is probably nothing to worry about.

To spot poetry in places one might not think — the obits, the bridge column, the toaster oven (and for the pair who made it a series by writing their own toaster oven haiku) — and to see how others played with Tweetspeak Poetry's annual ‪Poetry at Work Day‬.

For independent confirmation (that is, people I can run something by and they will objectively tell me yes or no) that something I thought was weird is, in fact, weird.

And for many other things besides.

How about you?

The Toaster Oven Series

Sandwich is still cold

What's wrong with toaster oven?

Oops, pushed wrong button
                    —me

bread is smoking, black 

what's wrong with the toaster? oops 

poetry distracts.
                    —Simply Darlene

What's that putrid smell? 

Toaster oven wins again. 

Pizza never learns.
                    —Donna Z. Falcone

Whether you possess

a toaster oven or not

won't you join the fun? 

Have an orange. I've got plenty. Chocolate, too.