Small furry ball of fire
pouncing to the top of trees through the early morning window while
waiting for me to stir
then tiptoes up my side and
sits like a soft statue on my hip
sniffing my musty morning breath.

Pa-dump, pa-dumping adeptly
before me down the stairs and through the kitchen
she is Helios with a tiny sun on the tip of her tail
singing a sweet tangerine scented meow.

My cloudy eyes seek out kettle, cup and masala tea to lift
the morning mist. Meanwhile
she weaves her slender charioted requisition longingly
through my legs. Once fulfilled, I sip
as she consumes tidbits to fuel her inner fire, whereby the Poynting flux
propagates into her corona through the buffeting of magnetic fields by turbulent connective cells. In other words
the zoomies are unleashed! –
ricocheting from floor to ceiling
sending sparks simultaneously shooting
from the pads of her paws and the tip of her tail.

Her solar wind engulfs all the tiny planets of our atmosphere
scurrying small objects, scooting over the floor
until at last it subsides
settling sleepily like the small umbral grey spot
on her left haunch.

And she retreats
creeping under clouds of blankets to her camera obscura
where she will dream that she is painting glimmering specs
over rippling waters full of fluttering fish.
Until after hours of hazy slumber she emerges
to eclipse the advancing evening.

The prompt for Day Five of Na/GloPoWriMo challenges us to incorporate “Twenty Little Poetry Projects” (a list originally developed by Jim Simmerman) into one poem. This was a challenge indeed! I’m sure I didn’t include all twenty projects, but I think I hit most of them. Our sprightly cat, Sunny (pictured above) provided the inspiration for my poetic attempt at this challenge. She is bright orange and white with just one small grey spot on her back left hip which I find intriguing – a little umbral fleck in her sunny disposition. She came to us at Christmas when our spirits needed a little ray of light!

The text in italics in the third stanza is taken from this abstract of an article in Nature Astronomy. Science has its own dialect that I don’t often understand!

Here is the list of projects:
1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.