KATHERINE KELLY - POEMS

Katherine Kelly is an expat Southerner, poet, and writer living in Washington State. She works full-time as a field scientist and her observations in the wildlands and farmlands of the west inform the humor and insights in her writing.

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Reflections on love and beauty in response to Billy Collins
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When all's said and done, said the mantis to her mate, I’m so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me.
​

​If you were to think of me, my love
You’d think of me with arms upraised,
Cryptic in my gentle sway.
 
My petaled hands echoing the shape
of my flowered home,
The diamond point of my chin enticing.
 
No song is sweeter than my scent.
Nor any flower more bewitching.
You would think me perfection.
 
If you were to think, my love.
You might consider whether it is I,
Or one of my sisters who dances morbidly.
 
If you were in my arms, my love,
I would take your breath away,
No fleeting thought could match that ecstasy.
 
My hooded cloak is yellow and white.
In it I am beautiful,
And you were a fool to be in love with me.
 
 

You are so beautiful, said the candle to the moth, too bad you are a fool.

​Look you, sir, I am my own fever,
I was not fanned to life by your praise.
Cease this endless orbiting, imbecile.
Mind you, I am not your moon a-blaze.
 
Alas, he will not listen.
The fool in his velvet cloak.
The green and gold edges already ashen.
 
Away, avast, heave to, begone, I pray.
Sweep closer, sir, and you will alight
Saturn’s son, I beg you, spirit thyself away.
 
Alas, my Icarus, you were so beautiful,
Too bad you were a fool.

 

You are a fool to consider me beautiful, said Narcissus to himself, having finally had enough. A monologue in two parts
​

​So here we are, staring big-eyed into the stream.
Caught in an endless loop of admiration. Youth wasted
In the wrong kind of self-reflection.
 
I am beautiful. My visage more beautiful than
The stream, my eyes bluer than the sky
Reflected therein. My hair gleams gold.
 
And yet, here we sit.
Sky blue eyes empty of reason,
Golden curls dusty and drooping.
 
I cannot tell whether it is the sun, his glory
A pale second to the beaming of my smile,
Or the moon, that best reflects my beauty.
 
If you had not mocked Ameinias, the unlucky,
Or so rudely spurned poor Echo. Connected
Both, you fool, to Nemesis of all people.
 
Look how thick my lashes are, how sweetly,
That one tear spills over. How nobly my nose,
Adorns my face.  Oh, and my arched brows, how-
 
Enough! You prattle like a child. The truth,
Is that you are a fool to consider me beautiful,
Narcissus, and you have lost us everything.