Xeno Hemlock

Why do I rhyme? Because I am pop.
Once I begin I just cannot stop.
No better way to get stuck in your head
Than these little ditties better read than said.

— excerpt from “Why Do I Rhyme?”, The Lion Eating the Sun

Last Monday, I revealed the schedule on what type of content arrives on what day on this blog. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday were listed as “xenobytes/poetry” day. If you’ve been a little observant, you might’ve noticed the posting pattern before the revelation. Now the question is: what are xenobytes?

Xenobyte was a label I gave to micropoems made up of two stanzas, each with four lines. There’s an unspoken demand for writers to produce content fast in today’s information age. At the same time, the nature of social media also unspeakably demands content must be short because of people’s decreasing attention span. These are the reasons for the length of xenobytes.

Despite the brevity of #xenobytes, I make sure to follow all the personal tenets and rules I adhere to when writing poems, which often consist of any combination of rhymes, stories, and philosophy. Far from my usual choice of writing longer poems, writing a xenobyte is fun and challenging. In a limited space, I had to deliver what I needed to.

Why do I rhyme? ‘Cause I like tradition
My hot take’s it pushes the imagination.
Confined in rules and bound to protocols,
One becomes stronger, wrestling for control.

— excerpt from “Why Do I Rhyme?”, The Lion Eating the Sun

I still don’t shy away from writing longer poems. As a matter of fact, a few xenobytes became foundation for longer poems that made their way to the final roster of my last book The Lion Eating the Sun.
One example is the xenobyte “Fap, Fap, Fap.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. They saw a tyke.
Walking not in the way they like.
Fap. Fap. Fap. They saw a chance
To strut the victim dance.

Tap. Tap. Tap. They failed to see
The beauty in diversity.
Fap. Fap. Fap. Still they crusade
while trying to sell their Kool-Aid.

That was published first on my old website before being transformed into the lengthier “Moral Crusaders”. What’s funny here is that none of the lines made it to “Moral Crusaders”. Instead, the theme and message of the xenobyte became the foundation for the expansion.

Another example is “Bitter”, published on my old website as a xenobyte first before I added more stanzas and included in The Lion Eating the Sun.

Bitter is the potion that shapes my future,
transcends the norms and forges my culture.
Bitter is the blood that runs in my veins
and makes me my superstar Samuel Twain.

Bitter is the water that feeds the trees
of my Neverland where I do as I please.
When you ask why my stories don’t glitter
Because, not salty, my tears are bitter.

Here is “Gone is the Calico”. Similar to “Bitter”, I kept the two stanzas in its longer version for The Lion Eating the Sun.

Gone is the calico sharing my bed,
Warmth next to me right by my head.
Took my heart with her as she crossed the bridge
Only leaving me with a piece so smidge.

Her orange haunts me when I shop at the market.
Black stings me when I wash my car’s carpet.
White wipes the picture when I fantasize
My calico’s resurrection before the next sunrise.

For our last example, here is “Secret Attraction”. It’s an unpublished xenobyte draft which I reworked as “Pulsating Heartbeats” for The Lion Eating the Sun.

The pulsating heartbeats cannot be denied
The lustful storm keeps raging inside
But sadly for us I just don’t have the time
Call the police this is a crime

A crime against passion and unconsumed romance
No matter the desire we’ll never advance
So honey pray to your chosen angel
that our romance goes beyond fable

Here is the reworked version of those stanzas in “Pulsating Heartbeats”:

The pulsating heartbeats cannot be denied
The lustful storm keeps raging inside
But sadly for us I just don’t have the time
Call the police because this is a crime—

—against passion and unconsumed romance
No matter the desire we’ll never advance
So honey pray to your chosen angel
That our story goes beyond fable

See you on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for more xenobytes!

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Header photo by Sebastian Voortman from Pexels.