Hamster in Your Head

If you hold this poem
in the rain
its fur will get soaking wet.
If you hold this poem
in the sun
it will squint its eyes.
If you hold this poem
while you laugh
it will wiggle its whiskers with delight.
If you hold this poem
with a friend
it may warm both your hearts.
If you read this poem
with an open mind
it may scurry home
inside your head,
with all its soaking and squinting,
wiggling and warming,
nestled snug
in the sawdust
of your childhood memories
and the shredded paper
of your past loves.

John K. Kruschke

Accepted for publication in Bear Paw Arts Journal, Issue 3, scheduled for the end of November, 2025, but never published. Repeated emails to the editor at different email addresses received no responses. The journal has subsequently been listed as defunct at Duotrope.

Notes: This poem is intended as a simple invitation to poetry for the poem-curious. The imagined audience of the poem was people at a coffee shop who might pick up from the countertop a paper flyer titled “Poetry to the People” distributed by Terry Sloan. The poem is supposed to illustrate a few of the things poetry can do, in a compact and accessible stanza:
Personification: The poem is a person (well, a hamster, but pet hamsters do have personalities).
Metaphor: For example, “the sawdust of childhood memories”, and “the shredded paper of past loves.”
Concrete bodily imagery: Hold the furry poem and let it scurry into your head; etc.
Attention to the sounds of words, for example the alliteration in “soaking and squinting,” and “wiggling and warming.”
And, the poem concludes with some classic poetic themes of loss and nostalgia.

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