Day 2: Epistle from the Basement

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NPWM: (1) Write a "from where I'm sitting" poem, and (2) write a poem that "directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word ,an odd/unusual simile ,a statement of 'fact,' and something that seems out of place in time."

My poem didn't come out that ekphrasitc today, but I did follow both prompts, more or less. I describe my basement environment, address Zeus, include a "made-up" word (a portmanteau, actually), have a slightly unusual simile, and I guess talking to mythical gods seems a bit "out of place and time."

Basement
 
Zeus chased me down here
with a couple of noisy thunderbolts.
These days we’re not allowed to say “climate change’
or have the government warn us about the weather,
so I just rely on the gods.
 
I used to cower down here during tornado warnings—
you, know, interior walls, away from windows,
that kind of thing—but now the powers that be
prefer the element of surprise, like the next pandemic.
 
This is my haven, a clutter-clysm of organized chaos—
boxes and crates, half of whose contents I forgot;
the laundry corner, never empty of a mountain of apparel;
and other things that ask to be sorted and sifted.
Instead I’m writing, trying to unclutter my brain of noise,
so much of which must be absorbed these days.
It’s not Next Great Poem, just a self-conscious ramble,
as I type away on a dinosaur PC
and wind-swept rain rattles the basement windows.
 
Suddenly, as a malicious bit of divine punctuation,
a loud boom scares the power out.
Come on, Zeus—
or Jupiter, Thor, Indra, Baal, Tāwhirimātea,
whatever you like to be called these days—
 I’m just trying to write down here.