24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
It’s the closest you’ll ever get
To being a baby again
None of these words make sense
But you know they are supposed to
Start at the beginning
Re-learn the alphabet
You’ll say words wrong
No one will understand you
You will be frustrated
Throwing things no longer helps
And you wish you could remember things
Words
People
Accents
Letters
Молоко
우유
Milk
Finally you remember
These mean milk
It’s a start
You live in an old house now
Anything spooky happen?
If any souls departed from this house
They did so peacefully
It is not without its creaks and groans
The fan squeaks and clicks
The air conditioner makes the lights blink
The washing machine causes the floor to vibrate
If there are any old ghosts here
That I need to face
They are all inside my head
The hour that slipped away
The disconnect in the brain
The forgotten task
This is the poem that was late by five minutes
The gentle holy glow
That chases away the dark
Sitting by my side
On this silent night
An owl looking into the dark
Silently comforting me
No dark thing will find you tonight
No nightmare will wake you tonight
As long as I am here
Gentle creature in this space
Gentle affections that you give
Sweet baby
No judgements
No concerns
Just sweet affections
And gentle green eyes
There’s a monster in the mist
Dark shape looming
Arms reaching
Teeth snapping
Coming through our world from lands unknown
Roots in the ground
Leaves on it’s arms
It’s just a tree
There’s a monster in the closet
Shifting in the dark
Eyes glowing
Throat growling
Slipping through the back doors in dimensions
Buttons
Air vents
Just a coat and an air current
There’s a monster in my head
Whispering softly to me
Dreams of blades and blood
Wishes for my own destruction
Smiles at me
With familiar eyes
No easy explanation for this one
It really is a monster
And there is no escape
You know it took me forever
To realize that Scorpio was a water sign?
Surely we were fire
Surely we were evil
And burned everything away
After all our constellation was the scorpion
Forever chasing Orion out of the sky
Reminding Artemis every year
That no man could have her
Save her twin brother
Surely we were fire
Surely we were evil
Surely we burned and stole and killed
Instead we are water
We wear away
We wash away
We undermine and pull apart
And take away
From mortals and gods alike
Can you hear me?
I said, can you HEAR me?
No, can you hear ME?
CAN you hear me?
Can YOU hear me?
You complain that I get over-dramatic
But you wouldn’t listen to me until I did
They say to let out your feelings and say what you mean
But no one believes me when I use simple words
This bothers me
Well you can get over it
No I mean this makes me feel like my brain is going to bleed out of my ears
Did you have to be so over-dramatic?
Well you didn’t listen to me when I said this was bothering me
What more choice did I have?
I use the tools of poets and writers
To try to force you to understand
That I want to scratch my veins out of my arms
That shocks of electricity are bouncing like pinball off my skull
That crowds when they are too close make me want to scream
That too much tension and closeness makes me want to commit acts of violence
That unexpected noise jolts me out of my train of thought, derail me, cause me to crash the train, and it takes work to get it back on again
Do you get it now?
Do you understand yet?
Can you hear me now?
Listen to me
I’m telling you everything you’ve ever needed to know
Always in a hurry
Always on the run
The kids of this generation
Never get any fun
They say there’s nothing new under the sun
Everything has been done
But people still climb mountains
Because they’they’ve never been up there
People still write books
Because they have their own tales to tell
People still sing songs
Because their ears haven’t heard the song of their heart
And people still run races
To feel the wind in their own hair
There is nothing new under the sun
Except everything we have never experienced