24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Time
By: LuvMiFreely
(Hour 8)
The world is always in a hurry
Rushing to get nowhere
Everything in a discord
This is the norm
No one knows what calm is anymore
Always trying to outrun time
People harp on it as if their lives depend on it
No one lives forever
Time is nonexistent
Why not enjoy your life right now?
Slow down…
Breathe
“Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.” Lois Lowry The Giver
What was that?
Behind him, he heard a scrape. GO!
Across vast distances of space and time,
from the place he had left, he hears them,
all the people he left behind.
Quietly sounds drift to him.
He used to make them laugh; now he makes them cry.
There are too many words, too much emotion.
It all bounces around in his mind.
What is real? What is not?
He’s running. From what?
He doesn’t know. Did he ever know?
He’s not sure, but he feels that running is right.
Feet slapping concrete, blood pumping, sweat dripping,
breath gasping, even though he is so, so tired and weak.
Behind him, across vast distances of space and time,
from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too.
But perhaps it was only an echo.
Soft water gels over your body,
soothing your skin
washing troubles away
you look out to the city and ponder…
What is everyone else doing? I soak here
relaxed
what troubles are they going through?
do I care? Am I supposed to care?
I think not
it soothes my skin, this water
just what I needed
I can see my reflection
almost better than a mirror
it’s wavy
just like life
there are no straight lines.
Overlooking the city
as if I were a bird
soaring within the clouds
examining the fabric of life-
what each area holds dear,
knowing that within the jumbled puzzle of it all-
We are just a small speck of the wheel of life.
Sauntering uncertain yet with direction
Repetitions familiar in distant dreams
Archetypal actions given from before
Strange when leaving is only stabbing still
Space rotating around arriving me there again
Yet still just me moving my way through.
Hope springs eternal until there’s a leak on the slip n slide of life.
no more than a cubicle
you talked to the chair, the table, the door –
you had to, out of necessity, because that was
all there was
you thought the world was just this big,
and nothing more beyond it
nightmares penetrated your dreams when you
were forced to sleep in the closet
feral-like in this non-wilderness –
crayons lined up for protection
symbiosis of love between mother and son
… enough
but freedom –
a foreign word
(Plot of ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue)
Cristy Watson, 2021
Life Lessons
In high school I switched to Sue’s piano teacher, Miss Ward.
She took the El and a taxi to our houses, luckily
only two blocks from each other. Then she took a taxi
and the El back home. Even then I knew it was an unmerciful life.
Possibly our pieces, our Chopin and Bach and Debussy,
showed we were advanced students, but not
if you listened to us. And Miss Ward had to listen.
It was her job. My father had to mend and stitch clothes,
line seams up just so, add pockets and collars and pleats.
A tailor was steps up from a horse trader, his father’s work.
I didn’t bother with the niceities of music, eschewing
counting, rhythm, legatos, staccatos. To me
mere possibilities, whether to consider or not
at my discretion. My mother said, I don’ know
how she makes any money at all, with the taxis and the El.
I felt bad then, not for my indifferent playing–
I thought I passed the bar, but just by a hair–
but for a hardscrabble life, the endless rounds,
a tiny elderly woman wearing nylons and sensible stout shoes.
