24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Sounds of laughter
come out through my voice.
They are not always my own.
My silvery hair seems
to hang in such a way
That our resemblance is uncanny.
I’ve felt her presence
Since she’s been gone.
I’ve seen it my entire life.
Others notice more than I
Her daughter wills tears to dry
before I can see or hear them
My niece studies my face before reaching out
to stroke my cheek.
I hold my niece close
sharing our grief
even as I add to hers.
8pm. Poem 18
Fireghosts
They will stay.
Their smoke will scent
freshly painted buildings
their footprints will sink
into the sand
where no one else has been
their sighs will sing out at sunset.
They will gather under her.
They gather there now
under and on her.
They will tell the story
of fire and destruction
to reef fish and minah birds
who have yet to be born
and to tourists
who will soon return.
Their voices will be everywhere
unmistakable and clear.
They will be woven
into the kapa
of new Lahainatown.
I can still hear your squawk in Westbury.
So loud up high inside a tree.
Didn’t keep my car windows open long
for fear you’d fly inside.
I wonder why you shouted so much
you seemed to be alone all the time.
Alone inside that ever so large size of an evergreen tree.
Your face so dark I couldn’t see your eyes.
You looked like a sign of death.
A sign aimed at me I feared your every breath.
It was your large size and stature that truly frightens me.
Too large to be a crow
too small to be a hawk.
A real raven is what I saw,
glad summer school is over
rid of you that’s for sure.
I used to hate crows, scavengers of the earth
squawking, snatching, swamping the skies
when one died, shot by that stray bullet
frightening us into the house.
But then they said that crows were good
that when they eat the food
offered to the dead it is as though
the dead have returned.
Since then I feed the crow sometimes,
I do not turn away, irritated,
when it pecks at my window,
cawing through the glass.
Have you returned then?
Do you see the world through its squawk?
Or is that just wishful thinking
and that crow merely a sentient of the dark?
Recently a bird call
Alerted all the cats
That crows were flying swiftly
To hit down on our town
Calling out their flight signs
Clearing out a paths
And now they lurk all over
Calling out the time
Caw caw caw caw
Creating quite a din
Disguised
Colour me blue
To match the sky
Shade me gold
With paint that’s old
Stencil the words
Faded to look like birds
To hide me from real life
It’s time
She walks in the room and I’m hanging out
Books line the wall but I’m just sitting here
I’m looking almost right at her, and she looks at me too..
but there seems to be something in between.
Stressed, pale and white like me
but there’s something different…
She’s not still. I want to help her.
She turns her eyes and I count for her,
1, 2, 3, 4, one, two, three, four
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
She counts with me, but sometimes she doesn’t.
Sometimes she looks in the mirror while she does it and I think
It comforts her
And while I might not always know,
I know she’s trying and breathing when she can.
She’s beautiful.
I hold it all for her when she can’t and I count till she’s back
1, 2, 3, 4, one, two, three, four,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
It’s time
It’s sitting there like a fly on the wall, the sheet
Waving back and forth– like a friend from far away
A certain nervousness in my stomach, one I really think has been fabricated through words from unaligned energies and pictures in places I didn’t mean to look at
I do listen, funny enough, but not when it’s staring me down like it is now,
Though I do try, and so, it’s there
Waiting for me to enter this blue room and hold it so – reading the words
and repeating them in my mind.
Counting, 1,2,3,4, hold, one, two three, four,
exhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
My life is made from afters,
from endings.
It is made from dust,
clinging tightly to the floorboard behind the stove.
It is made from towels of spilt seed left under the bed
and of ghosts lingering in their houses.
When I say afters,
I suppose I truly mean befores I didn’t know would be
befores.
It is made from before the pain set in,
from before death arrived,
from before he happened,
or he happened
or he happened or he–
It is made from resilience’s decaying mouth,
its teeth rotting from its skull
as it is asked to smile.
It could have been worse after all.
My life is one of a survivor
who never learned
to cherish the befores,
who never asked what could change
only did so when it was demanded.
No longer.
I shall build a life that is made
of life.
Stranger Than
Like a displaced deer
down the middle
Of as residential street
Of industrialized city
At late morning
In a pandemic-
…Unusual.
That is to say
It was less mind-bending
Than the politicos
Telling their constituents
That science was merely
A suggestion