What is time
Man made
Creationists made
White Christianity made
It does not exist
And yet so many are enslaved by it
Encouraged
It will all come together
But you have to begin.
Believe in yourself
You can do this, my friend.
Allow yourself freedom
Recognize the need.
Feel in your soul
Burning hunger and greed.
Not for fortune not fame
Should you desire or seek.
But a leisurely stroll
Using both of your feet.
HR 5 – Text Prompt
Text Prompt
You find a time capsule buried in the backyard of your new home (or anywhere else, depends on you). What’s in it? How old is it or its probable story is up to the poet.
In the backyard,
behind the apple tree,
I wanted a garden.
I found you instead.
Your story untold.
Your loved ones still looking.
Your heart decomposed.
Let’s go,
into the sunshine,
away from the past.
Hour 6 – Red Light Musings (image prompt)
Outside the car
Inside the water
I see a ladder to nowhere.
If I could climb it,
do you think I could find
Where nowhere truly is?
Could I curl up in nowhere
And rest at last
Away from those who hurt me?
Does nowhere have an edge,
A circumference where it ends,
And could I truly find its middle?
I would love to just enjoy myself
Living there with my thoughts.
Maybe I could finally untangle them
Weed out the bad ones and make them good?
“Stop touching the glass, it’ll get dirty.”
My thoughts interrupted as mom keeps driving
We got a green light…
The Rosary
No. 6 – The Rosary
By Nandhini G. Natarajan
I was four years old
when a visiting missionary
crossed my grandfather’s path
and he found religion.
Till then, he flouted his atheism,
to shame his wife, a devout Catholic.
Grandfather became
a humorless convert,
an instant authority on Christianity.
He acquired a three-foot rosary,
suspiciously like the one
the visiting priest
had worn around his waist.
It became a weapon
in grandfather’s hands.
Every evening, family members
were forced to their knees to
pray the rosary.
The children mumbled and stared
at the marble-sized beads.
I was always restless
Made faces, and others would laugh.
Grandfather would turn and glare
with fire in his eyes.
After the rosary,
namesake saints were solicited,
children blessed,
by the six-inch cross.
The miscreants
were knocked on the head
by the same cross.
One evening,
I leaned against my father’s knees,
a big knock on the head
was heading my way.
When I was blessed,
I pursed my lips
and blew the blessing
back into grandfather’s face.
He stared solemnly at me
and told my father.
She is possessed by the devil.
My father never forgave
his father-in-law.
Hour Six, 2021 / Responding to a Musical Piece
Until nothing remained but the soaring melodies Pandora's demons escaped and writhed twisted gnarls around years filled with divisive tears cruelties and blind loyalties deadends leading to deaths stony silent under silent stones. Pandora's box had been nothing but a mirror after all, which revealed the dankest rank within ourselves which we alone drank in, poisoning our goodness with greed. We drank first eagerly then regretfully aware that we had to imbibe what we poured to others. Churns and churls mixed within us, and we came to cleanse the evil we had let into the world. We emerged and gazed upoon what was left. Our mirrors now showed who remained being gaunt, exhausted, depleted, and alone. It was then the music began. A beat for each heart's patter softly sounding called out for circle of dance. Clumsy and forgetful, we tapped and gingerly first held hands after such divisive distance when hours grew into days into weeks into months isolating us from these melodies, from each other. Music had remained, yet we were deafened because we saw only ourselves in the mirror. Now swells of flutes and violins soar above and within us, singing the names of those we've lost calling out the prayers and verses we now must learn. Only the music remains and builds as we begin anew.
Villanelle to New Beginnings
There is more hope in the future than you could believe,
walking on roads that make you unsure-
but you fear falling stagant once you let yourself grieve.
You have plans taking shape and dreams you spin and weave,
intentions and ideals almost pure.
There is more hope in the future than you could believe.
You are working on letting go things you must leave,
you have to force yourself to still endure.
Survial is louder than the need to grieve
while all you look for is just some reprieve;
times for silence and rest become fewer.
There is more hope in the future than you could believe,
you keep telling yourself with every breath you heave.
Hang onto dreams though they don’t cure
the aching while you can’t let yourself grieve,
the stinging pain throbbing with every cleave;
bad coping mechanisms still lure-
but there is more hope in the future than you could believe
waiting for you once you let yourself grieve.
My Mother’s Vice
My Mother’s Vice
she won’t say much except she liked tobacco
its calming effect on her nerves
maybe she once imagined herself
Katherine Hepburn, cigarette in hand
accoutrement for deflection
parochial school carpool queen, cigarette hangs
from her lips, one arm expertly steers
the other swats noisy uniformed kids
crammed in a container of school sweat
cured by suburban menthol
when we were old enough to talk back
we shamed her habit, badgered this
choice need desire to smoke
a felon then surfaced, hiding her vice
stomped out evidence
patio of solace, snuffing a dying butt, she falls
a dislocated hip forces intervention
a thirty year nonsmoker, she still tastes
pleasure, rush of nicotine washing
her brain, softening daily discomfort, details
(reminds me of my own numbing vices)
––pride punishes another generation
June 26, 2021
A Mediums Life Sacrificed
The seventh hour— time fulfills
Each moment, each hour, every geist
Awakening ancient powers and skills
Only brought to remembrance when enticed
Lifted from times very essence
Ones knowledge is valued and priced
For the origins very own potence
Is found when a mediums life is—sacrificed
Communing with the dead
Brought to life— again and even now
For its one or the other we find instead—
To walk and talk— and to even vow:
For the time itself is found to be
Fulfilled and seemingly disguised
For whose words— that we now see—
Through a medium (virgins) life that was sacrificed
Looking for a home in Raleigh, North Carolina
Do rich people know what being poor is like in present day America?
If I were to share my venmo @justgildedcages, how many people would send me funds so I could purchase a home?
If I wanted to attain property, how much support is out there?
Do people with excess know how to redistribute wealth?
Sometimes it scares me to think about it,
but I can’t afford to be scared.
Do people with a good, consistent, stable income know how many people are suffering from not having income, not enjoying the job/s they work at?
Do citizens of the United States comprehend that reparations have nothing to do with the government and have everything to do with white people giving money away without expecting anything in return except for peace?
Do people know what peace is? How it feels? How so many long for the small things and others are distracted by the petty things?
I wonder.