24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The water is redact clean and does not mean
Happy we have some to redact and clean
Thousands of redact do not have any
Story of millions of people around the redact
Drinking redact water is grace
Many have died who redact not care
Driving
is a pastime
for me and
do enjoy it
Reason
I would never
speed over
Zebra crossing
Or zebra cruising
as a friend
tend
always to say
Bucket List
I want to build a time machine so I can hear Linda Ronstadt sing “Blue Bayou” at a bare-lightbulb club in Memphis, or at Fred Alphonso’s Thunderbird Lounge down there on Adams Avenue—open till three a.m.—and the folks will be elbowing on the dance floor until Linda steps out in a frilled cinnamon-brown jacket, opens her mouth, and her vocal tremor stills us all. You can’t beet her voice, pardon my spelling, anywhere or anytime.
But for now I live as a whelk farmer in a Tucson subdivision, on Corte de Federico Street, named for Linda’s grandfather. I raise my whelks beneath the shade of this carport, in these large white buckets. Bayou Jasmine, Lake Pontchartrain, is where I get my whelks. It is true, they are carnivorous and mean-spirited gastropods—although the elegant curl of their shell is of great beauty. I sing to them to keep their meet (pardon my spelling) of sweet disposition. “I’m going back one day, come what may . . . .” We all get a kick out of that one.
[prompt to use the following words: beet jacket tremor bayou elbow lightbulb cinnamon bucket elk carport]
Raised in a home without closets
Strange, that
That is why I do not have a closet
Strange, fact.
Raising kids in a home
without closets
They may hate
Closets.
TV remote commands attention of all
In a world
Millions are dying
for attention
That’s extraordinary.
TV remote is loved by all.
In a world
Love is
sparse
That’s extraordinary.
TV remote I would be
And become extraordinary.
What is love?
Living with a man who doesn’t care
Or a fat cat; or a dark dog
Is that love?
What is love?
Setting self afire
To prove love
Going on a bungee jump
Is that love?
What is love?
Euthanize
Suicide?
Max Richter – On the Nature of Daylight (lyrics prompt)
Go to sleep, go to sleep
waking’s not a date to keep
Go to sleep, go to sleep
waking’s not a date to keep
Then again there’s melting in
Melting in to live again
Wonder wonder wonder
Wander down life’s corridors
Turn into a window
There is daylight shining through
you
Sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle
Letting go of specks and splashes
Free (sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle)
There is daylight shining through
Be (sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle)
Here is something, here is you
Free (sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle)
Free to wonder, wonder wonder
what breaks through.
She recommended beetroot for my aches
And a jacket to ward off my cold
The tremor in my heart has not ceased
She leaned on my elbow for comfort
Cinnamon for my tea
Water in a bucket
Her Tesla in my carport
This is my bucket list
Bobbing my head and strike the keyboard
Writing a poem
I felt surreal
I got into the groove somehow
Eyes closed and mind opened
Struggling to write a poem
Well, it was a new experience
But it is worth it
Life has a surprise always
And you do not know its ways
Somehow, if you are open
You can find a way around the oven
I love it now
And somehow
This is it
I have been swaying to the beat
Life is not hard
It is the cow
that made it so
and you believe it so too
Sit back and wonder why
It is the cow
that made it so
and no one asked why it is so
Dazed at times
at the era when
life is not hard
and fore-generations lived happily
It is hard to pin down
now or anyhow
how those of yore lived when
life is not hard.