24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I never feel well when I should
I’m drowning above the ocean
And deaf in the silence of my home
The only time I feel ok
Is as arbitrary as my pain
An umbrella in the bath tub,
With my luck it might rain
Headphones without sound
To drown the screaming out
And too many empty decorative things
To distract the dust mites.
You may think it’s strange but this is how I sleep at night.
Graveyards are not what they used to be—
Back in 2073.
There are no more stones.
No longer bones.
They are visiting rooms you access with phones.
Great-great-great Grannny who died in ’02
Wasn’t cremated or interred, it’s true.
Instead, a recycle, post-DNA store;
She’s still around to love and adore!
Just scan a print of your finger or eye—
Even your blood will bring her ‘to life’—
All that was her, in her encapsule box,
Better, by far, than dates chiseled on rocks.
A holograph rewind of who, when and how,
All that once was, brought forward to now.
Good, bad and ugly, all tucked away.
Continuous viewing, instead of decay!
You can raise the whole graveyard–if you’re of a mind—
For a family reunion, the quite ghoulish kind.
A hundred-year span. A dead-relative Rave!
Where the specters and ghosts dance on each other’s grave.
And when YOU are re-ceased, they won’t wail or mourn,
But recycle your bits to someone newformed,
Who will grow with your traits, be they redundant or bland,
With eyes and hair like your three-headed Grand.
Habits of An Aged Couple
When I say don’t go
I mean leave already.
When I say already
I mean why are you still here,
not moving on, moving along,
gone.
When I say gone
I mean out of my life;
when I say life, I wonder
what it will be like without you
hovering over me year after year,
dictating who what where and when
as I ask
why.
When I ask why
I’m curious about why you feel
the need to direct my every move,
every thought, every conviction
and then I realize it’s control.
When I say control, I mean
manipulation.
When I say manipulation, I mean you
trying to take over my life because you
don’t have one of your own.
When I say your own, I mean to mind
your own business, create a happy place
for yourself that doesn’t include
managing me. When I say me,
I mean me,
why can’t I make decisions, take life
by the reins and ride on alone.
When I say alone, I mean I don’t want
to be lonely, don’t want to face
every day bitter with regret, this habit
of arguing over nothing. When I say
nothing,
you say something. When I say I’ll go,
I mean you’ll go. When I say go,
I mean why did you leave me.
When I say me, I mean you.
~ J R Turek
June 26, 2021 Hour 5
Concrete jungle
yet nature still thrives
demanding to be seen-
admired-
praised.
Never giving up hope
that someone
may acknowledge it’s beauty.
Carried to The Edge
Brought back home, a tasty trip
Thank you, Pizza Hut!
(A haiku is a Japanese poem consisting of three lines, with a syllable count of 5/7/5. This poem inspired by my lunch menu — the awesome crispy thin crust super full of toppings THE EDGE pizza from Pizza Hut!)
We finally met
And the sky turned pink
Butterflies all around
And in my stomach too!
The downpour from the sky above
And rolling out of my eyes too
It’s okay to cry!
For the sky is doing that too!
We sat there for a long time,
till the crowd around us thinned,
till the sun shifted
and the light changed.
Till we felt our eyes could meet again,
without the tears.
last line credits : Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
I slowly slip into you
and…
you envelop me
in
a cocoon of wet
warmth. I come
to you
for the
cleansing my soul
needs and
my body desires. You
leave me wanting
more.
I love you
when
I’m in you.
“So fortunate as to find themselves,
Even if only temporarily”
Man will wander seemingly aimless
Drunk on ambition for anything grand
Delusions of meaning
Perhaps that final solution
To the first question
Why?
The flash-bang panic
of the hour nearly missed,
lost in the nostalgia of
wearing down the W button
all to play at being a wolf
without even knowing
that I was learning.
How much in my brain has roots
in those young obsessions I cultivated
to escape that thing called trauma?
(Hour 5)
Dreaming of a Time Capsule
I would like to find a window to the past,
a capsule of evidences of the joys and sorrows,
the ordinary and extraordinary days on this plot of land,
part of the Western Reserve Firelands of Northern Ohio.
We only know Jack’s growing up years from his perspective.
When the Polish professor talked Jack’s Dad into selling Polish candies
in addition to the apples and peaches at the Firelands Country Store,
could the future life of the store be imagined?
The ups (appreciative customers!) of providing candies and wines and cheeses and teas
and downs – how the Midway Mall changed shopping for everyone.
When Mr. Smith was still selling quarry stone everywhere he was sent,
he missed little Jack’s early school morning routine and Jack’s zeal for arrowheads.
So he brought home a cigar box full, and planted a dozen in the field across the street.
Little Jack was happy to go arrowhead hunting with Dad that afternoon.
Dad steered little Jack toward the field, but Jack intuitively found a couple beauties “over here.”
When the owners before the Smith’s built the home
did they imagine the small room at the front of the house–
being an office for homework and other day-dreams?
Did the large living room always hold music, especially classical music,
from the Harpsichord kit put together by two unlike brothers — an engineer and a poet?
When even earlier men and women roamed this wild early land – were they content?
Did apple trees grow abundantly back then, too? Did the wild asparagus grow back then, too?
An Erie village is well known to the local Archeological Society some miles west,
and while several historical reports are convinced that Adenas were further south in Ohio,
this land was a hunting ground for them, as evidenced by arrowheads and other artifacts.
A time capsule? I can only dream — filling in the details around the facts that we know.
By Nancy Ann Smith,
Amherst, Ohio (historically known as the “Firelands of the Western Reserve of Northern Ohio.)