24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Opening with metaphor an ivory cage,
Things never meant to be discovered,
Continually buried deeper by myself
Objects too dark yet too piercingly bright
Relegated to what shouldn’t matter
Yet feel it stronger the more I look away.
It came with
no set of instructions
no diction nor dialogue
A collection of old cameras, watches, photographs,
tea cups and toys
marking my family’s
movement on earth.
Yellowed newspaper dated 1920
cradled a flowery porcelain tea cup
that once held my great grandmother’s lips.
A black and white photo showed my nana
proudly dressed in her tennis whites
gazing longingly…
More pocket watches were unearthed
trapped in timelessness decades ago!
Rattling at the bottom of our Family Time Capsule
were
three small tin matchbox cars .
My father’s eyes flicked with amazement
and childhood amusement.
Now, it is my turn
to stop time-leave my mark
be immortalized
leave my buried treasure.
Our basement is flooding
If you look by the gate, there’s a rock
that split. And that’s where the rain’s
coming in. Daddy was a whisper
above sirens, tornados in the air
and dancing in our heads. We’ll just dig
a trench. Dig down 12 feet, 18 inches.
Find some gold. The wailing quieted,
seemed to cease, failing to take the rain
away with it. Hearts now calming,
but not long before Eddie runs down
the stairs: Hey, Dad! We got some more!
ABBA and Shawshank, Revisited
The woman in my dream last night told me
she wants to give her husband away. Not on loan,
mind you, but for good. They have such different
tastes in food. She loves to eat dumplings
steamed in a pot of chicken soup simmering all morning,
she wants to drink mojitos all afternoon, the mint and lime
adding zing to her mouth. Who doesn’t want extra zing
in their mouths? She said she hasn’t figured out
what to do with her hands. So when she’s
on the road and comes to a stoplight,
she finger-dances to Abba blaring on the radio:
Ooh, you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life,
the index finger on both hands kicking a can-can.
The mistake she made is the light turned green
and she stayed there dancing her hands without
gunning the gas and got rear-ended. Now the cop
(dressed neatly with no food stains on his lapel)
wants to know her reason for not moving. She tells him:
Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen,
her fingers kicking in time to the beat, so he
handcuffs her and takes her to the pokey, and
as a lover of irony, she teachers her cellmates
to do the Hokey Pokey. But they only serve slop to inmates,
and she wants more (don’t we all?), so she takes the plastic spoon
and starts scraping in the wall. She figures if Andy and Red
could break out of Shawshank, she can break out
of county lock up. Protect the right for us to bear
dumplings, protect our homes with dough
boiled for 10 minutes, cover on. Anything will plump up
and blossom with steam and enough time. All she had
was an overnight, and it was back to the streets for her,
dancing with her fingers at every intersection, red or green
light shining their bright color on her like a Rothko.
My garden is a time capsule,
it’s contents a catalog
of my successes and my mistakes.
In the corners and along the edges,
irises, cannas, and lilies bloom
when it’s their time.
My small white rose bush,
a gift from a secret pal,
blossoms all summer long.
It’s a history of my education–
of hyssop that pleases the bees,
the weeds I leave in spring
because the butterflies like them,
the goji berry plant, confined to a pot,
the blackberry bed,
the run amok strawberries,
and the things I shouldn’t have planted,
wouldn’t have planted, if only I’d known
what great bullies they were,
pushing out all the other plants,
staking their claim
with some type of herbal manifest destiny.
Each year I work to keep lemon balm
and tuberous-rooted sunflowers in check,
to make sure the annual flowers
and vegetables have room to grow.
Each year, I’m surprised again
when the time capsule opens up
and reminds me again
how much I have to learn,
and how nature always wins.
You are not a promising young woman.
You are…
An intended, eternal entity.
A boundless body.
A sought after energy.
Queen in your last life’s journey,
Goddess, currently.
Do not let undeserving hands rest for free.
You are an immutable force.
Trauma is something amongst the waves.
Let it wash over you, but do not let it stay.
You are here for more than adding tears
to glass globes of misogyny pioneers.
Stand tall.
Chest out.
You are the Survivor.
You are the Chosen.
You are the Moon to which all things howl.
You can be belittled by none;
Smile.
&
Know.
There are no weapons used against you,
from which you have not already won.
I was woken up this morning at 5am because my partner came home late and I had been worried throughout my sleep.
When 9am came around I just snoozed and kept sleeping because my rest is more important than any other achievement.
If I could
save time in a bottle
I’d like to
Everyday til eternity
Make the days
Last forever
Words, make wishes come true
Walk through
the fields of
Time
~ flows
Saved
like a treasure
Around long enough
to know
A box of wishes
Dreams
that never came true
Empty~ except for
the memory
Of you
I finally got a shovel (unhaunted)
2 dig as deep as I wanted
And permits for the land
Which I’d researched 4 beforehand.
I finally broke the earth,
Dug 6 feet down (for what it’s worth)
Thought about stopping to grab a ladder
But nah, I kept digging and couldn’t be gladder.
8 feet down I struck solid
An iron tube with a dated lid
And inside 10 items sealed
Over 9 hundred years ago
It seemed suspect in a country founded
Less than 7 months prior
And iron only began
Being processed and manufactured
5 weeks ago.
I opened it eagerly
Not bothering to climb out.
Immediately apparent were 3 facts.
A few of the items had disintegrated upon contact with air
A few glowed a sickly green
Leaving me with 1 item to pick up safely.
A cube made of clear solid material
With a chip in the corner
And engraved but unreachable
The word Duck.
I heard the barrel click as I turned it over
And the fight for my life began.
“Come here” my friend called for me
pointing towards a box, covered with dirt
Dated 50 years ago, the box was
Still looked strong, not decomposed
We pulled the box out, it was heavy
“Does this contain rocks?” my friend asked me
“I hope not” I replied
The box was really heavy
We opened the box, it was unlocked
Inside were things that I couldn’t recognize
I never saw them in real life
Except for in pictures of history
There was an envelope inside
dated 50 years ago
it addressed to no one in particular
and from a Tommy boy
There was a picture, black and white
“Before going off to war” it read behind
“That is Tommy Boy” I told my friend
“Maybe 50 years ago, before the war”
A bullet, engraved with Tommy’s name
A medal of honor, awarded to him
Letters he wrote to a girl he liked
and a letter he wrote to us, the box openers
I opened the envelope and unfolded the paper
“Tommy boy to the future” it opened
“Tommy boy to the future” it started off the letter
My respect for this person went up immediately
“Time is the great undoer, children” it read
Even those who defeated Hitler can’t defeat it
“Time kills even the best of us”
“Make the best of this life”
“This box contains recordings of my life”
“Years and years spent in the war
to spend just days with the one I loved”
“May that not be your fate”
“Each day I spent in war, I thought of her
Her face, her words, her memories consumed me
Find someone like that in your life
To be entirely consumed with”
“Time is the great undoer, my children”
“I do not remember all the worries I had as a kid
I only remember the memories I made
and the fun I had making those”
“You get only one life
Live a life full of love, joy, and wonder
What’s the point in a life that’s not?
We get only one life to live, eh?”
My afternoon became packed now
Unpacking can wait, these stories needed attention
I shall give them what they seek
For I do not know the adventure I’m going to go on
–Surya T