24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Talk to things that won’t listen
Judge things that don’t care
Make a difference in everyone else’s lives but your own
Apply yourself to something useless
Stretch to reach something nearby
Dream of dreaming
Collect someone else’s memories
Revoke your own permits
Welcome to being a poor non-white single mother
Designed to take the beatings of a sun
That is so far away
While praying for rain nearby
I am at half way,
between smoke and ashes !
I can’t complain,
my voice is faded,
Now I am a Man.
I was crazy,
I had time,
It feels likes ‘just in a movement’,
I became a Man.
Silent and plain..!
(Source : Remix poem from Chapter 2, of the book ‘the great gatsby’)
Digging into the past
is a literal term when one unearths
a time capsule.
Unexpected discovery
in the garden of my new home,
prodded from underneath the dirt
by a tiller.
I expected to find the remains of a pet,
in the rusty metal box.
No pet skeleton under the lid,
but a skeleton of a different kind.
The skeleton of joy extinguished.
Black and white photos of a young couple.
Newspaper clippings about a wedding.
Letters from an army private in World War II,
postmarked France.
A medal.
An obituary.
A wedding ring.
She buried her sorrow.
I pray that she found resurrection.
new vistas bad music
where you hear the back bass
but not the words
train station humm
vanilla point of vanishing
us onto paper battered
tumbled hard
breaking us out of bedroom
holding a quiver of line
waiting to read in open
public
doors open
butBut do I go un
The tub was in the sitting room
water cool enough to refresh
warm enough to soothe.
The room was inconspicuous;
its adornments cursory,
its feel antiseptic.
Whitewashed in the comfort of your own home.
Storms stir in the sky
Clouds are again rumbling
Why does she rage
Punching through the sky
Her tears again begin to fall
Like the deepest of oceans
The angriest of seas
As if a boat upon the waves
The sky crushes us again
A mighty God misunderstood
Disturbed and seeking payment
Like the ant that I am
The sky rises above me
The scent of a woman
The scent of fresh flowers
The scent of fresh dew
The scent of brown hay
The scent of upturned soil
The scent of a woman
She peeks out
Gently pushing back the cover of darkness
She rises, slowly
singing the night its favorite lullaby
She coaxes night to fall asleep
The time is hers
Her time is now
Suddenly she breaks forward
with full strength
The clouds are ablaze with orange flame
And she rises
And rises
And rises
Oh my goodness. It is only 7:00 p.m. here, but I’m already slap happy. I just grabbed a scary book off the shelf and will use the last line. Here goes nothing…
No Witnesses
It was the first time the roof of the
emerald convertible had ever been opened.
They were honeymooners and
borrowed the car from a temperate old uncle.
They wanted the full experience.
The roof folded back with one magical click
of a button on the dash.
They rode carelessly,
willy nilly
happily down Highway 1
toward Big Sur,
feeling the breeze in their hair
Eating their favorite
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and roasted almonds
laughing at each other’s jokes,
like they were the best comedians,
thinking they were each the luckiest
person alive.
They both agreed when
they saw the stranded motorist.
They had time to help.
Maybe he needs a charge.
Yeah, for his phone or his car.
Hello, can we help?
The man leaning into the VW bus
stood up quickly and said,
Nah. Everything’s fine.
Really, we’ve got all day.
We can help. It’s kind of deserted out here.
Nah, I’m good.
The happy couple
got out of the car
and walked over to the bus.
The man tried to slide the door closed,
but the bloody arm fell out
just before the door latched.
Oh, sir. I’m sure she needs help.
May we call the doctor?
It didn’t take long to deal with the
naïve and nosy couple.
This time, there would be no witnesses.
Last line from the last line in Lies of Silence by Brian Moore
shoulder to shoulder
facing us and eternity
Morandi’s dusty bottles