Peaceful Respite
baptized by music
communing with poetry
these are my churches
laid back in waters
soaking in our creations
cleansing my new skin
shedding the old ways
the barricades from within
once again begin
Time Capsule (Hour 5)
Lithium batteries, aluminum foil, melted plastic. Cardboard boxes heavy with wet ash, a mouse heart. All the garbage that won’t burn. Old paint cans, half-used tubes of epoxy, A pinky finger, carcinogens transfused through cells, Old tires, cancer. High cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes. Curly red hair turned to wavy auburn. Alcoholism. A collection of keys to unknown locks, A flash drive, digital cameras, DVDs. Technology to preserve human memory, falling to memory.
A Swiss Mans Love
Worlds apart— I feel your touch
Foreign from a place I know—
Memories— yet it’s sometimes too much
For the wings I wish to borrow
Wings I wish to wear—
To fly across these skies
To hold you and to bare
The love that—within me cries
To tell you— what your comfort brings
A foreign language I sought to learn
But the language of love is what sings—
It’s for you— I do yearn
Time, I wish to travel through—
With wings that eagerly soar
To you and only you—
For my heart just wants more
Hour 5-You Gave me Gravestones
You gave me gravestones
Popcorn
Long walks talking about everything
You gave me hole punches
Staplers and never ending post-it notes
You mistook me for the moon
I thought you were the sun
Planets orbited around us
You gave me gravestones
Headwinds
Glorious sunsets
Filled with hope
We intertwined
Hearts beating
Melting into each other
You gave me gravestones
I reciprocated in kind
I gave you death
Denarius
Under the damp earth a single coin lay
Buried for centuries and lost to time
Gazes to sunlight without sheen
Browns and dull greens tarnish the once beautiful silver
Etchings, eaten away by ground water, are misshapen and indecipherable
Only a half-visible face with a Roman nose looks to the side,
A remnant of a once great emperor
Buried for centuries and lost to time
[Hour Five]Vitruvian
Clean white walls, decorative jars
and deep basin, stone, porcelain,
channels dug deep with pipes
for fresh water, advanced society?
No, someone with no taste.
Leonardo’s Modern Man lounges,
slouching in a bath, the perfection
of symmetry sterlized and cold
in a lackluster, ‘modern’ palette.
the first nudist pool party after covid (Prompt 4)
hats and pants off to you all
safety found in white vaccination records
salacious smile from our hostess who provided
sex machine demonstrations in the living room
sun soaked breasts
scrutinize them, that’s why I’m here
sounds of pleasure
silly flirty coquettish glances
secure a room
settle on a large bed
seize the day or something like that
hats and pants off to you all
(First and last line accredited to “Bonk” by Mary Roach)
Hour 5: Little
She was borne with love
Born and grew up with
affection, safety, comfort
She lived as they all did
With forgotten words and
Faded memories
She died like anyone else
After a life full of
Little moments
A little life with little happiness
Little love, little sadness
Little fear, little anticipation
A little soul with her own
Little space
A little heart beating for a little time
She was just a little part
Of this grand universe story after all
Where little lives come and go all the time.
2021 Poetry Marathon, Hour 5
My Hour 5 poem uses both text and image prompts.
The time capsule is an old standby
in the popular imagination—
a hunt for buried treasure
a promise of revisiting innocence
an antidote to the popular complaint
The time capsule is an ever-evolving proposition
in forms much different from what we imagine
Life is filled with repositories of time passed
from the lamp on the table to the bottle on the floor
framed pictures hanging on the wall
objects that produce sound, image
stories we keep on shelves
Yesterday I picked up a penny from the pavement
26 June 2021
Rain
Long days in the rain
Make my eyes red
My hair puffy
My nose stuffy
Long days in the rain
Wakes me as the rain pelts my air conditioner
Makes me sleepy.