24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The Fingers Feel the Feathers
The fingers feel the feathers
but forget
The air feels the slice
with a lack of memory
The tree however
will remember the arrow
for a hundred tears
The Flag Feels the Fingers
Our flag is the colour
of sun faded blood
A glim’s fire
triggers emotion
Hands of stumps will remember
the vote
forever.
Philip V. Coombs 1-2am
*First line is taken from the last line of James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968)
And so found myself
presently,
standing in the wings again,
waiting for my cue.
Rocking on my heels
in anticipation,
I reach to run my lines
and find a blank expanse where
pages and pages of narrative
once sprawled across my memory
flanked by scene descriptions
And parentheticals
in 12pt Times.
I am making it up
as I go.
However,
I can recall you.
All of you–
Unscripted
reveling in divine ferocity
tongues stropped and gleaming
in an extravaganza of impeccable style
flaunting the kind of walk
that could eviscerate me
And burn Paris to the ground–
as my inciting incident.
The old man was dreaming about the lions Earnest Hemingway The Old Man and The Sea
the old man was dreaming about the lions, while
the infant on his lap dreamed of creamy sweetness filling his mouth.
So many gates to pass through
the silken skin not ready for the world
the toughened hide had seen to much
Roar of protection, wail of need
one passing into fullness of morning
the other into the silence of night.
Their life’s lines entangle with yours
You and I
The margins between
there is no knowing
Where one ends
the other begins
metaphors abound
but always fall short of the reality
that is
two become one
limbs intertwined
we finish each others…
thoughts, feelings, sentences
secret languages
knowing looks, a universe of two
It seems a rare thing in this world to find
(but only at first glance, look deeper and it’s all around you)
someone who so completely understands you
And you, they
beyond family, beyond ‘marriage’, beyond legal definition
No one can put a price to it, it is not for sale
The more one tries to buy it, the more loathsome it becomes
To the one it is being purchased from
It cannot ever be bought, if tried, the other will pray
for you to set them free
even to the point of wishing for one
or both to die
It is not able to be programmed
It cannot be commanded or trained
For a short time, people can become confused
They can hate so much that they think they’ve found it
But… they will uncover the truth
and when they awaken their anger will be vicious for having been
Tricked
This is the height of what humans, gods, goddesses, animals, plants and even
Scientists have found to their chagrin
Planets! and atoms!
Desire more than anything else to dance
With another in their orbit and never let them go!
All things are living and they desire to…
Entangle, merge, unite, become with another
As a little child I danced with trees
Kissed the flowers in their beds
On their dainty heads
Got pollen on my nose
Not knowing this was an act of entangling
But then I knew there would be
people to put in my orbit
And I would be in the orbit of many
Other people too
This is the dance of entanglement
It sometimes makes children
And other times makes acts
Of creation
Mountains
Streams
Stories
A Poem
Dance with me, Universe, dance with me!
A jasmine climber adorns my room window
and bears beautiful fragrant flowers.
It knocks against the frosted glass
as the soft winds cushion the leaves,
Welcomes the sun into my room.
Torn
I didn’t have a favorite toy, not like
Susie and her scruffy bunny,
all his cotton fur rubbed off, or Richard
with his Lincoln Logs that pushed out of the prairie
of the beige rug in his bedroom/family den.
I once picked up the receiver of the phone
in the toy box, but the curly cord and receiver had disappeared.
That was it for toys in the time before Monopoly and books.
I wanted them, of course, dolls especially,
thought couldn’t bring myself to play with them
once they were placed in my arms.
We were waiting for the bus, and my mom’s friend came by.
I stared into the toy store window behind us,
my one and only lifelong friend looking back,
her violet eyes shaded by bristly brown lashes.
I yanked my mother’s arm, begging, weeping
buy her, buy her, I need her forever.
Mistake one: not smiling and saying hello to the lady.
Mistake two: Going hysterical over a doll
I’d never play with. My mother repeated
my mistakes on the never ending ride home.
Lesson one and only: You could beg and demand,
scream and yell for an item when you knew–
you did know– your mother was right.
The rabbit finds another victim,
tender green and freshly planted,
so the flowers now must rearrange.
There’s no dirt in our ground,
nor luscious grass to speak of,
but I take mindful care in the
ladies I’ve chosen for the merry-go-garden.
Flashy zinnias and fleshy watercress,
slender poppies bobbing in the breeze.
A million shards of liquid diamond
glimmer from periwinkle to sapphire,
and all the crimson in between,
from handsome cornflowers up high to
happy clumps of alyssum watching down below.
We host wasps and bees, moths and butterflies,
and every now and then, a frog or lizard,
and the resident spiders are polite and cooperative.
In the garden, everyone is welcome.
(Hour 4)
Horror’s Harmony
Our paths merge, eminent member of the academic world,
All access pass where access is formidable and oft denied,
I acquire the malady from its cool, secured prison,
As requested, necrotizing fasciitis, a hungry microbe.
Our paths fuse, careful words spread across my web entice,
Draw the fly to the spiders, tarantulas masked in etiquette.
The major seeks out my counsel, as manipulated,
As anticipated. For the most ardent overlords sit in a haze of paranoia.
Our paths are one, anticipating the deadly summit,
Our bodies become one in the thunderous mists of the hunt,
Entwined and enraptured, a swirl of naked aggression,
Heat rising within us, sparse room between us, melded together.
Our paths observe as the major comes, Dyer-Bolique, my protegee waits,
Hides in the shadows for an opportune moment, a silence,
Administers the sting of slumber, and we move him. Subtly.
Awakening in the labyrinth, constrained, we inflict the noxious disease.
Trust will be taken.
Orchestra chimes demise,
Anguishing malady administered,
An intimacy in death gifted.
“The cold tears of her father
have made a hill of ice.” Robert Duncan
He left the cold for subtropic
it hardly ever freezes here,
snow is reminisced
seems years ago it fell and melted
as soon as it hit the ground
Warmth can’t save anyone
it doesn’t go deep enough
Our bodies are 98 degrees of moisture and bone
trying to stay alive
I don’t know if I ever saw him cry except
for when he watched movies
It’s the only place I saw real snow
My hips aren’t big, but they aren’t very small. They seem to fit my body and the way I walk.
When I was younger I tried to shake my hips for everyone to see how much I had going on all around me.
My hips would sway from side to side; turning heads on every corner as I went by.
However, all the attention I received wasn’t necessarily great at all. My hips were sending the wrong message about who I was and where I wanted to go. Once I realized I was more than a pair of hips; an artificial tease,
My view of what was really important made my life become so sweet.
I finally figured out it wasn’t just my hips that made me worth knowing, but my head and my heart that made me someone special to know for all the right reasons.