24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I have used both image and last line.
Last line is from Awaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji. I have broken her last sentence into final 3 lines of poem.
Misty heights
scrub trees
rugged
snatching breath
from thin air
clamoring
to survive
even here
even now
life
stubborn greedy
somewhere, you see,
in the river of time
I am already alive.
Mid poem.
It never fails.
I think I might have liked this one.
Know we could have been good friends-
If not the absolute best of them…
But, that was never to be.
What is to be is a computer crash, a power outage, a debilitating disability-
The list goes on and on.
The result the same.
A poem interrupted.
Today, I was mid poem and it was an avocado advert
Presented by Google. Without request from me.
It just appeared and I remember nothing-
Except a line about deadlines, a double entender, if there ever was one.
This was gonna be a good one.
I can feel it in my bones.
But, alas it has gone the way of others before it, now long living in the past…
A poem interrupted.
And I am left thinking or more aptly, my brain screaming
At an avocado on my screen-
What the hell.
“It was so live.”
-Christopher Snow, Seize the Night. Dean Koontz.
To live, to ride,
the salt crusts the lip, underneath your feet
dark shapes float unseen.
Feel the swell of the waves, and the deadly undertow
as seaweed eddies like ghost hands
plying for a lost soul.
Smell the brine as you wait, breathless,
for the tide’s growing, rising,
and the inevitable crash comes as you paddle
past the surf and past the breakers, deep,
where foam laces and crystals hiss in the air,
flung by some furious sea-god, and you,
rushing on those waves with a sleek board,
the salt on your tongue and the waves
with the primordial call to sink you back to the deep.
Yet you float, skim, skate, defiantly, victoriously, live.
THE TRUTH IS STILL OUT THERE (hour 3 poem)
The truth is still out there’: internet shrugs at Pentagon’s UFO findings.
– Gabrielle Canon, Guardian UK 6/25/21
The hummingbird feeder
hangs from an iron hook.
At a great distance
its spherical shape
seems to hover in space,
awaiting visitors – those
helicopters of the animal realm –
fierce hummingbird hummers.
Roswell, New Mexico, 1947:
supposed alien crash site,
deep-sixed by the CIA like dust
covers the Pecos Valley desert.
Are we alone in the universe?
The truth is still out there.
Carl Sagan added fuel to the fuel,
with his, Billions and billions
and tv shine personality –
a celebrity astrophysicist.
The X-Files fanned the flames
with its kickass agents, Mulder
and Scully – chasing UFO rumors
and trying to avoid alien abductions
over American screens everywhere.
Are barbarian aliens coming,
or friendly Close Encounters
of the Third Kind?
“U.S. Has No Explanation
for Unidentified Objects and Stops
Short of Ruling Out Aliens” – NY Times
25 June 2021
The hummingbirds dip their
needle-sharp beaks into
the feeder’s clear nectar.
the truth is still out there.
Sometimes,
I pretend to still be sleeping.
Eyes unopened,
Still wrapped around her.
I revel in the snores
Even when they’re deafening.
The warmth of my bare chest
Pressed against her bare back.
Her hair tangled in my septum piercing.
Not daring to move
But, more importantly,
Not wanting to move.
So, I drift back to sleep
Not ready to break this spell.
Tundra Rover turned corner and made its way.
And,
Like a mirage up our main street, or people stopping to shield their eyes from the sunlight glinting off its perfectly washed windows.
The audience would know instantly nestled inside that air-conditioned car seat, and with someone bigger than our small town Rover.
Early on it was not a movie.
Thats why our life.
And I shall be much more ties before hands.
The shift changed.
People like David, though, made our moments to feel like a movie.
So David, apostle for Jesus.
Makes sure that our life becomes.
Miracles,
Days and nights.
Both hands in, and on touches clenching arms as we cleared ever food dish on table tops.
Of Little Eats, our friends, and family’s.
Cafe on the main street.
And,
Down Town Little.
How can I give you truth
When I don’t understand the question
Or myself
Or this rotten, toxic world
Truth scares me
Truth eats at me
Truth makes me want to vomit
If I give you truth
You will just reject it anyway
So I sit here
Wallowing in facts
Wasting words no one will read
Wondering how to tell you the truth
Answering your questions
That make no sense
Spilling my truth all over the place
Jovial
He is
It is his defining trait
Often laughing, smiling
Or filled with thunder and lightning
He is Olympian in nature
While being cuddly as a fluffy button
He is the diction definition
of Jovial in all senses
And part of why I adore him
Ardent
In all he does
It is in everything he does
From how he showers those he loves
In inescapable affection
Or devestating, angry tantrums
Bounding, through fields of green
He holds nothing back to come galloping
When he sees you at greeting
How he weeps at every parting
And each dawn he greets life with joy renewed!
Killed
Death is a swinging doorway for this loving maniac
He comes and goes from this world with an ease
That leaves we mortals gasping with shock
Only to see his easy smile again and hear him sing again
He throws himself on pyres, leaves us mourning, despairing
Then walks back in the room, wearing a different hat and suit
And asks us why we’re weeping, ‘Hey, baby, Death ain’t so bad.’
Ecstasy
Is in his eyes, his presence, his touch
He’s the only father I’ve ever known
Correction: the Truest I’ve ever known
If I despair when he leaves, it is ecstasy when he returns
To bring me back from the pain
Only he seems to know
With easy grace, he throws his hat into he room
and with me, he knows,
It will never be returned
He always has a place to hang his hat with me,
Jovial, Ardent, Killed filled and giving of Ecstasy
We take our tails over the trees
Free the seas of blessings in we
We are kids— we are pissed—
Sometimes, we are kissed
Out of boredom drains our blood in rains
Can’t kill the swash before the sea
Rather would we kick the skies over the trees
We are pouring peace this dawn
You can miss your sleep bus and meet us at morn with a Y car
Just by the crossroads of angels and demons
We are free like birds
We are birds flying over the trees
The eyes and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room.
The room was full of faces reminiscent of the past, each with memories etched into their skin.
Their skin told tales of the past.
The past is certain, the future is unknown; that’s what makes it so great. If we knew what was coming next, why would we bother?
We bother because predictability is often unrewarded, much like my time in this room.
My time in this room is a reflection. Nostalgia warms the heart, but it comes full of sadness and regret.
The last line is different; repeating sadness and repeat isn’t healthy; just ask Sylvia.
Opening line credit: Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)