24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Drew bought the eggs for the cake
He had a list to give the supermarket
Upon reaching home he realized
Something was a mist
Me wonder what could this be
A few more minutes and the eggs
Were not what he order
Half a dozen eggs were in his bag
Silly Drew your short half a dozen
More eggs
All rights reserved copyrighted(c)2020 Roxann A Harvey-Lawrence
Pain lives long inside us all
We feel it seek its release from us
One thing for sure it is with us for the long haul
Pain lives long inside us all
Do not try and contain your pain with a wall
Do not be infected by its puss
Pain lives long inside us all
Expel your pain and let it blow away as dust
I breathe for a living.
Not your ordinary breathing.
Inhalation and exhalation IS life
literally and figuratively, we all respire
modulating between the inhalation uptick
adrenaline unleashed in measured drippings
and the exhalation down cycle release and renewal.
We live between excitation and relaxation, rising and falling,
sympathetic and parasympathetic, flight or flight, rest and digest.
Breath to movement, breath in stillness, breath in slumber, breath til death.
I breathe to live, live to breathe, living breath, I breathe for a living, and so do you.
When everything seems wrong,
You run,
When storm is strong,
You run,
When you can’t get home,
You run,
When you have some goals,
You run.
You run to meet the deadline,
You run to keep that waistline,
You run to solve problems,
And when the path seems long,
You run…
she can’t be everywhere at once but that never stopped her from trying.
she travels up, down, all around
hoping to find what she once lost
knowing it can never be the way it once was.
after all she’s been through, it doesn’t seem as
if there could ever be a happy ending for her
but to say so would be underestimating her
sophrosyne and human tenacity for the worldly existence
of tomorrow
A potentially interminable state of being.
The one where any brush cannot prise apart
When the fingertips have to strip back to
claw their way though the tresses
Arms rowing through tempests over
reed beds , fighting with mermen for
coral combs with which to decorate.
It’s important to feel one’s head,
the shape of one’s skull, at least once per day.
A reminder of mortality and the precarious nature of life.
There is no special format to our existence
but to know that it’s our own skull sitting on our shoulders,
that it’s our own mind which steers us
avoids confusion and mayhem. Usually.
I try to engage twice daily.
In the evening I search for tell tale
reminders of the day’s adventures
Overarm swimming through the knots and
tangled jungle vines I tear them out,
scrapbook those I have not lost
and release a great mane over my feet.
Time to sleep
CAFFEINATED GRATITUDE
Gotta make some coffee. It’s my first thought as the sublime sunrise
creeps up over the water’s edge to smack me in the face again.
We have the bedroom curtains, the rods too.
But fuck me if we’ve hung ‘em yet.
I tell myself that’s what the coffee’s for.
Up-n-shuffle. Bathroom first. Spend an extra minute washing my hands
Aren’t we all paranoid these days? I tell myself again, that’s
what the coffee’s for. Focus. On the good stuff.
Empty yesterday’s grounds. Wash the pot.
Fill the machine with water.
Unfold a filter, spoon out the grounds.
But I don’t hit “Brew.” Not yet.
I hold my hands out over the coffeepot, the filter, the coffee
I say a prayer of gratitude. Thoughts and prayers, I know, but I do
for the bean farmers, that they may know what a gift they cultivate
for the roasters, for the factory food packers
the grocery truck driver, the stock clerk
the checkout girl
Each one of them played a vital role
It reads like a walk-on in the script, maybe
But individual hands
Specific hands
Human hands
Brought me and my coffee together today
Then I press the button.
Oh. I, uh, plug the machine in.
The switch has already been flipped
the water rumbles cheerfully.
Why didn’t I check it?
I did the same thing yesterday.
All over the world, in every moment
Strangers unite me with my day, every day
I hold them in my heart, sipping solace from my thermos
as I read Kerouac’s poetry on the southbound train.
It’s been hours now, and my coffee’s still hot.
After Discovery
Since I discovered songs
are masquerades chasing
sorrows and solitude
into exile, I do not wake
without it in my mouth
or on my palms, asking
God to make me a repellent
for anything cloudy,
for that is where grief
hides under the mask
of nature, until it kills.
it goes far beyond where you might expect.
past a lot of treacherous obstacles and a big heaping pile of enantiodromia
as eudaimonia and melancholy duke it out for the top spot.
as you pass the hump, remember how far you’ve come
and what that entails for your dichotomy going forward.
when you get to the end, you drain yourself of life,
put a gaping smile on your face
and let gravity do the rest
“Little pulses now. We have to start stronger before we can get faster.”
Every day, since everything, including my gym, closed down in the March to end all Marches,
I have moved my living room table, grabbed my three pound weights and
through an online mat barre routine, learned that my core was not as strong
as I once assumed by running to the Pixies on the treadmill.
For a few of those early days, I toyed with yoga – the introductory classes alone
made me sweat – but I wanted to feel like I was making up for my lost cardio.
Barre, though, satisfied my instinct for self-punishment, and made me suffer doubly
for my insolence toward classes when they were available on my gym membership.
I have wonky ankles. A small, but uncomfortable calcium build-up, thrills the masochist in me
with every sideways lunge, after which I’m asked to hold one foot to my knee and
reach my arms up.
“Can you stay high in that posture?”
At first, my online instructor was a benevolent angel – I had taken her online Pilates
and was thrilled at how easily I’d committed those moves to muscle memory –
but her cheerful speed grated on me with every added wince of my ankle.
No, I answered, I will not add a smile to that leg lift.
Now we’re in Phase II. So official, it sounds like an administrative vaccine.
My gym reopened; my membership dues are still drawn monthly, but
I’ve yet to step inside my erstwhile haunt. Every day, I think I’ll just go and take a look-see.
But, then, I can just work on my core here in my urban cave.
Sometimes, I even change out of my pajamas before doing the class.
“Little pulses now. Small. Behind you. But, they’re working.”