24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
It was her vent, a fresh air to play out with neighbouring kids,
sharing all games, hide- and- seek, all deeds.
She was the best to hide in unknown places,
she was happy with her female friend who followed her traces.
The pledge for friendship is a breathing the same oxygen,
catching another’s words, ideas, not allowing a stratagem;
closer than any one in this enormous world
was that girl of her age still playing with a doll.
Mount Olive, Part II
Now that Covid has hit, the sign has changed.
No longer hiring sales professionals.
In need of groundskeepers. To rake the grass,
to dig the holes, to lay the bodies down.
To hold the hearts of families and people
forgotten, plastic flowers covering,
littering, marking their lonely, unkempt graves.
What a strange and prescient thing
This prompt number nine
From years ago with many words that ring
Of just this moment in time
Why would the word mask appear
To capture the alienation and outrage
Of any time but here
From bygones when Zoom
Was a word fast and futuristic
Not evocative of perpetual technical doom
Few words resonate more than lethargy today
Our minds and bodies exhausted
When energy and joy seems passe
Our spirits consumed by malaise
Then came the fire
Meted by the Heat
Waking the ire
Moving throngs to the street.
Perhaps next year we can reprise
Cottages, porridge and fireflies
Until then pass another bottle
I am headed to the treeline, thoughtful
Firefly, light in a bottle.
See the world zoom in.
Put a mask on every face.
Make porridge, heat the tea.
I am sinking in too fast
Poetic Lethargy.
In the treeline of the mind.
Hide some words from me.
Strange as it may seem to you
Stange as it might be.
Sits a Cottage made of rock
Mined— from local scree.
Falling backwards submerged I see the glittering
High off of a mouth that doesn’t need to break this
Resonate in weightlessness drift against me solid
Fingertips just barely almost nothing and for once
We can be silence lashes beaded inky
You don’t even have to say it just reach
Right through me right through
Spells cast in sun and saliva still you step back
Take the space to see a whole being
Being seen between the dizzy wine
Divine one bursting ripe fruit dripping syrup
My sticky honey tongue my honey thighs for you
I am a king of dewed flowers bruised hips
Dip me down into constellations taste and worship
A daydream we dream in psychedelic color
I’ve never really dared to want but now
No explanations no alarm clocks blissful nothing
Heated skin how can we fight or doubt
Without the wrapping paranoia I feed myself
Peel off chlorine clothes and stay the night
White noise steady breath beside me
Catching fireflies, the heat, found a strange little cottage,
The smell through the window of nice hot porridge.
Fresh pie on the sill, flowers in a blue bottle,
I zoomed through a gate in the fence made of wattle.
Lethargic after my pilfered snack,
Someone was coming, so I crept out the back.
I never did see whose breakfast I plundered
And they never knew who brought fireflies—but wondered.
Failing the porridge test –
That is, stealing someone else’s
Breakfasts, in their cottage,
Until one of those strange breakfasts seems
Least disagreeable
And then awaiting lethargy…
But to repeat,
Failing the porridge test,
I could not sleep,
Knowing everything was broken,
Knowing I had broken everything
And was in the wrong bed…
Failing the porridge test
And feeling like a firefly in a bottle,
A mask wearing, heat crazed,
Panicked, zooming, self made inmate
Spying a treeline beyond the open wooden door…
Failing, I say…
Hello Love.
How we met is strange
Daring I was, I bet
It was love at first sight
For me, and you felt the heat
You warmed into me
Sparked a fire within
Like a Firefly at midnight
You made beauty within
Beyond the treeline I’ll rise
Just to reach for you
So I can hold you now
And also beyond now
In my little cottage you’ll stay
And I will make your stay happy.
The hour 9 prompt is to use at least five words out of a list of ten. I used seven.
I placed my hands into the soil, I could not understand it, the feeling, roots, unapologetically twisted around me. My ancestors, their breath leaked into my base. I balanced, hold me. Whisper the stories you hold so as the seek into me I understand my nature.