24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The Forbidden City,
Where an Empress
Laughed,loved and lost
The Summer Palace
Where a Jade ship stands
Strong, imposing and aloof
In Barcelona, a cobbled street,
Where a vendor has something
Just for you
In Rome, a street cafe,
Where we sip strong cappuccino
Resting well worn feet
The child of Prague,
Where we took a wrong turn
An unexpected find
Where you are by my side.
Tyra taught me Smize
now it’s the only way I show you
the smile
trapped
between fabric and face.
I smile behind my mask
I pray the energy reaches you.
I laugh and giggle inside my bubble of breath.
The Mona Lisa lives behind 5 inches of face covering.
The Bop is one of my favorite poetry forms. It’s something I discovered last year during the poetry marathon, although I’m going to warn you, it’s on the longer side.
This is the only formal poetry prompt that is part of the Marathon. We always do one per year.
The Bop was developed by Afaa Michael Weaver at a Cave Canem summer retreat a number of years ago.
There are three stanzas. Each stanza is followed by a refrain (so the same statement is repeated three times).
The first stanza is 6 lines long and presents a problem. The second stanza is eight lines long, and can explore or expand the problem. The third stanza is 6 lines long, and can either present a solution or document a failed attempt to resolve the issue.
Swimming is not my favorite thing.
Cold to get in, wet to get out.
Feet and legs do their job on land.
I am a human, not a trout.
The more you work at it, swimming,
The harder it gets to improve.
Body fat down, body sinks down.
It’s not a sustainable groove.
People feel like swimming to me:
The more I meet, the more I fear.
More people to fail and let down.
But I need some friends around here.
She swims with a green mermaid tail.
Quirky and difficult and cool.
Introverted like me, but she
navigates with ease at this school.
I see her at clubs, church and dance.
We go for a hike in the night.
My words are stunted, splashing feet,
But I think I’m swimming alright.
I’ve dipped my toes in the water.
No shark teeth have bitten me yet.
Maybe next year, I’ll take the dive
Make friends of the people I’ve met.
Recipe for Mondays
1. Coffee
2. Denial
3. Silence
4. Luck
5. Friday Focus
Mix four parts coffee with three parts denial
and stir frequently. Often this recipe requires
an additional dose of the first ingredient to
ensure a sufficiently stable outcome. Item one
may be added liberally, as needed, due to the
overpowering redolence of denial.
A third of the third ingredient is the easiest one
to remember; but forget it and the whole recipe
turns sour. Without silence, there can be no Mondays.
Unless you add more coffee.
Luck is up to you. A pinch, is often all that is
required but if you are doing Mondays after
a holiday, a great event, or
Daylight Savings Time,
it will be a key ingredient
for the success of this dish –
any amount greater than coffee will do.
Friday Focus is hard to find when making Mondays
but if you don’t include it, the recipe is doomed.
Mix items well and let sit for an hour.
Even though you may only have minutes to spare,
Mondays must have time to properly cool
before being consumed. The longer they sit,
the easier they are to manage.
Gonna pour me some lavender,
thick dried globs,
a little oil,
and try out that new bath tub.
Brass ceramic handles,
black etched cold and hot
watch the steam lift from
tub to handles
sniff the gentle air,
and I’ll be thinking of you
my dear
my darling husband
And remember how I took
every last bottle,
with dust and grime on neck and
bottle stem,
took those bottles and smashed
each, against the limestone,
tinkling glass, whack and thump
of thick glass
with the last dregs bleeding out from
every curvature of the bottles
Do you think you’ll miss the 80 Proof,
or 100, or even the poiteen?
instead I’ll be laying soaking up the bubbles,
my toes above the bubble line,
enjoying my herbal tea, my drink of choice.
Slainte
Holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy.
Set the table
visitors
over hills now show themselvess
the trees do not have leaves
so we see whoever comes.
Whoever comes
holy, holy, holy.
Whoever comes holy, holy, holy.
Unlock the door,
holy, holy, holy
Unlock the door
and seem busy
seem like fate sneaked up
fate
holy, holy, holy.
His head spins like clockwork, ticking away without pause.
Many nights, the apprentice discovers him leaning up against his desk,
Crinkled eyes closed,
With his sketchbook open in his lap and his old feather quill in hand
In the day, those skilled hands work tirelessly towards the unfamiliar
To build what wasn’t there before
To create the un-created
To bring ideas to life
But, ancient and gnarled as they are, his fingers tremble over his creation,
So that the tiniest pin slips from the pliers, and rolls beneath his workbench
On knees and elbows, the apprentice retrieves the pin
And steady do the younger hands work
Under the thoughtful and meticulous eye of the Inventor.
One night the apprentice finds him asleep in his study, and he does not wake up.
Without the Inventor’s wizened watch, the apprentice wavers
The trifling tasks of daily upkeep become tedious,and the Apprentice grows weary of the work he once adored. The workshop, which was once so welcoming and warm, has become a dreary husk of it’s past.
With resolution, the apprentice sets off to somewhere else, locking the shop door on the way out, carrying only a journal and the Inventor’s old feathered quill.
The apprentice walks and walks, and eventually finds someplace new.
In the journal, the apprentice writes about everything unfamiliar.
Soon the apprentice begins to record the story of every person in every place,
Learning all they have to know and bringing each of their ideas to life.
When the apprentice returns to the shop, everything means something new. In the journal, the apprentice writes about all of the Inventor’s wonderful creations, every inspiration, every profound thought and every lesson learned from the Inventor’s magnificent mind.
Once that is written, the apprentice can begin writing a new story.
Take one morning, sift lightly
and walk past silent houses, glistening dew, and twittering birds.
Add one glass of orange juice, accompanied by a dandelion
Gulp and think of next hours.
Open the windows and doors while the sun fills the sky.
Add the chores of childhood, refreshing and earnest.
Mix in one salad or sandwich or soup at midday,
the same ingredients contributing to each all week.
Add an hour of reading encyclopedias, cookbooks, long-kept magazines
and lower to a simmer, leading to a nap.
Gently check after 45 minutes, and slowly remove to a windowsill.
Check the breezes, watch the passing clouds, listen for dogs.
Finish the salad or sandwich or soup from earlier.
Let the evening sun quietly set.
Summer Vacation: 2020
Sometimes I sit in my bed and read through my dozens of notebooks and wonder if my writing can be classified as original content. The words usually balance somewhere between the lines of awkward fiction, insomatic prose, sinful fantasies, and cliché poetry. If I could go back and rewrite that one poem about pura vida bracelets, I probably would, because I just suddenly remembered that I used “full” inside of the stanza when I really should’ve used “filled”.
It’s really stupid how they teach us that two negatives cancel out to be a positive, but two wrongs don’t cancel out to be a right. I made two stupid mistakes, hooking up with Claire in the gallery and losing her number, but I bet she’s doing alright.
If Claire doesn’t remember me, I bet Victor doesn’t either. We had a thing going on for a few months, but that was years ago, and now I’m bitter because why are my relationship now shorter than the ones I had years ago?
My pen is not cooperating with me. I’ll probably have to type this all up, but right now, I’m scribbling the words down with this pen. It’s really smooth when it comes to making lines and all, but the ink is bleeding and messing up my pinkie.
I have a bad habit of forgetting to cap my pen in my bed, and sometimes I wake with ink stains on my pillows and sheets. Sometimes it’s mascara, too, because my pillows are either for crying or cuddling. If I’ve fallen asleep, they’re probably on the floor, because I’m a messy sleeper, or in my arms, because I’m a huge cuddler— they’re just never actually under my head.
Looking back, I’ve realized that English is a strange language, red is a mesmerizing color, my guitar sounds better when you play it, and only one of the two mistakes in sentence five was stupid.
Do two past events cancel out ot be a present events? Or is it a future event?
Whenever I write questions I can hear a voice in a my head telling me to think again, but I swear to God, the answer isn’t right in front of me, so shut up, will you?
It said no.
This is the most unstructured work I’ve written in this notebook, but I like it. It’s messy, but it’s raw. All that good stuff. I want a new notebook.
Time’s up, it’s 10 AM, now. I should get out of bed. I’ll get some skittles with that.