24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Imagine
The Long and Winding Road
Stairway to Heaven
Or Highway to Hell?
My Sharona
Dancing Queen
Let’s Get it On
How Deep is Your Love?
No Woman, No Cry
Lean on Me
Killing Me Softly
That’s the Way (I Like It)
Crocodile Rock
Stayin’ Alive
Play That Funky Music
I Will Survive!
A wall of trees line his mind.
Tall and proud.
Dense and thick.
Multicolored leaves hide
beneath his veins,
secret desires that only appear
… when the wind blows.
Standing next to a telephone pole,
In a waitress uniform.
Sweat dripping from my brow.
I’m waiting for him.
My brother is on the other line.
I had no idea that these blue-signed pay-phones still exist.
Looking at my self from a distance.
Lucid eyes bring me back in time
To a foreign land I once lived in long ago.
I left fresh cut roses pink and red coupled with wild flowers on a mahogany table.
The butcher paper was strewn about with green tissue paper.
My mother said, “Don’t worry it’s not safe here.”
“Leave it be.”
There will be more.
She was not worried as we drove off together.
Translation:
Do not look back to try and capture beauty, no matter how you are attracted to its nature.
Your safety is far more precious than the cut flowers that someone else will tend to and appreciate.
Leave beauty behind if you must, you find it anew.
Flowers will grow and be cut later after summer solstice.
Do not fear.
Beauty and love is in your heart; you take it with you everywhere you go.
Flashback to the diner,
Waiting for my brother,
Feeling proud.
I took off  my earrings.
Rested them on the counter, on a paper napkin.
One broke open and the other broke in two.
Both were in a crystal casing with silver knobs.
One was cracked
Revealing a resin filled with the sweetest tasting logwood honey.
Love still lives…
All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover
The bee is a clown
Luring you away in the belief
Of Nature, when it’s
Just a drone
Oh Fakeness
The city-a place where young people
bump into each other because of what?
Because of their smartphones, naturally!
God, so much concrete and so many phones!
The phones are smart, but smombies simply are not
since they go out without seeing nature, people.
Their whole life is on that screen and they cannot
disconnect even in traffic, risking their lives any second!
They cross parks without seeing the trees,
they forgot to look around and to smile.
These modern slaves dispel human faces,
doing technology on a regular basis!
Smombies are sad prisoners of their screens
and not at all aware of normal society’s screams.
They can become smart bombs activated by technology,
so they could be named sbombies if nothing at all changes!
How come you get to be Dorothy?
The Scarecrow asked
Amazed while
Turning to the others
It’s not because
I’m a girl she answered
Sensitive to his feelings
The Lion had gone
Back to work while
The Tin Man listened
I need to learn home
Is not about the rules
Dorothy continued
The Tin Man
Smiled and touched
His loving heart
You don’t need
All the right people
To have a home
Now the Lion bravely
Listened as he
Knew this to be true
Home is accepting
And understanding
A safe place to fall
Oh said the Scarecrow
I knew that
I didn’t Dorothy replied
Welcome home
TobeTTÂ #24
Let the winds fall across the swirling foam of the sea~
Nothing left to base reality on but you and me.
No matter the time or place, your wings of love enfolds me in an embrace.
I wrap myself around you and take you to my silent halls of love ~
Thunder rumbles, lighting cracks on the horizon, shaking the earth beneath our feet.
Drawing the last vestiges of strength from our souls, we cannot fight for this love any more.
~No More~
To know loneliness, but only our love for one another.
Bring down the walls, for we shall release the fire that is within our souls.
We shall not let anyone to control us, lest we lose ourselves into each other.
We shall take our last steps together into all Eternity…
C. Burgess (c)
Past walks Scott Peeples,
Professor or artist smartly
dressed in corduroy cream
pants, grey on grey grid
button down. Fingers grip
Essential Dylan and a glittery
black capo. A nod to Ashley Harmon,
no, Bryson, maiden and maiden and
matron. A copy of To Kill a Mockingbird,
shattered spine, August and Everything
After. Baton passed to Lisa Rudd,
small frame ruddy cheeks,
Izzy Willy Nilly and a
monogrammed Tervis. Severe. A look
is left for her, for Carol Ann,
for Carol Ann who needs no surname.
Carol Ann with the yoga mat. Carol Ann
with the children. Carol Ann
in the pastry shop with Elizabeth
Bishop handing off Stripe and Yellow and hope.
You are more than who they said you would be.
You drove in cars to the family reunion
Trying to reconnect with a family that would leave you in a far off summer dream.
Dreaming of roses and rhubarb corn and kohlrabi
Not forgetting tales of white-tailed deer in the far off fields.
One day you’d swim in a pool.
A pool of self doubt.
You never needed to fit in.
You never thought you were not enough.
For who …
You listened to your grandmother,
as she recollected that “She takes everything so literally.”
She was not even referring to you.
And somehow you became that side bar conversation.
When your mother thought she was a “rolling stone”,
you took it literally and fell into a mindset that went against everything you were taught.
Your mother taught you to love yourself, to know thyself, and to respect life in all its complexity.
So why did you hold on to the negativity?
You never say never, yet now you are saying it now.
Never did you need their approval.
They were in the background.
Your father’s sister hid your family picture on your grandmother’s deathbed.
The others the distant relatives you once knew were kind, yet the ones that were the closest  wished that you would fall behind.
But you could never fall because you were born from Grace and your life would be filled
With love and loss and you would rise again from a broken heart.
Family as you knew it would never be the same.
You would learn that family is only a small part of your lineage and your line, but you must find a way to love despite the deep seated pain.
And so I did.
All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover