24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Make a wish with a whisper,
Send it into the wind,
It will come to pass.
You wish will come back.
The wind will hear you, and send it were it needs to be,
Listen as it blows through the trees.
Send your wish with a whisper into the wind.
And your wish will be granted with what you need…
C. Burgess (c)
Yes Sunshine
All the time
Enter
So welcome here
With that glowing luminescent vision
How’ve you been my dear?
It’s was quite bothersome before you came on in
Fluctuations in storms and dark
But then a dove returned a branch
Indicating safety to the ark
Yes Sunshine
All the time
Enter
So welcome in this place
The rays shine bright
Turn to day from night
Shine on
Right on my face
We are almost there! This is the hardest part. But it can also be the most rewarding. I want you to read the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot and use any of the lines, words, or phrases it contains, to write your own poem. Make sure to give Eliot credit if you end up using a line of his, by italicizing that line and mentioning the poem and the author after the title of your poem.
Dear sister I am blessed to have you
For in time of trouble
You stand right by my side supporting
That I might not fall.
You are the one I miss the most
Ever since you got married
Because you were the one
With whom I shared all.
How can I forget those all days
When I was depressed
And no way suit me best
But your trust never gave up on me.
And those days of pranks
When I was about to be caught
You just took all blame
To save my back from cane.
O dear sister I love you so much
For every thing you did
To keep me healthy and sound
And making my life meaningful.
It’s all you can think about when your own existence passes by in the blink of an eye.
We struggled for so long with how to make it before we realized we already did.
The view’s never pretty but, through it all, it never decayed from its original form.
Yet we progress within ourselves and await a rectified existence tomorrow.
As if it were the only thing that could make us improved in the eyes of
humanity.
If blue bonnets I happen to see
or armadillos, lizards in trees
and country music moves the knees
I know in Texas I must be.
And now upon a triangular tower
surrounded by art for the eyes to devour
and mourning our lady – blackened, dour
I’m in France’s Paris flower.
Then, I spy an old cracked bell
the place of independence, as well
I’d in Philly’s brotherly love dwell.
North a bit, and there’s a rock
it’s smaller now with time’s tick tock
the seafood’s great, and Fenway’s grand
when e’er I visit Boston’s land.
Out west, looking down afar
the rivers cut rock walls under stars
below the donkeys carefully ride
thru Colorado’s Canyon and survive.
South now, and the Cajuns speak,
“who dat?” is what the sports fans tweet
beignets and frog legs are cuisine
and brightly-shining Mardi Gras beads
New Orleans is this flashy scene.
East again, and all I see
are vegetables, corn, carrots, peas
one gambler’s famous city be
Surely I’m home, in New Jersey.
Where e’er I go, the land tells me
any place I happen to be
from Florida below to Paris above
not lost, but found in the lands I love.
-Sandra Johnson, 6/22/19
The sun sits,
like an unexpected visitor
upon my porch and won’t leave
As it brings growth to the pot plants on the balcony
It obscures my view of the bay.
The timid man, he comes alive
when alcohol he does imbibe
he acts in haste and quickly mocks
becomes a growling, yelling cock
whatever is bugging him
bursts out like bees from hive within
if you’re his enemy, beware
the spit-stained words you’ll surely bear
if once, he ever bought a lemon
those skids be clearly seen from Heaven
and if a job he clearly hated
the boss evermore be under rated
the girls who nixed him hastily
will wish they called him back, times three
but then, when this guy sober is
he thanks the Lord he didn’t fizz.
-Sandra Johnson, 6/22/2019
Heavy handed and overly sentimental
I cringe at my own words,
and, I’ll admit, some of yours.
I love the idea, but struggle with the form
If only I’d not notice what made it to the page
“Write with blinders on,” she told me.
Just before she told me she couldn’t help me,
that my demons were on steroids
which in fact did not help me…at all.
Is it too late to cancel th echeck?
Or to get back the $5
I gave to the turbaned and bejeweled woman at the County Fair back in ’85
the one who took my hand, held it in hers,
turned it short of over
while nodding her head and making that contemplative noise people make when they’re about to share some just found answer to a question you adked, or didn’t but they thought you’d want to know
Maybe it’s not such a good idea for anyone to tell us what’s coming next,
or just before they do, maybe we need one last to change our minds and choose not to hear whatever it is they think they know or think they ought to tell us – to warn us, or inspire us, or just to get us to come back with another fist of green and more questions with answers we’re probably best off not to know.
What is this noise in the woods behind me
that make the hairs on my neck reach for their rifles
knowing it’s in their best interest to protect me.
And how I can keep writing about anything other than Goldilocks
while I wonder what it is.
It’s a good think I don’t have to look at the keyboard
how hard that would be – what with the darkness and the smoke and my involuntary oscillation of my head like the search lights on the prison roof.
But I was asking you whether you thought it best not to know what’s coming next
and now that I mentioned the bear alert
I can’t help but wonder whether she saw a light brown muzzle in my hand
at the tail end of the long lonely life.
Nineteen eighty-four
Living without fear or brakes
Life was a blur then.
No memories stuck
You must be conscious for that
Not so much fun now
Hard to make a life
When even your name escapes
Time to slow it down.