24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Write a poem as a letter to a former version of yourself. Make that fact clear in the title. For example it could be called “Dear Former Self” or it could be much more specific such as “Dear Caitlin, Age 19 with the Broken Nose”.
The poem itself can focus on your past self or the future that is coming for it, or something else entirely.
Fir tree fog hangs like a shelf.
Damn! how you can hush the night.
Moonbeam, dock to me and self—
Concrete, canteen, coffee light.
Rolling over on her pillow as the moonbeam floated in the hushed morning, she smiled her not so usual smile. A new day, she realized and felt strangely free of all the worry of late. No fog greeted her, no wretching stomach, no worries Stretching up and out of bed, she reached for her clothes.”Funny,” she thought, “I don’t recall this dress. It’s perfect vintage, though. Note to self: Call Gran and thank her for this incredible find.” Which grandmother, though, sent this to her? Juana or Stella? Or was it Isadora and Agneta? She always just called them Gran anyway.
Twisting her hair “just so” to match the retro flair, she caught a glimpse of herself in the vintage mirror. “Damn fine, if I say so myself! Looking good . . . .” Funny, her name didn’t quite fit this look, so why not just pretend for the day?
Pretend is certainly what she had to do, for she discovered a perfectly tidy kitchenette, waiting just for her (or so it seemed). “Coffee,” she said aloud while searching each shelf in the cupboard.”The perfect latte or cappuc –,” she was surprised at what she didn’t find as her typical morning perk. “Hmm, just regular coffee. Already ground. Plain old flavor. Well, it’s part of a joke, I suppose. I can play with it; it may just be fun.”
To her surprise, in came a man who walked right up to her and kissed her long and hard. “The regular breakfast for me, Sweetheart,” he called out, and she immediately knew it was scrapple and eggs over medium with dark coffee, which she had somehow brewed in this percolating old-fashioned coffee pot. Oddly, she instinctively reached for his lunch pail and canteen, discovering that they were already filled with lunch and iced tea for the day. He laughed when she looked at him a bit puzzled. “Ready for a full day at the dock! Today we’re pouring concrete all day,” and finished eating the meal she had placed before him sometime earlier. She kissed him back and assured him, “The children and I will be trimming the little fir for the holiday party”
It was while she was saying this that she realized that now she had children. Children upstairs sleeping in beds down the hall from her bedroom, with lunches she now needed to make and homework bundles to prepare for school. When did she go back in time? Where did the husband and children and fir tree come from? Who was she anymore? What games had her friends been playing? Who were they anyway? If only, if only, if only. . . . Who was she anyway? She could no longer remember.
Gotta make this short and sweet
Gotta move my fingers like I would move my feet
Quickly
Got distracted by watching a documentary
Though my attention need it
For some reason
Helping me to get ready
For All Eyes On Me
Copyright © 2019 by Angelica Stevenson
All Rights Reserved
Moonbeam dreams
Serenade the night creatures;
Mermaids play
In the hush of darkness;
Fireflies in disguise
Flutter through the misty fog;
Forest fairies carry
Soft whispers of mystery;
Garden statues choose
Their façade of concrete;
Nocturnal critters flitter
And flock across the shelf
On the garden wall.
Bitter
man, full of rage,
so angry at the world!
Your fury rains relentlessly
on me.
(A cinquain is composed of five lines with syllable count 2/4/6/8/2.)
Moonbeams shine on the city
Turning concrete to marble
The hush of the city everywhere
No yells of damn or fuck breaking the peace
The city will shine in quiet till dawn
When the fog hides the beauty for an other day
woot just made it back on track. I really like ones where they have you pick from a word list. It helps start something sometimes for me
I remained silent
Stubborn to not reveal my heart
Your heart, you knew so well
You knew just how to twist
And yet
I remained silent
Can I reveal the fire that burns so bright
And burn your hate away?
Leave behind the scattered words
You swallowed down that I choked away
Into your mouth
You must have been so hungry to eat my pain
Smiling all the while
As my life drained deep into your
Prideful smile
Hungering to devour my rage
They say it’s the limit despite its existence being an old wive’s tale. It’s always
in view yet perpetually unreachable. I don’t know why you’d ever need gardening tools
up there but i guess that’s the point. There’s nothing holding you back and yet
there’s no way forward. I can work around anything if I try hard enough. Maybe I could be a moonraker,
cleaning the ground as if it mattered, working my way through one obfuscation after another.
In any case, my own path will be decided in ways beyond anyone’s comprehension. Perhaps that’s the biggest reward of them all.
Moon beams illuminate the hush of fog. Silhouettes of fir cross the page. I write three words more and ease a sip from my canteen of coffee.