24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I stray from thought to thought
before birdsong fills the humid air
in the blue dawn of summer
as the feeling of you slips away.
I don’t know where you are, where
you were, or even if you were. Are
you a vague memory, or have I
dreamed you into existence?
I saw us heart to heart
felt us resonate in a stillness
of quiet presence, neither
here nor there, then or now
but for always, everywhere.
There is a moonbeam
in my coffee cup
I sip it gently
A hush,
a fog
washes over me
I am no longer concrete
I am no longer damned
I have jumped from my shelf
I am more like a tall, strong fir
Reaching to the sky.
No canteens of water will do
No juice, no flaming alcohol drinks
No carbonated sugar in a tall bottle
Just coffee
Swirling misty coffee
Bracing me for whatever winds
Blow me away from my safe dock
Into the stormy sea
She came to me
In the quiet of the night
The tiniest shrieking
That gave me a fright
Took forever to find her
Abandoned for sure
I fixed up her tummy
And searched for a cure
But something was wrong
A defect in her song
Though she tried best she could
The far future was no good
Then one night in the rain
I heard her in pain
And I knew how I’d cry
As I took her to die
I found myself quenching my thirst with a canteen filled with concrete. Damn! I might as well step off the dock if I can no longer enjoy my coffee with moonbeams. C. Churchill
Hazjizadi, help me fly.
Tell your tales, help nights go by.
Let your stories fill my dreams.
With your wit share all your schemes.
Hazjizadi tame my anger.
Lead me from all paths that canker.
Stay a thousand nights with me.
Hazjizadi set me free.
While sitting on the dock of the bay,
Watching the fog settle into a gentle hush,
The moonbeam caught my eye.
It reflected off of my canteen
Sitting there on the concrete shelf.
Damn! My coffee is cold.
I walked over to the fir,
Gave it a kick.
Hobbling over, I sat down,
And now I am crying on the dock of the bay.
She gave her everything she had.
Her thoughts, her clothes
Her entire body.
She gave her all her laughs
All her tears, all the anger
All her frustration.
But the reflection only stared back
Daffodils turned to the sun
As fairies tipped
The petals of the daisies
Their laughter was barely a whisper
Their dresses outshone the stars
In the evening sky
Their hair pulled by the wind
In soft fragrant waves
They danced all night
Twisting, turning, fluttering
Lost in the ecstatic joy
Of the moonlight
As dawn approached they scattered
Diving into all the dark nooks
To curl up in bright buttons of chiffon
And sleep until evening comes again
My grandfather was a bowler
pretty good, in fact
national tournaments
league championship teams
Once he bowled a 299
during a league championship
‘299 and a wiggle’ proclaimed
tongue-in-cheek trophy
300 is the most you can score
His teammates gifted him
bowling pin
hand-painted with
Gramps’ caricature –
replete with cigarette dangling
from thin lips, slicked-back
jet-black hair, mischievous eyes
Like many of his immigrant ilk
my grandfather was a
voracious reader
that Christmas
shortly after bowling his 299
Gramps’ cousin
unsurprisingly gifted him a book
How to Bowl was opened
so I was told
to uproarious laughter
Gramps, smooth as Norsk custard
thanking his cousin
with a satisfied grin
kept the book in his bookcase
the next thirty years
caricature bowling pin on
living room floor next to it
When he died
one of my cousins got the pin
I kept the book
even though I have no use for
1947 World Bowling Champion
Ned Day’s advice on
etiquette toward my pin boy
what a Brooklyn Bucket is
difference between
‘pie alleys’ and ‘cheese-cakes’
Though I still love to bowl
I don’t very often, still
How to Bowl is always handy on
the small shelf above my desk
Where I can always pull it down
for quick brushing up on
arcane lingo, quirky phrasing
(all heard in my grandfather’s ‘tick’
Norwegian immigrant accent)
I can also grab How to Bowl
for more meaningful refreshers on
being able to have a
laugh at my own expense
appreciation of doing something well
and just how to always be the coolest
goddamn dude in the room
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2019
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Hush, can you hear it?
Trickling water pierces the silence.
Run to the dock and don’t look back.
The cold concrete underneath my feet cools me down.
The adrenaline is running hot, like a pot of coffee about to spill over.
Moonbeams cut through the fog and light the path in front of us.
In front of us stands a large shadow, solid and wide, like a mighty fir.
Freeze.
A quiet and worried, “damn” dribbles from my mouth.
The moon sits on the peak of the mountain, like a book on a shelf.
My mouth goes dry, no way out.
A feeling of hopelessness washes over me, like being stuck in a desert with an empty canteen.
Shhhhh.
Run.