24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Bowled over by the truth
Decimated by the lie
The burden once thought able to bear
Has knocked me down – left me to die
I now lie in agony
Weighed down by your sin
Your love was always shallow
Yet I believed I could still swim
Now broken on the floor
You obliviously pass me by
Unaware your callous actions
Set forth your own demise
gj
Oranges always remind me of you, oranges and furry California wild sage.
and free range venison, the kind that tastes like it lived on a steady diet of furry, California wild sage, and oranges.
and yellow anything, but particularly yellow circles like the ones you studied for work, like the enormous suns clearing our Autumn skies when Mom would keep is all busy back at camp (year after year after year of my life) while you booted through unpathed patches of oaks, your field gear speaking its secrets in soft muffled rustle, your footsteps completely silent, your rifles strapped to your back, oranges and nuts and 2 sandwiches made by your lover pushed into pockets, and the faint swish of water in your canteens- 1 tin, 1 plastic, and the back of your camo’d head never looking back at us, but only forward through the brush to find a deer that had lived on a steady diet of furry California wild sage, bring it back to camp, and fill our freezer for the year, year after year after year.
Your last Autumn here with us, you brought no deer. You filled no freezer. You said that the sun was so bright, and the buck so magnificent, you could not bring yourself to shoot him. You took a photo of him instead, sat back, pulled a sprig of pungent sage from your hair, peeled an orange from the pocket of the field jacket in your lap, and let the bold yellow sun have its sky.
Almost Clean
The old farmhouse windows painted shut
Wavy glass with four panes held together
By hardwood strips shedding white flakes
Air inside in measured climate
No breezes visit bringing a clean draft
Bugs enter through unnoticed cracks
It is the floor dust she ponders when
Making the queen bed each day
New showings of endless shades of gray
Occasionally vacuumed and always
Reached for to drop in the waste
Fuzzy clumps swept with a toe to grab
Where does this come from she demands
Out loud to no one but the house
Sealed windows are not talking
Not willing to ask friends generously
Blessed with cleaning ladies who
Work only with understandable motes
That she be judged for her corners
Queries to the old walls reflect not a
Concern for tidiness nor hygiene
It is her curious mind needing to solve
This mystery of immigrant fragments
If only to keep the house almost clean
Tobe TT # 3
Neighborhood wallpapered
light poles
bus stop shelters
shop doors
‘Lost cat’
every week, every day
new signs, different cats
Neighborhood social media
exacerbates frenzy
hysterical ‘owners’
angsty postings, pleadings
‘Lost cat’
every week, every day
new signs, different cats
The cats all come home
lost, now found
Seems there is a wise
Basset Hound
around the corner who
knows Zen
has a side gig
selling catnip
out of his human’s
garage-bound
old Buick
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2019
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
A gasp escapes me at the sight of it. An ugly winged thing. The orange, a delicious contrast to the darkness beneath it and that above it. That monstrosity, spindly legs, touching the orange pulp. Dark wings, stand as if pinned on its back. I can feel fear ready to scream. It tickles the back of my throat. If it flies I will scream holy hell and miss the moment. Its ugliness is somehow, enchanting, I think to myself. I move in closer, fascinated. I zoom in, ready to scream if it opens its wings, and snap the picture.
Sometimes I look up in the sky
Full of stars and the moon
Seems like time has stopped running there
And everything is still
Those days I want to stop the time as well
Coz I know they will be gone
Once the light appears
And the sun marks his way up
That night I felt the same way
I wanted yo to stay
Stay a little longer with me
And watch me live a life
Full of happiness and gay
But as I cant stop the stars
I also couldnt stop you
.From going away from all of us
And being a star anyway
O merry moth, or are you a butterfly?
How I wonder where you’ve been as I see you flitting by!
Have you visited my roses red and drank from their morning dew?
Where do you sleep when the day is through?
The juicy orange slices I’m sure are tasty and sweet.
Glad you enjoyed them, remember to wash your sticky feet!
It’s a starry night and I am lonely
as a ship in the middle of the ocean
or as a mountain deprived of company.
I need a gentle touch and a word or two.
Who feels the same and wants to join me
so that we don’t get bored in the middle of nowhere?
Chirp the ref’s whistle sounds
Five green girls face off
against five grey boys
Sweat runs down red faces
“Ugh,” kick, thwap
Ball hurtles down the court
”Go green!”
The goalie stretches and leaps
THUD
The crowd erupts
sleep deprived
mentally sensitized
the words~
struggling, and stumbling
self doubt chimes
distracted by chaos
tormented by ego
silently screaming through emotional hell
to her proverbial knees she quickly fell
head to the floor
tears threatening once more
pause, just breathe
just breathe. deeply
from the floor she arose
re-centered through prose
Amanda Potter©: 2019 Poetry Marathon