24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The Forest Queen commands all in her land,
The other trees, the grass, the animals,
Even the wind bows down before her.
She stands with grandeur in her domain.
Her branches reach out and sculpt the sky.
She has dominion over all
Except One.
The electrical wires that run through her branches.
They race through her spire
And charge the air with currents.
She rules over all
Except man.
Above
She screams
So loudly
You think they would stop
But they are machines
Machines filled with men
The smoke billows from mouths and pipes
As they inch across
She screams
Attempting to get closer
As the smoke chokes
Her frail bird frame
And then it is done
No amount of screaming
No amount of
Screaming
Her nest
Lay on the ground
Her babies
Her sweet little chicks
Gone
Not even an afterthought
Coffee break
The men have left
But still
She screams
Gentle brew of gold,
water still near boiling,
slowly warming mug,
steeping, seeping,
cuppa warm blend,
earl grey, hot.
It’s winter. Everything is cold—the weather,
the car, my bones. The days turn dark too early.
We’re in the car going down Sunset Drive,
and the street light turns red. Cars are backed up
and moving slow. The wipers plod across
the windshield. We’re stopped, waiting
for the light to change, when out pops
a deer mouse from under the hood.
She comes up near the wipers, so
I turn them off. She looks at me with her large
black eyes, nose wiggling, cute, before she jumps
quick into the warmth of the engine. The light
changes. I worry the she’ll die on the hot engine,
or in the fan, or on the windshield because
I might need to use the wipers soon. Or
maybe she’ll try the traffic. We drive off slow,
turn into the church parking lot on the corner.
I get out, look under the hood. No sign of a mouse.
I’m pretty sure she let herself out in the lot.
Maybe she’ll make a new home in the church.
Misplaced
African gazelles live and thrive in the desert
scrub surrounding El Paso, and New Mexico’s
White Sands Missile Range.
A graceful and gorgeous animal, the oryx
was endangered in its ancestral homeland,
but is now a pest here in its new desert home
a softer place with no natural predators than
its native Kalahari, breeding far beyond
their boundaries within lands that regularly
test military missiles.
They must be hunted, the five thousand or more
that live out there, to reduce them to the acceptable
five hundred they were expected to be when released.
A well meaning program by uninformed people
to boost their numbers creates chaos in a land
not naturally their home.
Sense of order bringing into new undertaking
Enriching things for a humanity stalking
Livable viability in new discus
nothing manner ictus
Enriching formidability
Fondling in the capability
Delight for the space
Anticipate in the cape
Longing in the revelation
Dawning in its delegation
Serenading like a song
Renewing a ding dong
Lifting the capacities in all angles
Singularity captivation singles
© Roy Mark Azanza Corrales 06082017 4:25 PM PST
29 two kids a husband at war kidneys not functioning as they should 3 different nephologist diagnosised it doesn’t look good
Mother’s illness is chronic why is mine end stage insides filled with angst fear and rage
Regardless of fear I had to be strong hold on tight for how ever long baby girl writing notes about never forgetting me..did she know my time was ending for a fact. Old people believe babies and animals can predict stuff like that
You can’t imagine the overwhelming lost I felt so to ground I fell and on knees I knelt
To the heavens I prayed,just a little while longer Lord,oh please let me stay
The rain that beats upon the dirt,
that tastes the leather kiss of leaves,
paints the mud upon the ground,
and runs a shiver through the trees,
soaks the yellow swollen moon,
and light-torn sky, bible-black;
night yawns and calms its gentle tears
—the streets are glass, and crack.
I want to plant pine trees
On the edge of the ball field
so students see the sky
Instead of the prison
On the valley below
I want to plant mighty oaks
In the potholes of my street
Sometimes, to alert drivers
And sometimes to have
A forest instead of a road.
I want to plant gardens
Along the neighborhood walks
Fresh vegetables and berries
For those in want and need
To take as many as they please.
I want to plant lavender
In place of GMOs
So we never have to see
Glyphosate decimated fields
Where wheat and grain grow.
I want my wants to be my needs
To eat from where I live
To grow and flourish
In the sun and clean air
In my city and in my skin.
There is a man who fishes all morning
and feeds the birds all afternoon.
He is always surrounded by pelicans,
gulls, even great blue heron, and the
occasional wood stork flock to him for food.
Up at Mirror Lake, the egrets and ibis compete
with the ducks and moorhens for morsels from
office workers on their lunch hours and teenagers
playing hooky from school. Homeless people, too,
are generous with the shore birds and the geese.
One man who admits he gets only one meal a day
still shares what he has with a roseate spoonbill
who has somehow flown in from Fort DeSoto or
Lassing Park. “See,” he says. “This is God’s own
beauty, right here. An Audubon painting, eating
out of my hand.”