24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Poem 11
Driving in the dark
Doubts haunting like the shadowy mountain range afar
The air cool and thin
Bumping along a narrow road punctuated by puddles and dirt
Going beyond houses barricaded by high fancy walls with bright lights and landscaped foliage
Into rougher terrain and corner shops and fellas on the block
Still my heart does not pop
For all roads lead somewhere and even in the dark
there’s light ahead
Hat. A fedora tonight, I think. The air is a white plume on black noir.
Boots. Laced, no, buckled tonight, yes.
Blue-grey smoke, (not like that faggots’ eyes.)
from my cigar, or is it my pipe, no, it’s a cigar tonight,
Dominican, Full bodied, just like I Like ‘em.
A little scotch, just enough to singe, and lite.
Jazz, jazz to a slow groove, with a silky alto.
My soundtrack. Don’t mean a thing, am I rite?
A stray cat crosses my path. Lookin’ like a, you know,
not lookin’ half bad in thrift store frock, hopin’ some
Shmuck gives her more than a night. She gives me the luxury of a
second glance. But with evening fog like this
who knows what I might be.
I love teas, my favourite being the Chinese white teas, which are the top 2 buds of the tea plant, which are left to dry in the sun, with no roasting. White teas are caffein-free. The White Hairy Monkey tea of this poem was what I drank at my first pamphlet launch, at Waterloo Tea in Wyndham Arcade, Cardiff, Wales.
Brethren of Silver needle,
a pale sweetness enveloping
that opens to yield umami in droves
when strained from my green
Yixing clay teapot,
its frog lid
guarding its secrets.
A table for two
In the middle of the glade
Shaded with lilac wisterias.
A table for two
Is it me and you
Watching the butterflies
Flit with the humming birds
Glowing with fireflies
Mosquitos at the ankles
And tiny wasps overhead
Table for two
As we hold hands across
Playing footsy up my legs
Wit you
Table for two
Kiss me across
The meal is an excuse
To be with you
Poem 10
colours
Red flows from me
From the soft folds of a slit
A rhythmic cycle
That sometimes I anxiously await and most times a daunting curse
Brown skin a canvass
Of lines, of spots and art
Inked by needles coloured red, green, blue and black
Defiant expression of self
Black hair cascades in limp coils around my back dripping with water from a bath.
In contrast
when taken by the wind
It’s a mass of defiant dark curls, my inner gypsy
My heritage, my sexy, my me stepping out with all the colours that that make me who I am
Cloud Mountain
El Paso, my surprising home, is bisected
into east and west sides by the Franklin Mountains,
and bound on the south by the Rio Grande,
nestled in the pocket created by Texas,
Mexico, and New Mexico’s intersecting borders.
Spring’s relentless winds create walls of brown
clouds that spill over the peaks of the mountains
in waves of oncoming ocher dust that infiltrate
each crack and crevice of our home, lining
windowsills in brown, clinging lines reminiscent
in miniature of depression times, grit that was
pervasive and choking, people never fully feeling clean.
Summer’s rainy season tamps down the dust,
white rain clouds approaching the east side
of the mountains and coalescing in wet mounds
that mimic the spines of cacti-covered peaks, at last
spilling in abandon over the mountain’s west side.
Gray rains pound the impacted desert soil in a visibly
creeping wall, our coming year’s welfare dictated
by impassive, breaking, mountains of clouds.
It was a public hallway
at the Westchester County Center
surrounding the arena
hosting the circus
Must have been an intermission
For the boy to be there
and see
a clown in full make-up and outfit smoking
into the pay phone
and hear the voice
of an everyday adult
arguing about money
the elastic holding his strawberry nose in place
plainly visible
(a villanelle)
The witch was dead
but the others told her
it was all in her head
Yet the headlines read
as the corpse grew colder
the witch was dead
She knew she had bled
the wounded soldier
it was all in her head
Still she said
despite what they sold her
the witch was dead
Though she carried the dread
it was just as they told her
it was all in her head
She never did wed
and she never grew older
the witch was dead
it was all in her head
Poem 9
All in the DM
Block
Delete
Unfollow
Moved in haste
Not one pause
flicker of regret
With each tap of the screen
Erasing you from sight
And mind I do so hope
In less than a minute
After hours of conversation
Gone from my world
Nothing more than an attention fix
sliding into my DM with just a Hi
I’m stunned by the ease at which we spent the morn
But like much it’s gone
Attentions shifted
Tastes altered
Appetites grow and diminish
But wishing you well
DM guy.
The oak grain deepens by candlelight
in a corner of the bustling room.
Beneath undisturbed dinnerware,
the place settings set upon
a vacant table for two.
In the middle of an insignificant month,
on some random, middle day of the week,
tables sit people conversing about their meals,
but at the table for two,
there is no one who eats.
There is no apparent significance of today’s date,
And the table for two sits alone in view of the on looking balcony.
As customers leave the evening grows late,
There is no one who comes, and yet the table for two still looks inviting.
A table for two, a reservation was held,
But what unforeseen circumstance
Has delayed these anonymous guests?
Perhaps there is a name on a list somewhere
With a number to reach the party involved.
Perhaps there is a babysitter who canceled at the last minute,
And now a young mother and father are tending to sleepy children.
Perhaps there is couple arguing in the parking lot outside,
Having never left the car since they arrived,
Neither ready to surrender or come step inside.
Perhaps there is a car stalled on the overpass, broken glass,
with unconscious passengers running late for their dinner plans.
Never the less their seats wait,
to celebrate a moment that won’t come,
To be served meals that have grown cold
By candlelight cast askew,
For no one is coming to claim their seats,
at this vacant table for two.