24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
As in the Past
Come dance with me,
a ‘swallowtail jig’,
like early settlers to this land.
We worked all day,
tilling summer’s yard,
tonight – let me hold your hand.
Come dance with me,
verdant skirt swishing,
while tapping out this buoyant tune.
We’ve earned our keep –
time to cheer our toil;
tomorrow’s labour comes too soon.
The mon-keys are happy
They have been like don-keys
Only them got the keys
You can scratch like those bees
You won’t match in a freeze
You don’t know where they’ve been
To be soooo after their keys
They could run all galaxies
To take turn of their keys
If only they knew me
They would go the other way
To let go of the splay
My mother wouldn’t like that
It would scare her like a rat
But who knows what is that
Is running in their head
When they just want
To go ahead
They are stuck
In their stock
market
The calm wind, the calm sea
The flipping hair of the young lady
The intense violin played in the air
What else does it mean but pure bliss and care
When life gets unfair gets tough ain’t square
Just remember that your life is a gift which is rare
Go back to the place where the sea and the wind
And the violin played in whirlwind
She stood by the window
Confined to a cell she once chose
Dusk turning to dawn
she watched the frost fall off the daffodils
Hope, new life
She dropped her bottle in the sink
as the whiskey drank the drain
The screen door shuttered behind her
She carried herself toward the field
Opened her arms
As the wind played the telephone
lines like a fiddle
Whisking through the open field
Each step toward who she used to be
Away from the woman she lost
A prisoner unrecognized,
that shared her name
As the sunrise called her
She followed the horizon
Freedom
Remembering Grandma
I was so young
You so wise
wish I could remember your eyes.
Grandps died
cancer came
you suffered
til it won the game (of life)
I thought I had a bunch of Irish in my veins
I swore I did
until the DNA test
So now only a pipsqueak possibility
way less than 1%
But that doesn’t stop me from telling that
I once saw a man smoking his pipe
upside down in the rain
(the pipe not the man)
and that seemed very Irish
so I’m sticking with that
DEAR MARY
“I fail to see what the Moderns are supposed to have discovered about color.”
Mary Cassatt (letter to Berthe Morisot & her daughter Julie Manet, autumn 1879)
I’ve never met a color I didn’t love, but what you? All this bother about discovering color makes me nervous. As if painting was a game of one-upmanship. Who’s got the best/most/clearest/sincerest/most outrageous perception. As if we all see/saw things the same way as each other.
And I can’t help but wonder if there’s anything new to explain about say, shades of blue – that you or Renaissance painters didn’t know? The blues in your “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair” don’t strike me as virginal. Your little girl appears thoroughly modern – slouched, legs akimbo as if bored to death of waiting for something – not a Renaissance Madonna. And that lapdog isn’t some lamb in a creche. Nor does he seem stuffed in the painting to show a patron’s wealth. I suspect he’s the family pet.
Maybe your blues aren’t medieval lapis, but let’s be modern. I’d rather be sprawled in those two peacock/cobalt overstuffed chairs than almost anywhere else.
(response to Mary Cassatt, “Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878)
Author’s Note: I don’t have a location special to me, that I haven’t visited in many years so I can’t really do the prompt. However, I can write about a place that is special to me, that I have visited recently. So here it goes. Enjoy.
At the park,
I can both
reminisce about easier times
and focus on the present,
swinging away my problems.
The swings are my designated spot.
Up and up I go.
Down, down I go.
It’s one of the only times
I truly feel invincible.
Like I’m flying
without a care in the world once again.
The wind whispers,
making the trees sing
and soothing my mind.
Even though the traffic outside the park roars,
I can forget for a moment that all that hustle and bustle
is a part of my world,
and at last, I can be free.
In my mind I’m stuck
Back in a time of monsters
With mad gaping maws
Creatures, creep-lovers
Leap down fiery caverns
For lost love or warmth
Searching for the lyrical
Noise of the ancients
Diane Morinich
Butterfly
personified by
Celtic tune
Fiddler strums
the flitting floral dance called
“The Swallowtail Jig”