24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The stain on your clothes
Don’t reflect your character
Similarly one shouldn’t
Judge a book by it’s cover.
Happiness is not the end result
But a journey of life
Which moves toward any direction
But the approach remains the same, being happy.
Sometimes doing the most random thing brings fulfillment
And not doing the important thing
Brings a devilish smile
On your face.
A room in Arles, walls painted yellow,
yellow for faith and love,
for a newly discovered self
stripped to the waist
in the torrid cicada heat,
the chatter of wings rubbing together
as Vincent with a brush dipped in mauve
fading to grey,
mauve for hope
and grey for intelligence, considers painting
a self-portrait, a grey undercoat for the way
it largesses the mind with jars of glistening fruit
and bridges x’d with sacrifice,
crossings he’d made near Antibes
where light slithers along brackish channels
winding south across les Salins,
the great salt plains where a man can disappear
overnight, just evaporate
like standing water. This story
told about Poseidon, earth shaker
and tamer of wild horses; how he rose
storm-faced from the sea in a chariot
pulled by brine-soaked steeds, grey and dappled
like the horses of the Camargue, the mythical ones
women ride in dreams. Perhaps
he should paint a woman dying a red cloth
dipped five times in madder root
and meadowsweet mixed with oak galls and graith
to set the color, the way red,
red for passion, burns when mixed
with chrome yellow
and he remembers a miner in the Borinage
caught in a fire that scarred his forehead
with a crown of thorns, mouth
fitted with a wooden tongue.
He will paint how worn misshapen shoes today
With a brush dipped in burnt umber,
brown the color of service to others.
How can a jig
Encapsulate life?
Two measures tear me up,
Tighten my throat
Capsize my heart so it floats upside down in my chest,
Rudder aloft and sails under water.
It starts with the swallowtails, of course,
Dipping and diving for insects on the wing
Clamoring in caves
Wooing and brooding.
They fly through a park.
Diving kites mimic the birds, drawing my mind toward a
Flipped edge of skirt and its
Recipient, playing cool on a bench
Sending back a one-sided grin of
Paired hope and disdain.
Children nearby whose folks started
Parenting on nothing much more
Chatter and call through the playground
Already practicing their lives as they’ve been taught.
One chides, one hides and cries,
One bawls so much the others decide to ignore him,
Except the quiet girl who knows what it means to cry alone.
These other two girls juggle a soccer ball with their feet,
That boy tribe steals it and learn some girls aren’t afraid to hit.
One mom praises, the other derides.
A set of five, who will live and die at each other’s sides,
Dig cities in the moist sand, idly daydreaming,
Sharing a high mileage box of slightly gritty caramel corn.
Beneath them blades of grass bend,
Cells vigorous with
Life. Their roots extend into the earth, which
Teems with worms, beetles, mites, fungi,
Bacteria.
My mind tries to grasp each life,
Expanding into the trees, the creek, the air.
Each biome on every scale is a festival of entities,
Pulsing with lives grand and pitiable,
Lucky and cursed,
Long and bitterly short.
Twisting in this infinity,
My heart capsizes.
The Fiddler puts down her bow.
Dearest Darling Being,
It’s been too long since last I laid eyes on thee
I need to see you. Hear your voice.
Watch that walk you walk so well.
Beautiful one, how was your day sweet beloved soul?
Hopefully, I’ll see you soon.
Mostly, in my dreams.
I want to gaze upon the face I have memorized.
The dialogue I have with pigment is insane
Yet very much from the heart
And no one hears.
How you fill me up.
Oh, the ecstasy.
Every line,crease, wrinkle, part, mark,
Whatever, time breeds on such a lovely spirit
Which is beauty to me.
I have memorized.
Hey sexy,
Smile that smile I yearn to see
you know how to
Make me
Moan
There is a calling they say
All the night things must reply
The music of it all shall fill the night
A splendid sound it shall be
A story, a passage if you will
Of a joyous jubilant journey
Which must be fullfilled
This is the way of the night
An old sacred right not to be ignored
The rhythm and waves pour in
The journey becomes complete
As the music and night things become one
Sideways hug, all my children born out that ear now, once a year forever now because of that sidling hug. Well, digging a well to pop them down. And we’re so up, coming with a cup for the nightly piss and splish now. Sideways kiss, missing the cheek and into the hair let down to incorporate the lovers’ frown, in debt to bigger banks we once rolled down, collecting leaves like the wig not mine or yours but all the several ways to hug, which are not permitted now.
It’s hard to say, when a Nobody speaks.
Cause when a Nobody speaks, a Nobody hears.
But a Nobody hears when a Somebody speaks.
A Somebody’s a Nobody with masterful techniques.
It’s not about his color, her gender or their sneaks.
It’s about remaining a student after everyone’s a grad.
When you’re a student, you’re protected; Ironclad
From your own illusions and beliefs.
A Nobody is Somebody when he masters his techniques.
Remember that when a Nobody speaks.
A Somebody starts with a Nobody,
So it’s hard to say, when a Nobody speaks.
A hand on the small of my back
A handsome lover gone off track
And what he had yet to understand
Was that all the while through the smallest crack
His heartbroken love waited to attack.
One night too many left alone,
She’d donned her cloak and left the home
Crept along by the brimey foam
Getting herself battered and blown
Down to the inn that she’d been shown.
His hand fell away from the place it had found,
As the handsome lover hit the ground,
Confused I had spun around,
My coy smiles turned to frowns
As without a single sound
His heartbroken love had served to confound.
It had all happened in the shadow of the jig,
She’d acted mean and smooth and quick
Oh, for it had taken grit
To end this heart-wrenching conflict
With a slice in the stomach, right to the pit.
Now never let it be said
That no tears were shed
When suddenly he bled
But not from his lover as she fled
Right back home to their marital bed
Still stained by the deed – bright and red.
I haven't got the second stanza anywhere near right yet, but I like the idea in this poem, which would probably have a multitude of colourful butterflies dancing the jig.
Splodges and blodges
a phantasmagoria of hues
decorate the toadstool caps
spider thread strands
hang from the eves
where raindrops dangle
captivated, scared to drop
A gentle breeze teases
tinkles from the bells of flowers
as glamourous butterfly Lady Lucile
demonstrates dancing
The Swallowtail Jig.
Run, Run, Run!
Run, run, run!
or else they will go ahead
the competition is fierce
Oh! Don’t take a break
to breathe by the bay
Run, run, run!
or else you would miss the train
to the destination
Oh! Don’t look up
towards the vast endless sky
Run, run, run!
or else you won’t survive
your bucket with bucks will become empty
Oh! Don’t appreciate art
it is filled with angst, anyway