24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Quote for The Golden Shovel form:
“theres a dance in the old dame yet”
from don marquis’ archy and mehitabel
by now you really ought to know theres
ways and means to this getting along a
willingness to dance
when it may turn out wrong in
this world the
time grinds fast twisting us old
spinning infant to daughter to lady to mother to dame
not that theres any blame of course but you havent seen the best of me yet
Succumb
In the beginning, sex was not for me as it is for some.
Violating hands broke my childhood body, leading a first lover to say
that I was frigid, a cold and cruel beast roaming the
world that could not enjoy its pleasures, a world
that had yet to introduce itself to me. This somewhat passed, as time will
allow, and a second selfish lover helped some of my pain to end.
It would be many years later, but falling in
love with a truly unselfish man dissolved my flesh in fire,
succumbing at last to the pleasures that only some
will ever fully know, leading me to one day say
that I had never known real pleasure, never been in
love, until a past love became an adult lover, and melted the rest of my ice.
I honor of Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”: Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice.
An opaque full moon filled the indigo sky
And the stars stood still with a glorious outcry
Across the crystal lake
Upon benches of wood and twigs
The body of the King laid
Upon oil infused hay and sticks
An arrow of blazing light shot through the night air
Perfected aim found its way into his breastbone
As they all stood like statues of stone in prayer
If only they premonitions of the gypsy were adhered
The King of Pentacles would have been spared
They watch us eat, quarrel, make love, sleep. ~ Of All the Highrises, Cathy Park Hong, Engine Empire
In these sparse rooms, grief hangs like a bland painting. The ones with heavy shoulders, they
work shaking hands through their hair. The small ones, the ones with no words for loss, watch
the busy doctors’ feet moving toward, with, and then always away from us,
pulling at a parent’s sleeve, pointing at the vending machine, cramming fists between lips—eat.
By the receptionist’s station, a woman with crossed arms grimaces at her partner, mid-quarrel
but unwilling to make
a private dispute escalate into a display of temper. A white haired man whispers of his love
for an absent wife. My nails press to my palms, each stab a command to wake from your sleep.
8.
Rimbaud, Four Days Post Grooming
Is it a crime not to care?
Sometimes it is a crime not to care.
After the grooming, Rimbaud is snarling,
glazed-eyed, miserable. Wedges himself
into the carrying case he used to avoid.
Someone has hurt him? Of course someone
has hurt him. Then he had a good day, or two,
breezing the city streets, summer swinging,
but now he doesn’t raise his right ear
to the word “walk,” doesn’t glance up at
the rattling of his leash, doesn’t leap
to a treat. You know how he feels.
And you know how long it can go on.
Sometimes you wonder: what can we
do about this pain?
Sometimes you go to bed.
As for Rimbaud, give him another day.
I had “No Ordinary Love” as Sade would say before I met you.
Describing a love like ours deserves a context and a place.
Even though space and time need not rhyme.
Your heart and mine bonded before we knew.
One night.
One dream.
One ray of light.
In one second I saw my whole life in an instant.
So clear I could not deny.
A glimpse of heaven in your eyes.
Or was it the song in your heart, so loving and true.
Good God, what was I to do?
Is this your story or mine?
Our love would have to grow and ripen just like a Julie Mango on a tree.
One year ago from today you may not have even known my name.
Our meetings were cordial at best.
I stayed away, not knowing you would pass the test.
A test I did not have write the answers to.
Our attraction we both would discover eleven months later,
one evening late in May it would come to pass.
There was something said, a slip of the tongue on my part, “Ain’t Misbehaving”, as Thomas Waller would have us believe.
Saving my heart for one I did not even know.
This was a concept I could not even fathom.
My heart belonged to another, or so I thought.
Everyone around me wondered and saw the break, but I was holding on to a memory who had made it quite clear.
I was to be left on the shelf to stay preserved, “as is”, and I forgot what it was like to love up close.
Love from a distance had grown into a question mark.
I afraid to answer.
Then love hit like cupid out of the blue, strong and true.
I did not know what to do, until I listened to the one true defender of love, the human heart.
Not realizing I would be saving my heart for a new love, a stranger at best, with words I could barely relate.
It was my heart that spoke louder than the words that left my lips.
I listened for the first time to my heart and not my mind.
My heart said, “Yes”, and I never looked back.
I wish it were that easy, and this would be the end of the story.
Love is more than a curious state of being.
My heart I did not know would expand and love you deeper and deeper each day.
You only wanted to kiss my stars, a constellation of freckles that tattooed my face and shoulders for sure.
I held off for only so long, until one day I let your lips graze my cheek.
Two days later my no ordinary love returned only to think the worse, not knowing that love was newly in bloom.
The connection he witnessed was beyond our control.
Love knows no limits and this I learned was growing stronger each day.
Six months earlier I was left like a potted plant to bloom on my own, before I discovered my new love was closer than I knew.
My dessert rose was a bud almost in bloom.
My new love awakened a new growth as my wings and leaves began to spread.
Was I a plant or a butterfly in bloom?
How could I know the content of your heart?
The only indication were your words, “Are you ok”, you said this phrase with such care in your voice that it shone through the small talk that neighbors often exchange.
Your jovial spirit was all I saw.
Still there was something a spark that we had.
Never mind none of us knew or saw it in the other.
You are a fantasy, clean cut and a mentor on the go, while I was an artist and educator on the run.
Two professionals with no time to spare, but a quick “hello”.
It was not what you said, but how you did that made me pause.
None of us would know the depth until one day after I dropped Blue Mountain Coffee at your door.
The rest is our history and we are still adding to this new book.
All rights reserved copyright(c)2017 Natasha Vanover
You brought me sunshine
when I only saw rain
You brought me laughter
when I only felt pain
-Donna Donathan
the best to come is when
the world is attainable and I
fall to my fears of only
having the things I was unafraid of but felt
I did not deserve the redemption from pain
The original line of inspiration is “Fire! Revenge! Death to Kings! Life to the new world of the heart’s dreaming!” from On the North Sea Part II, by Edward Abbey.
Atop the hills they stood like beacons warning of an approaching fire,
All across the battlefield the hopeless youth sung songs of revenge:
“To victory, for glory, for honor, to make suffer the oppressors, we do not fear death!
We charge thy guiding hand with irreparable avarice and sentence you to
the abysmal history of impotent Kings.”
Come sing the songs of a dawning generation refusing to surrender its right to life!
Join hands with the martyrs of revolutionary definition, and make a stand with the righteous to
declare this enduring resistance as the
End of old world antiquity, set to kill impossible delusions of golden age fantasy with new
hearts and blood and dreams upcoming, with worth and passion to reshape our world
by our design, for our time, for the imperishable longing of
our chance to seize the day, for our chance to lead the
future by tomorrow’s heart’s
bleeding! Revolting! Triumphant and dreaming!
” ‘ate ‘im up, ‘e did,” the storyteller said,
‘an spat ‘is bones out wicky-ticky tat.
‘e hewsed ‘is skin to line ‘is truckle bed,
‘is tongue to scrape ‘is toes there hon the mat.
Hit goes to show youse, hwoman, man an’ buoy,
that dragons isn’t naught to trifle ’bout.
An’ nuffin’ in the hworld, not purty gurl ner buoy,
kin stan’ ’em up agin a dragon’s snout.”
“Saint George did,” so I said, “and that’s the truth.
He killed himself a dragon, whiff a sword.
The princess loved him, so they say, forsooth!
And George got all the girls and all the hoard!”
His breath smelled like a dragon’s when he hissed,
” be ware the stoory-teller when ‘e’s pissed!”
‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’
DULCE ET DECORUM EST Wilfred Owen
Morte Nobilis
Establishment is as establishment was, bent,
Control your freedoms and then tax you double,
Liberties are privileges given like,
Medals for surviving a war you did not choose, old,
Lies revamped for the next generation makes us all beggars,
Forever we remain shackled under,
The heavy weight of bureaucratic sacks.