24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The world moves slowly through time on the back of a turtle. That is why we call it Turtle Island. Some say four elephants stand on the turtle's back and old up the world. I have never seen them, just the turtles. Wrinkled necks, tough skin, flippered feet, they swim through the ocean of space. Always moving around the sun. All of them, one beneath the other, beneath the other.
After attempting and accepting,
Barely balancing between battling blissful,
Calamity creeps, casually comparing,
creatures categorized, concepts conceptualized,
Darling daughter, disown drama,
Emotions Evolve, encompassing environmental encounters,
Fabulous familiar friends faithfully family,
Gratefully gathering, generous gestures,
Happily home helping,
Important images increase infinite imagination,
Jets jerk Jezebels jaws,
Kangaroos kiss koalas kneeling,
Leaving legacies, little lasting litigations,
Many manages multiple marathons making memories,
Naturally negating negative, notifications,
Opting onward onto optimism
Quietly questioning quality,
Refusing ridicule, refusing representatives refusing reprimand,
Surprising successful seeing scary scenarios,
Thoroughly trying through tarnished tears,
Visions verified vainly,
Without weeping when wondering with
Xylophones,
You yell, Yapping youth, yippie!
Zebras!
My dog snores
I sleep within
the constraints
of a day finally
ending and
the planned activities of
the new day
praying that the
hours allowed
will bring enough rest
praying that the
to do list
stops growing and
stops screaming
to be met
praying that my
dollars stretch enough
so I can be well
fed
praying my good health
holds up so
I can meet the
morning
with full strength
praying to keep
anxiety and frustration
at bay
I pray
I sleep and
my dog snores at the foot of my bed
She cries.
“I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I just don’t know what to do!”
A tremor in my voice, “I can’t tell you. I don’t know.”
I’m afraid of her despair.
I want to hold space, but I’m afraid.
The phone is heavy.
I rest my elbow on the brass headboard, leaning into its solidity for support.
She says she can’t go to the gym. That’s how bad it is.
But she can go get a spray tan.
“Get your jacket on. Take the first step. It’s momentum.”
She cries again, the high-pitched kind.
“Should I come over?”
I’m at a loss.
I don’t want to come over.
“I can meet you at the carport. Do you need me to drive?”
She doesn’t want to go to the gym. She can’t. She’s repeating sentences, phrases, words.
Once, on a train ride through the open plains of New Mexico, I saw them,
Rocky Mountain elk, in rushing herds, locomotive racing,
my face pressed into the dirty window, wondering where they’re heading,
asking myself the same, on an Amtrak, mid-winter, heading home, where I no longer belonged.
I couldn’t cry then, but those sleek animals, full of grace and urgency, hollowed me,
gutted my very being, and I sat soulless, unable to move forward or turn back–
blurring through space and time, boundless but not free.
I’m empty now, too. I can’t help you.
My life has taken turns and twists
thats made me who I am.
An angry, volatile kind of
gal, that’s full of love still.
Those facets may not mix
to you, but inside me
they do.
I pray and pray and do
the right things. I try
not to get thrown too far off
my square. I know I’m
far from perfect, but I continue
to try and try- to climb up to
a higher plateau before my
time to die.
I give out food, and donate blood,
Sometimes I’ll give a ride to a stranger,
I’ll keep trying to help others,
and I’ll write instead of fight.
I get angry and blow up,
I scream, shout and holler.
But through it all I know my
God doesn’t blame me for
blowing up. So now you know
some of me and I don’t mind the
share. I’ll just have to keep
being myself, being good
leaving little room for bad
on my hearts shelf.
Dances through the milky way
Stardust thrown into the galaxies
Singing her beauty from full to new
Lights the way
Healing, Strength, Wisdom
Tides wash our female souls
Honouring with Drum and Songs
Grandmother Moon
Find Joy In Pain
I find joy in my pain,
so I can cling to my sanity.
Patchwork hues of yellow blend,
with each stroke of my blues and
all the in-betweens.
I decided,
upon my primary color wheel expectation,
green has always been my favorite color.
(Ephrastic poem; can no longer find the image)
1973 (Poem 9)
City kid in town of 250 in central Washington
in the shadow of Mt Adams, standing tall to
the westand openness in every other direction that
makes me feel like I can see into tomorrow.
Carport next door sends a tremor through me
as my neighbor stands under one small
electric lightbulb hanging from a cord,
cinnamon colored jacket, admiring
his elk that hangs from a hook
bucket full of its blood.
And everything I’ve known becomes
history as I survey my new surroundings
on the Yakama Indian Reservation,
only teacher that lives in town.
I was hired the day before school started.
A couple weeks earlier had been interviewed
after sleeping next to what I later found was the dump
and put on the sports coat and tie my uncle had given me
that was the job interview attire for both myself and my friends.
Colleen and friend Mike slept out with me and went to
the Wagon Wheel Café while I interviewed. Mike almost got
in a fight because they were charged for his coffee refill.
No doubt whomever was originally hired for my job
found something else at the last minute and it got passed
on to me. I was so clueless that I sat in the back yard of the
small house that the principal directed me to the first night,
overwhelmed by differentness and smoked a joint in this
town where everyone knew everything about everyone else.
But I was just a naïve city kid who’s experience in the world
of small towns was mostly limited to what I found hitchhiking west.
I tried to have my older Native American aide teach the rich knowledge
of their culture she knew to the kids but the administration said no.
After this year I decided to pitch a tipi on Orcas Island and ask the
Universe to provide me a new life direction, which I am so thankful it did.
Text Prompt
The first three words of your title should be “what is love”. That can be your whole title, in and of itself, probably followed by a question mark, or you can add more context onto the title before proceeding to the poem itself.
Image Prompt
Photo by Andrew Shaughnessy
Wrap me around my nostalgia and call me gifted.
Sometimes the night would refuse to unfurl,
Might look like it’s the “pause” phase of time.
I would throw my arms into the wind/
Like a prayer, searching for god’s embrace/
I would refuse to get caught
Because Isn’t this what fallen angels do?
Bring light to ground zero and lose warmth.
Who would bury the remains of our loss if we’re
All lost in this strange planet:
If we’re all men, chained to a long
Necklace of beasts who have held loss
The same way elites hold morsel of prayers
Between their two front teeth.
There’s something about the night that
Refuses our wounds to cover,
Something opening our bodies to the absence of light.
Something that would open them angles up;
open their bodies to the bare
Of loneliness; make them the bare of loneliness.
I clasp a firefly between my teeth and charge
Towards the darkness,
Sometimes we’re not always present,
Because nobody wraps their arms around
Us to make us gifted.