24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
It gives you twelve months’ notice
More than enough time for a full-term pregnancy
Alas, even after the delivery
It still leaves butterflies in the belly
There are butterflies in my verses tonight
The delivered poems stutter in hollowness
Finding form, aiming to be firm
Long after the stitches heal
*Inspired by the image prompt
An Epic Journey Circling, flitting, diving, and sailing, the two butterflies chased each other over the fields of beets, ruby-sweet waiting to be picked, bitten, and dribbled. In summer's highest heat, they flutter close to bright buds near the slow-moving gentle waters of the bayou as the afternoon turn slowly, smoothly, softly into evening. Seemingly limitless strength guides each tremor and underlies each deceptively smooth layer of silk. Landing on majestic elk in the Western mountains or on cinnamon trees of the West Indies. No wonder we gasp, marvel, and dream just a bit when butterflies flutter by, shaking us awake to our waiting world. All the while, they fly on. Alive two weeks orten months, an epic journey propels them forward. It's our turn to follow.I also found this YouTube video of butterflies near a bayou. https://youtu.be/Tp3n1hR2EyY?si=g7y8pj6c4S-C-Fqe
Hour Nine
I’m lost nowhere to be found.
The old me not around.
I’m not the me of yesterday,
Not of the past, the future, nor even today.
As life often does, it shifted and turned,
Forged a new trail through the wood.
My friends are all gone,
Left me standing alone,
To find a new life myself.
Reduced to pills on a shelf,
My life has no meaning is going nowhere,
Not sure where I’ve been and how I got here.
I’m hurting,
And in pain,
Running away,
From life again.
Lord help me please,
I’m begging on my knees,
Seeking some release,
From this my disease.
Of seizures and epilepsy,
And no more surgeries.
Rid me of the pnes,
Allowing me rest.
I’ve lost myself and no one can see me.
No longer her from long ago,
I’m missing and forgotten you see.
Memories faded from long ago,
Lost and not found,
Buried deep in the ground.
Where no one can find me.
Before I kick the bucket, give me a moment to explain.
Go on, child, git yerself a seat and listen.
Down on the bayou, you know the way,
on an elbow of land and a bend,
past Creole music and that ol’ carport,
sits a stump, with a rusty bucket ‘longside.
That’s where I met the Devil.
Tall skinny man, wit’ a black beard thicker’n oil,
an’ a voice smoother’n silk, soft as butter,
which when I remember sends a tremor all the way down,
an’ that smell, like suga and cinnamon sweet and spice.
Beet red and summer heat all rolled in one.
An though my eyes are old, my ears are not,
an’ I can hear the golden fiddle still.
They say I beat the Devil at his own game,
but we both known better.
Pride cometh befo’ the fall, and he had fallen
before I tricked him in.
I used to dream while awake
before it got too difficult, addictive,
the unreal demanding more of my energy,
time,
higher doses, more extreme,
with promises more empty than any drug.
sleeping is like a relapse –
with the danger that I prefer what isn’t
to what is
Beautiful winged creatures
Under clouds they fly.
Teachers of Beauty…
Teachers of Change that…
Each and every moment can be re-arranged!
Reminding us the importance of endurance-
For the moment and long-term.
Lifting our hearts as they take flight-
Inspiring us to love one another with all our might!
Essential lessons that speak to the heart,
Soulful winged messengers for those that depart.
The assignment was to clean
and arrive on time
the chair is the only thing left behind
it was pretty
like you left a little piece of god
with those flowers
you held before leaving
placing them like a hope unborn
in this empty room
motionless
Keeping the memory of a cinnamon sea
Salted with tears and blood that are proof of life,
We tremor on our braid of the bayou
At the elbow of the Cajun and the Creole
Where our buckets bring up more catfish than cool water —
So stagnant, its marsh gives no succor to thirsty elk
So somnolent, its stream seems to slog nowhere.
But some day we must sleepwalk to the sea
Where all water, all life flows on
Poem No. 8
I loved my mother with all my heart
When my father died, she lived with me.
She was happy, sang songs and said her prayers
But she did not like the cold winters.
My sister came and promised her
Eternal sunshine in India
But she was never happy with her
She had a stroke and I could not move her
Back with me though I wanted to.
One day in the month of November
I had a shock and woke up with a start
A lorry had run into my front wall
And caused an almighty crash
When I looked for him he drove away
So fast and it was two o’clock
Then I heard my phone ring
It was only four o clock
My sister said, “Your mother died.
She died peacefully in her sleep
And it was two o’ clock.
—
The tremor filled the bucket with a layer of fear
My elbow and cinnamon flew through the air
The elk grazed in the carport on hand me down beet
It was a lighyblub moment
And l started to run
Down to the bayou
In one jacket in the sun