24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Dear Sleep,
I miss you so,
So much that you’ll never know.
I’ve replaced you with caffeine,
But that will never do, as you can see.
Without you, I’m silly and goofy and weird.
I want to return to the me before you disappeared.
Please come back.
I really, really want to hit the sack.
Sincerely,
One Tired Poet
T he
L ast
P air cas
C aded in a blue
G littered velvet vamp that
M ade my chunky shins look like Cat Woman’s.
I
carried
the barefoot
while I hobbled
and cast them in the closet with the others
That I will not wear again, the leather
Kitten heels and cork pumps, the stiletto boots that kill my back.
I
M iss
T hem and
I still feel
Them In the bone
M arrow of my hurting soles.
Dear Laurie
It has come to.my attention that you have enjoyed the Poetry Marathon thus far. Congratulations on your strong start. Your confidence was evident in the early writings. Unfortunately, you faltered on the Pantoum and your writings have progressively deteriorated from this point.
Early morning has brought with it a change in perspective and alertness. Your attention to detail is waning. Your typing has slowed, causing confusion to your fellow poets in the chat group. I hope you are enjoying the early morning.
You have the ability to rally and finish strong. I expect nothing less.
Sincerely,
Tillie G
My skeleton in the closet
Circled through my mind through
Every first glass of wine
And every first kiss.
When do I tell him?
First or second or third date became never
Until the relationship faltered and jolted
Because he sensed trust issues and maybe something more
Leaning on his shoulder the scars
Of harassment and injury slipped
By easily enough but not the misdiagnosis
of bipolar or the panic I feel
when a clump of hair falls out
or even the innocent
fact that my body cannibalizes its own muscle
and my energy is a ticking grenade
wearing thin
Or the real diagnosis of
Future diabetes and improbable children…
No, I think that will wait.
Dear Anne,
I suppose it’s time for my yearly update,
there has been very little change,
genocide, taking new shape in political discourse,
“foreign policy,”
“national security,”
buzz words feeding bodies to the buzzards,
people live in terror,
just different communities of people,
many breaths spent on discussing solutions,
diplomacy through the lens of institutional elitists,
I worry about the state of things,
as I always do,
cuts to social services,
no disruption to military spending,
educational crisis,
forms of knowledge not seen as valuable,
high quality research that cannot be quantified,
we prefer to count things in numbers,
much easier to count dead bodies than transcribe experiences.
There is silence…
No humming TV.
No buzzing phone.
No static voices in the background.
There is silence…
My brain doesn’t speak.
My heart doesn’t beat.
My ears don’t ring in a disturbing pitch.
There is silence…
The world sleeps.
The moon wanes.
The day lumbers on slothful tip-toe.
There is silence…
In the room around me.
In the air outside.
In the dreams where my consciousness hides.
There is silence.
There is Silence.
Lue
August 14, 2016
Dear John:
You’ve told me a man must have everything.
He must have her love and affection, trust
and cares, woes and fantasies, body and belief.
He must contain and compel her dreams, speak
her mind with her, beside her and be her too.
He must have her body, entirely his own, as she
equally partakes of his, fully accessible any time.
He must give her solace and she his support.
They must build things and break things down,
together, working as a team, united as one.
There must be abundant love everlasting, you say,
and undying even beyond death and delivery.
John, you’ve claimed possession of her opinions,
her bodily secretions, and her style of clothing.
You’ve demanded her attention and hands, her
movements during the day and night, her arms
ever clasping yours, enveloping you enveloping her…
Dear John, my dearest of all, love can’t be swapped
and traded, quantified and qualified, bought and sold.
Love is no cure, can’t fill the gaps, cracks or ailments,
not those inherent or fostered in the care of those who
thought love was power and hurt and discipline and
control, John, mere control that fear spills through you.
Love is not for keeps, never on sale, bundled or peddled.
Especially, love is not had but kindled, like wood fires
warmth and sustenance, dazzling and mysterious, in
properties known and magical too. Love has no rules.
John, let me, if you will, teach you all I know about love.
Love–
Sitting watching YouTube
Wondering how we have lost
The ability to talk
To each other
I see their grace
in every step
the way they glide
along the streets
in town
the way they walk
across the fences
and jump over
on my windowsill
the cats in town
never sleep
at night