24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
In the stillness of winter, when all is cold and grey, Juni yearns for the summer warmth of Min. Their lives are now located at opposite ends of the world and meeting each other almost seems impossible.
Winter, dark and grey
Summer, spring and autumn too
All hope is lost, gone.
Our left hands clasped in firm embrace
chowilawu, whites use the right to show disarmament
we use the left because it is closest to the heart
Our right hands went to the heart within our chests
this is your drum, my son, it is your rhythm of life
it is given to you by the Mother, it is meant to be shared
He leaned forward and touched together our foreheads
there is a large circled vein surrounding your brain
it cools and provides your mind sustenance
it feeds the feeling and empathy receptors in the front
We held this position for several minutes
the blood is physical, chowilawu, and we have shared it
it is also energy and as it flows it moves from me to you
it has become a closed loop circle between us
the Mother provides us ways and we must be aware
the heart is blood and flow and oxygen and so much more
or, you can merely show another that you are unarmed
We chuckled together as we shared our greeting
Igor Sweeney looked you square in the Adam’s Apple if you were one of his underlings.
But when he was ready to sell, he could make Wilt Chamberlain feel like a shrimp.
For seven months and one day, I observed Sweeney – Iggstoke to his friends –
and wondered how, with such a repressed and rotating cast of staff,
he maintained his exemplary self-regard for his publishing exploits.
Did he not keep his over-worked and over-scrutinized editorial staff
on compulsory overtime to send out zip-code ordered issues of the magazine
that would arrive, gratis and unbidden, to the reception desks of
Fortune 500 companies across the city?
Was he not incapable of working diligently with said staff without,
when asked a mundane question, bellowing,
“I’m trying to concentrate here!”
My first week, I knew my days were numbered.
He was patron to none but himself.
The mag, a sham for deals over which even his comptroller raised an eyebrow,
called itself the soul of the city.
Dead souls, maybe, you thought as you walked into the gulag of dislodged journalists.
His wife, a shrew whose younger visage – as well as Igor’s – graced the first page of every issue,
had a Girl Scout’s expertise in office espionage; this I gleaned when a chance Email
between myself and my equally incredulous editor
received a reply in a dialogue in which she’d not been copied, or blind-copied.
Were we in an Inc? Or an Ingsoc?
I marveled, to lesser degree, as I neared completion of the real reason
for my being hired: to clean the online archives of the star columnist,
whose indifference to fact checking was equaled to his poor grasp of grammar.
Months of conservative cackling had I cleaned under Sweeney’s hawk accounting.
One day after my completion, I received my reward:
A summons to the editorial board room, where sat Sweeney and my
poor Horatio editor, now powerless to all but his own leave-taking.
I sat, knowing what to expect.
“Mel – ”
And, then, I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing.
Every time, he began his Mr. Cleaver pretense, I laughed harder.
He couldn’t even fire me without my rattling his concentration.
Then, under his breath, I heard, “This girl is nuts.”
ninety degrees
doldrums
dis-activity
denial
disinterest
December will be warm enough
no matter how cold it goes
this august meltdown
would be better if it
was slathered with
chocolate mint chip
Foreign Bodies
I heard somewhere –
on CBC*, I think –
that pacemakers
are computerized.
A woman said that
some hacker could
kill her
with a
click
clack
of
buttons.
My therapist
had his
replaced
5 times
because the
doors at the drug store
shorted it out.
When I think about
those foreign pieces
invading a body,
I am forced to admit that
it’s really not that different
from all of the
foreign bodies
I’ve been forced to tolerate
in mine.
(c) R. L. Elke 2016
*CBC = Canadian Brodcasting Corperation – it is our national radio and tv station. Lots of sciencey stuff gets talked about on this station.
Frazzled, harried thoughts,
Shoulders tensed to spring,
Thoughts trapped in the surface of the mind
Whirling, blocking peace
Mind facing forward
So that the present holds no rest.
Until finally, at days end,
We gratefully collapse
and our minds finally relax.
The tiny beating chambers
of a tiny baby heart
all perfectly harmonic
in rhythmic, living art.
Ryasna – Belarus
Frannie Z
Those killed by pogroms
and Nazis.
fill mass graves.
Chernobyl just downwind
killed more.
The town makes electrical
and medical parts
and looks through buildings
like eyeless hollows.
Too much
to imagine wooden houses
with blue shutters,
dancing soldiers
drinking loudly?
Once, many years ago,
sisters picked wild strawberries
and sang near the river
of lovers
With dark eyes.
Gentle breeze whispers
Smell of fresh-cut grass lingers
Mid-summer’s night eve
Eve Remillard
8/13/2016
The sun is shining on my life yesterday
today and tomorrow. Embracing
every new experience through
happiness as well as the sorrow.