24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The most unnatural thing has happened
Through a crack in my wall, on an area slightly blackened
something green, something tiny has nestled
It has fought, battled and struggled
A tiny plant peeps peeps out each morning
As I leave my house, wishing me goodmorning!
As it grows something more unnatural appears
It’s tomato, my neighbors fear!
As if.
The wheel of life,
unstuck from the sucking swamp of despair,
shaken into life,
overshoots and blazes in the sky.
Cover up!
Don’t be so conspicuous!
Nothing good will come from running away down the slope to crash and burn out of control.
Embrace those inner horses. Whisper soothing words into their ears, curry down their sweat slick withers.
Get in line and plod.
Hit the bell, hit your mark, rein it in, reign in, rule yourself, be a ruler, straighten out, be inspired straight, don’t get all wound up twisted with your energy at critical mass. The masses will be critical.
That’s enough punishment.
You can’t always finish,
but you can stop.
This is the first few lines of a famous nature poem, put through the ring cycle of Google Translate (English to Esperanto to Bulgarian to Spanish to Arabic to Urdu to Afrikaans to German to Zulu to Yiddish back to a sort of English to Xhoso to Finnish to English again). Then a few tweaks by me to try & add sense.
Top Tintern fewer line miles of travel, pregnant with their bank.
after William vordsvorth
It took five years. Five summers. In five long winters!
Dance spring water volume, New soft murmur.-
This is another high. Cliffs of sharp web print.
Wild, isolated. I want a better distribution.
And communication with heaven looks calm.
Until one day I came back from holiday
A sycamore dimming the display
This parcel of land, houses, gardens, these stocks;
And the fruit,]cook. He loses the green, I dressed
“The new straw media, see.”
The report includes wires, small lines
planted a sport long wooden Wild
Green Door. Graduates of smoke. How!
I do not understand a bit of information, it seems
Forest residents of refugees and the homeless
Some hermit in a cave, fire
The Hermit sits alone.
Katrina Requiem
It was the house I grew up in.
I knew it down to my Mother’s sewing box,
The bobbins nestled and cozy
Next to the tomato pin cushion,
Jewel-toned textiled treasure
Peeking through an amber lucite lid.
Now there was space.
The rebarred pilings,
Bowed and mournfully praying.
Pieces of porcelain jutted from mud,
Elegant shrapnelled landscape.
In this tea party cemetery,
The ground beneath crunched.
And there was the piano,
A mess of wires and mangled teeth,
The bowl of collected matchbooks,
Strewn amongst the debris.
They turn their head
the other way
look back again
to see her play
Where is she?
Where did she go?
They turn their head for a moment
nowhere to show!
They screamed her name
time and time again!
No where to find her
A stranger had been within
Tears of sadness
Depression set in
A constant battle
Life grew dim.
Days, months and years went by
They held on to hope
Who had taken their child?
Where did she go?
Is she still alive?
Does she even understand
what has happened to her?
Her case is unsolved
unto to this very day
Daily they struggle to live
in hopes of one day to say
“They found her alive”
Now she can come home
And out of their sight
Their eyes will no longer roam
But as it stands
to this very day
There’s no word of her life
and there’s nothing to say.
Its my dream to see the stars
My dream my dream my dream
Just look at me now
I am a big deal
was put me in a box like a rectangle
Left to suffer and die
But faith had another destiny
My dream my dream my dream
to reach for the stars
With all my heart.
copyright 2016 Roxann A Harvey
You think you can tell me what to do?
You can’t control me.
Even if you hold a gun to my head,
You can’t control me.
You can bark at me until the cows come home but
You can’t control me.
Do your worst, asshole, but guess what?
You can’t control me
