Tanka
Tanka:
A nice morning stroll
and breathing in morning air,
make the brain happy;
I’m ready for a long day
and can’t wait for tomorrow.
Little Handbag
I have a little handbag
That sits upon my knee
But inside it’s much bigger
Than a handbag ought to be
It takes in bottled water
By the litre. And the pens!
Hear them rattle in despair
Of ever being found again.
There’s mints and sticking plasters,
And a glasses-mending tool,
Nail files, clippers, stamps and tissues,
And a fan for staying cool.
Deep in its dark and endless
Hidden depths there may well be
An old three-volume novel,
“Title Pending”, by “L.P.”
So I pay no attention
To what the labels say;
I think my little handbag
Was made on Gallifrey,
None
My heart has turned to wax;
It has melted within me.
The midday heat loves me too much—cire-perdue
A sprue hole hollow, a core of lost wax.
At the ninth hour there is no more separation;
Blast furnace heat melts, exposes and refines.
But burnished bronze—or gold—gathers chill.
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.
Abandoned by even myself, alone-ness is euphemism.
The earth splits, the curtain falls, exit stage left.
Lama Sabachthani?
Return my heart to me.
Nature#6
Nature, Natural , beautiful and sweet,
As kind or vicious as anyone you will meet,
It can relax you and make you feel dreamy,
It can twist up your life and make it steamy.
Nature will not hurt you based on anything you’ve done,
Nor does it care how many awards or medals you won,
A tornado , a flood , can destroy any of us anytime,
We can not stop nature, no matter how hard we try.
nature is also nurturing, gives us shelter and food,
Shows us much love, does not try to be rude,
We must respect Nature , for it keeps us alive,
The better we take care of it, the longer we survive.
#7 Fear of Forgetting
“Daddy, you didn’t take your pills.”
“I did take my pills.”
“No they are still on the counter.”
Daddy remembered seventy wonderful years with his wife,
But not that there had been two different wives.
He remembered the fear and confusion as a young sailor at Pearl Harbor,
But not where to find the door to the back yard.
In his bed at hospice, he didn’t recognize me.
He didn’t recognize my daughter.
He didn’t recognize his neighbor.
But he petted and remembered and held our little poodle mutt.
Sometimes I forget things.
HOUR 7
THE BUFFOON
Every time I see him, I writhe from within.
More so, than the chill I get from disappearing glaciers.
He is a no man, a figment of his own manipulation.
A wart of a human being that entangles his prey in a twitter of lies.
I must admit, first I laugh at his preposterous ideas.
But then, heat creeps into my capillaries and I’m on fire!
I aim my thumb and index finger at the over sized screen.
I want to blow the damn TV out of the house and into the woods.
Vile spews from the mouth of the ignorant man that stands before me.
“Wa, wa, wa did I say. I didn’t say that! The media lies.”
Nothing riles me more than a liar. Oh yes there is one thing…
a bad liar. The kind that weaves lies, like a spinner on a wheel,
who then rips it out, only because someone found his mistake.
A mistake that otherwise would unravel after the purchase is made.
I sense a game is played in the mind of a moron who feels he is better,
Better than ANYONE.
Only a fool or delusional chihuahua feels he is bigger and smarter than the rest of us.
What a joke. what a shame when the mind is smaller than the rage.
I am stuck in my domain without power or resource, so I coil when I hear his name.
I do not mean to offend, nor do I mean to pretend that I have a solution.
I’m frightened by thoughts of retribution.
I crave peaceful revolution.
Superman
I sit here inside this memory
surrounded by things I thought I knew.
Superman capes and detective eyeglasses
I never knew the secrets you kept.
Those dark shadows that lingered behind
you when you would go quiet and blank.
Today I heard the truth about your onyx past
I heard it in whispers at the corner coffee shop.
You’re background was far from an adventure movie
You’re childhood far from a Science Fiction.
I now admire you more than I ever did before
For the make believe family tree you had to create
In order to be the wonderful man you would become.
Angst (prompt 7)
The color gray
piled dishes
dirty laundry
clutter
safety in belongings
it all remind me
of what I struggle with
my brain
over-sympathizes with things
and discards people
things can’t attack you
make you feel less than
or hurt you
or so you thought
until it does
and that’s all you have
Elevated Fear
Oh, no! 
Really?
It’s on the 7th floor?
I AM going to have to
walk through THAT door…
And get into that box!
that vertical trap
and hold my breath
when I hear that door snap
One time I got stuck
right between floors
I never do trust
those elevator doors
It took far too long
for rescue to come
I feared I would die
what a way to succumb
I wasn’t alone
thank God for that
still, I found little comfort
as I sat on the mat
Is there enough oxygen
for the two of us?
(but he was my boss
and I tried not to fuss)
On another occasion
about a dozen folks
crowded together
we tried to make jokes
I cried out loud
“I cannot DO THIS!”
what choice did I have?
I heard “Calm down Miss!”
My Elevator Anxiety
may have another source
yes, Mom chose a closet
and showed no remorse
because I’d been “bad”
she locked me in
(the sentence I served
for some “terrible sin”)
It was dark inside there
just some light through a crack
the hanging clothes
pushed down on my back
I stumbled on shoes
while I begged to come out
it would feel like hours
to a kid, no doubt
It’s amazing to me
that I’m able to fly
not that I like it…
in that tube in the sky
But it’s not the same
as an Elevator space
Some memories
are hard to erase
OH, yes, I am grateful
to live on FIRST FLOOR
so that I can WALK
to my own front door!
Will we make it?
Can we fake it until we find the strength to overcome?
Can we find some sort of way to cope without going numb,
Without succumbing to apathy or reactionism?
We’re terrified we have nothing to say and no one will pay attention
But if we don’t pay attention to what’s being said then it will never be spoken anyway
So here’s to hoping hope isn’t just an exercise in futility
Hoping tranquility, bliss and ignorance are all treated differently
Here’s to adaptability
Here’s to embracing chaos as patterns that define the things we’ll never know
Here’s to finding some way of navigating the hights from way down here below
Ready-set-go
Wait, stop, hold up, that’s not right, I think I said it wrong, do it over,
Damn, I’m so frightened
Damn, I thought I was enlightened there for a second but I’m second guessing everything:
The words I speak, the songs I sing,
The cup from which I drink is almost empty
What’s the remedy?