24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Bringing in this one at the last minute…
The illegible text
tricks those who aren’t paying attention
distracting them from the secret messages
hidden in plain sight
on the other side of the spread
where truths burst forth from the page
disguised as poetry
Those fixated on the decoration
know who they are
They do not know
they are missing something
(13 August 2016)
She smiles …as she is staring at death…lost in her emotions and thoughts …
she stares at the abyss…as if portraying a secret weapon …madness…yes she was madness…
but she was still mystical …magical . … Yes she enchanted you …just a glance in her eyes she captured you…
She smiles…because she knows you are in trance …you are trapped now without escape.
She smiles as she staring at death because she knows she can cheat her own faith.
Don’t let her smile fool you…she will lure you to your death …she will murder your innocence and consume you in the depths of hell…
She is so graceful and in peace…what kind of creature is this …even death doesn’t stand a chance to her evil sins …yes death was defeated…
She will tear you apart while humming her favorite song…that voice …such sweet voice …
She is singing her melody seducing you violently.. while you are in agony
She smiles…because she knows you are in trance …you are trapped now without escape.
She smiles as she staring at death because she knows she can cheat her own faith.
The missing ring is here somewhere. Is it hiding in the pillows, or smirking behind the scarves? It may be covered in candle wax or suffocating beneath the pile of incense ash. The dark deep corners of the shoe closet are suspect; as well as the thick frayed edges of the Persian rug. Did the suction of the vacuum steal your presence and whisk you away a few days ago? You may already be on your way to new adventures on foreign fingers, in a land far far away. The leaves of the aloe plant, with their vicious spikes and curves, may have been be a potential landing zone. I haven’t the will or the inclination to scrape my skin quite yet. Soil embedded in my nails is never pleasant. Where are you? Will you sparkle for me?
My sneaky shiny silver friend
It is exactly where it should be
Inside the jewelry box
Fixing his motorcycle, dormant all winter
He found a nest of mice
Huddled together in the tailpipe
The fearful mother fled, abandoning
Her doomed baby, eyes shut, helpless.
How could she? It’s instinct. Save yourself.
The baby’s mouth opened and closed, imploring
The world for sustenance, comfort
Why should I pity this vermin who, grown, would only
Plague me later? But dutifully, with eyedropper, I fed it
Formula, the false milk of man
And, of course, it died.
For Churchill, the shadow
of vermouth on his martini
was enough. For my brother,
two drops of water
in his bourbon please, the memory
of what it once was. Once, my shadow
was the only thing I owned; it could
not leave. I looked for sun
everywhere, just to watch it
move beside me.
It’s been a month since I saw you last.
Our lives are ruled by agendas, measured by calendars, hustled by the ever-slowing ticks of the minute hand. It’s a matching game where no card has a partner, each wore slip fluttering to the ground from the stacked deck. If only we could spin free, golden days from sack-cloth and straw like modern Rumplestiltskins.
tell me, are we doomed
to only be cracked mirrors
of our parents’ fate?
Some places took on a heavy, headachy sensation in that year-long drought. Now, in the deluge, though I am soaked through, there it is. The feeling of being in a place you should never be. I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have. Wait. Who said any time could conquer the one to come? I did. And what right did I have to imprison the coming hours, years, iterations? If there is but one set of places that exist in one continuous tread of hours…
I must wrest this place,
First tended, then tainted, back
And let myself live
When Kristen retired, we thought to take an adventure.
We went to Yosemite, where Dad had taken me and I had been a Dad to mine.
One of the rituals was to take the walk to the viewpoint for Nevada Falls.
Vernal and Nevada.
With my little ones I had walked to the top of both falls and lingered there, and came down in near darkness on the wet narrow Mist Trail of fame,an adventure of marginal safety and much to the great annoyance of their even tempered mother, who blamed the whole adventure on me as though she had not been there as it unfolded.
Kristen, at 5foot 4 and over 300 pounds simply had no upness to her stridel
She walked on level ground for distances, but lifting her bulk each step up the fairly easy slope was infinitely demanding, and we stopped every fifty steps.
Families with young children passed us, but we kept on.
Kristen is determined, and we made kept on to the goal of the viewing point, the bridge over the rushing water from the falls that, one after another, roard down with the snow melt, even in the drought year.
Up we went so slowly
To see the memorable
Water rushing down
