24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
it was short
ephemeral
not even
a blink
half a blink
don’t care
forget about it
please
you forget about
and you
and you
curt
cursory
crisp
stop asking me
blunt
brusque
brief
bastard
nothing to say about it
succinct
scant
small
in the bolts of my life
please
forget it
“I Believe: Write your personal credo of things you believe in.”
Believing.
Belief is..a strange thing.
It can only exist
From within, and only
Thrive on what cannot be seen or touched or felt..
Except in the most
Unconventional of ways.
Curious. Very curious, this thing called belief.
Biased and strange and dangerous and powerful too.
They say she’s crazy for
Believing ghosts exist. But,
Who are you to tell her
The world we know it exists?
Belief is like
Knowing you exist somewhere within
The realm of Tangible things..like bedcovers, computers and cellphones
And also knowing that you could possibly exist
No where. at All.
Plato got it right the first time. What is truly reality, what is truth, which do we choose
to have faith in?
Belief is trust. It’s trusting that the Universe has a set laws of nature
That we know nothing about, but can merely guess.
It’s trusting that
What goes around comes around. Or that
God is real and not all-powerful or he is all-powerful but apathetic.
Who are you to tell me
What to believe in?
Who am I? To condemn you
Or rebuke you
For your beliefs?
Belief is knowing that even though
I was a simple fuck to boys who like to call themselves men
I am not my mistakes, I am not my shame, and I am not
Accountable for anyone else’s standards
But my own.
Belief is knowing that God is kind, patient and loving
It’s knowing that even though atheists and polytheists rebuke Him
He will still let them into Heaven if they were good people to other Human Beings.
Belief is knowing that Kenneth Hernandez will always have
Love for me, and I for him
And it’s believing that I can be happy and loving towards another
Belief is knowing that no amount of money, nor jewelry, nor any
Tangible thing on this godforsaken earth
Will fulfill me.
It’s knowing that kindness, compassion, passion, unconditional love, and
writing my itty bitty big heart out
On a piece of paper, will always bring me a happiness that
This materialistic, patriarchal world never could.
Belief is acceptance. It’s accepting the past for what it is
And accepting the future for whatever will come. It’s
Accepting yourself and others, good, bad, or indifferent.
It’s accepting that you can walk on water, and people will still say you cannot swim.
And it’s accepting that having faith in the intangible
Gifts we call life, love, passion, and kindness
Are the only things worth believing in.
My ancestors would marvel at how rich I am…
Running water:hot or cold
da white folks let you take baffs? And it ain’t even Christmas!
and a place to keep food fresh.
well would you lookie here. is that ICE?
A machine that washes my dishes and my clothes.
hoity toity miss ain’t ya?
Clothes that I don’t have to sew myself.
What do you mean you can’t sew?
My own job that I get paid real money for
Cash money? Ma massa just give me a slab of bacon and some cornmeal
I have lotion for my hands that are not bleeding or calloused from picking cotton
Oh so’s you’s a house nigga?
I have over twenty pairs of shoes
Ain’t nobody need that many shoes, girl!
I am a rich woman.
You sho is!
So that’s what I’ll try to remember to tell myself when I remember I have 15 years of student loans to pay back and no one is going to kill me over it.
Winter Again
Summer passed in
pieces of sepia-toned
pictures.
Her face shined
with gold stolen
from the sun.
I suppose
it was ironic
that I was never in
any of the photos.
I was winter again.
Let me lead you to forgive
and forget that summer
when we thought
we were invincible
and danger lingered
everywhere
by our bedroom door
through the kitchen
where we harshly wounded
our memories
and seriously undertook to
laugh and linger
on the good times had by all.
Two days before 14 years
I run through our weeks
and
remember your face,
your lips,
your hands,
but
I still hide when you get too close.
I try to stay still,
and
plant my feet,
my heart,
my will,
but
I still seem to leave
rather than stay present.
Why
do I
need to go away
to find you?
Those jaunts to
places you
wanted to go –
and I go alone?
I have spent so much time there
and I
now understand that
I hate loneliness more than
I fear letting you in.
So know that,
when I push you –
it’s me I’m trying
to get to
and
all I’ve ever wanted
was
you.
(c) R. L. Elke 2016
I Forget Where We Were
But I remember sneaking Camels from your mom’s purse
Grabbing matches from the front seat of my brother’s car
Thinking we were so cool
Sneaking off somewhere
I forget where
I remember that spark of the match
The sweet smell of sulfur
As I struck the match
The thrilling burn
On the tip of my finger and thumb
And then sucking in the filterless fiend
As you held the match
I remember the fire torching my insides
And not wanting to cough
Not wanting to spit out the avalanche
of nicotine and tar.
I forget where we were
But I remember feeling dizzy
You were so much cooler
Holding in the smoke like a pro
And blowing it out in rings
Standing with one hand on your hip
You didn’t cough
Or gag
Or make an icky face
You weren’t scared of getting caught.
I was all of those things.
I forgot where we were,
But I won’t forget that
you
were
my
friend.
I don’t miss Camels,
But I do miss you.
Fly on through the sky Forever I will be by your side so
Come as you are as you were as I want you to be because
This is a call to all my past resignations
If you go I would surely die
So shake it up baby now Twist and Shout
Cause lovin’ is what I got
So are you gonna go my way
It’s just a shot away
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you Will crawl down on your knees and
Disarm you with a smile
People try to put us down just because we get around
So come out and play
I’ve been locked inside your heart shaped box for weeks so
Forever I will be by your side
Carnival
Hurry, Hurry
Step right up
What you see before you is Real
Lean in
Have no fear
The stench of death becomes
Familiar
Vultures overhead, circling
Fear not
They come only for rotting flesh
And yours, while putrid,
Lives still
See the chalk outline
Broken, twisted ruins
Faces carved from grief
Lean in
Lick the salted popcorn tears
Pools of red run and run
Sorrow seeps into the ground
And screams
Lean in
Dip your finger in the red river
Candle apple sticky sweet
Stroke the cotton candy hair
Toothless Lions snarl and circle
Shake a long-gone mane
Wisps around a shrunken head
No sound
No roar
Elephants stand upon a
Pile of scattered bones
Using their trunks like whips
Remembering
Mourning
Marching
Tent by tent we move
Birds of prey, on land
Looking for the next
Dead thing to feed on
(c) Davita Joie 2016
Recommence
We fell–
softly, deeply, an almost imperceptible fall–
But we wanted to and then
a landing
softly pinkish blue, fuzzy newness
surrounded by the micro, the minute
hush-a-bye, rock-a-bye, all-through-the-nigh
another, and another, and another
wrapped us up, lulled to fitful sleep
Until gone were the comparings of summer days
and wherefore art thous replaced by
me times, or
without you times