24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
No more planning, no more waiting,
No more frantic breath-abating,
No more standing in the line,
No more checking off the time,
No more nervous fretting,
No more not-just-yetting,
No more crawling time,
Now the time is flyin’!
Now the racers
Set the pace.
Get set:
GO!
It’s the End of sleep for another night
I hug the covers oh, so tight
My Mother’s annoying wake up call
bounces off my bedroom wall
“Good Morning to you…
Good Morning to you….
Time to get U–UP
you have things to do!”
I love sleeping in
is that such a “sin”?
Just five minutes more?
Then my feet hit the floor
I still remember Mom ‘s wake up call
a singing alarm from down the hall
she left this earth in twenty-eleven
no doubt she’s singing now in heaven
I’m left with memories …good and bad
But I’m awake now…and I’m so glad
To the Ticket Girl Working at the Carnival, Cherry Festival 2016
Gulls scatter erratic,
like plastic bags estranged
in air current
over the ferris wheel.
A wind peaceful
of lake, wind in
my veins, or rather
winded, bone-terse
& skin-brittle
from cold cloaked
in summer’s peeling.
the dog days razing
a burnt lintel of wither
& aimless want
on my back.
I follow the lead
of wandering color,
sporadic in disposition,
neon memories buckled to
bleak nights where I hold
quiet & clamor each in a palm.
My eyes elevated to
a bruised sprawl of sky
until my muse drifts
to you, red security shirt
& a scraggly-toothed smile.
I buy a ticket & hold onto
the search for you
at every rotation
of the tilt-a-whirl.
Period
Sleep is a comma
between dreams,
at most, a semicolon;
this life is an epic
run-on sentence,
one thought
to the next,
barely pausing
for breath,
anxiously,
hopefully,
climbing
breath’s ladder
ahead of flame,
praying not
to reach the top.
I am done with beginnings
I have seen too many of those
Half done
Half proposed
Regurgitated
This time i want to flip my coin
I want to see the other end of the rainbow
I want to be exhausted and exhilirated
I want to see the finish line
The ribbon across my chest
Give me the end this time
Victorious or defeated
Let me land my flight
At a destination.
Unlike the others,
the sorrows I had need to be hidden,
from everyone,
and from her – his beloved adopted.
So I told my heart,
its fine…wound will heal,
though he was forever gone.
Fuel for a day of words
is gathered in a warming crockpot.
Chicken
three onions, one large head of garlic
a generous fist full of cumin seeds are
mingling, heating to slow simmer.
The aromas will climb up the back staircase,
waft down the long hall to
stir mouth watering anticipation.
I shall stir softened lentils into the hearty broth
and strip the bones of meat,
stir all together then
fill my white crockery bowl to the brim and indulge.
You will step out onto the platform
into the humid embrace
of the summer afternoon
You will melt
as you melt into the crowd
of which you are a part
but from which you are completely apart
The streets of Shibuya
will suck you out of the station
and into the open air
Tokyo will scream at you
right to your face
You will smile
though you know she does not love you
she is always there for you
(13 August 2016)
Night unfades to dawn
as I will my body,
mind,
soul,
and spirit
to rally and fight another day.
we twist spaces between cells into windows
pull out pigments and lignin
remove wood from wood
until we have glass
or the closest thing we can get
xylem lets light in through soft spaces
green architecture without colour–
perhaps we will build a house
out of transparent wood
call it the greengreenhouse and laugh
secretly delighted at its name
at what we have built