24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
This prompt is to take a common proverb, such as “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” and turn it into a poem. You can choose any proverb or common saying. The proverb can appear as it normally does in the poem, or you can twist it. It can be a small part of the poem or its core.
Some say I am a witch, a comforting thought.
‘My other car is a broom’.
But that means I am free to fly into the night,
to laugh like nothing else matters, to let go of the wheel
because the broom will take me outside the box.
My mother was the first one – she let go of me, cut off
all my roots so that I flew for dear life. Now, instead
of two wings, I have two wings times three.
© Ella Wagemakers, 07.59 Dutch time (= 1.59 EST in the US)
Show a lil skin
Attention will begin
Onlookers will include prior rejectors
Who failed to see your potential
It will all be shallow though
Unless there’s a diamond in the rough
Realizing it takes time to build the kinda stuff that endures
Especially love
Your curves
Your cleavage
Showing off your physical best features
Maybe next time you can show your heart
But then who will be waiting?
Dark streets and familiar walks home, I know my steps too well.
The curb I tripped and grabbed your arm, the quiet spot behind the trees.
The path I ran toward your tears.
The home I new and left behind still jumps into my gait.
I turn to stumble into arms that folded now won’t let me in.
You were here with me.
You loved my heavy steps.
Cobble streets or train stop hills, I know these steps too well.
When the shadows reach to grab, ending every day,
I think of night-time running home away from all the pain.
My feet carried me to a forked road
Within the dark prison of forest
I must be safe, I must crack the code
I must not travel when I forebode
I need to find a safe place to rest
Both roads had suffered the sting of age
And time had worn them about the same
But one road had clear signs of human rage,
As I could read death like a page
Of a book, a talent I can claim
My two options laid there before me
One lay dark without human trace
The other painted screams of the banshee
Paranoia, what will my fate be?
Do I go deeper, or risk the chase?
I survived to tell you of this tale
As my mind used logic to say
To step into the darkness, exhale
When given the chance to bail,
You can take it, and live the next day
Dad had a schedule
every Wednesday
every Sunday he wound the old clock
They’d had it since the 60’s
They had requested it when the old church in Pittsburgh was torn down.
It was retrieved from the hall where a youthful Mom and Dad had lingered in the late thirties. A kid had scratched into the brass pendulum initials and a date.
As a young man I’d done surgery on it when it stopped ticking. Unsolicited. Guessing at its workings I got the gears unstuck
I don’t know how
It just happened.
It was the heartbeat of our home, then their new home at Penney Retirement Community.
It hung in the living room. I could hear it ticking on the other side of my wall, marking the last days of Mom, the last months of Dad.
Then the deepest silence descended on that house. The clock confirmed they were gone. It’s the one thing of theirs I wanted. I got it.
I wind it. I’m not regimented like Dad.
I’m bad.
I don’t know Wednesday from Sunday.
As I sit pondering
I wonder of my choice
The house quiet
All I hear is my voice
While all are asleep
I am speaking in rhyme
Although I make no peep
My voice is clear
These poems of mine
Fear’s a running theme
Time and time
I don’t know why
Nine years and five days ago
a glorious gift from two great parents
brought digital music to my world
with an ipod- best ever birthday present.
A true marvel of the modern day.
More sounds than I thought I’d have ever.
Portable, versatile, user friendly,
robust and sturdy- could last forever!
I love using playlists, for tasks and moods,
creating and shaping them from day one,
for playing darts or preparing food,
focused for writing or dancing for fun.
The ipod is my most valued possession,
in crisis the first to which I would go,
if in the house a fire was raging,
after I’d thrown the cat out the window.
The cows are lowing tonight
in the field below our
small, white house.
It reminds me of my babies,
many years ago, in their
small, white crib.
I would sit with them,
lowing, and rocking, and
giving milk to their thirsty lips.
We sustained each other
in our small, white house.