24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Who was the genius who believed
That art can be formed in the rhythm of time,
The rhyme of challenge.
Who is the genius who believes
That verse can flow through her fingers on demand.
Who is the genius who believes
That she can stay awake.
There have been so many people in and out of my life
Encountering new and old
It’s made me bold
That has found a deep place in my soul
Who has discovered the opposite toll?
Because they reached in and touched me
Without knowing it
Each time it’s happened to be
I give a different look and then see
What all the purpose meant to me
Of why they all
Touched me without knowing it
There’s a finish-line some where.
Far off beyond the visible road.
I keep telling myself I’ll make it there.
A beautiful beach or some humble abode.
It is late and I am drunk adrenaline and caffeine.
Running out of ideas like a car low on fuel.
My eyes tell me there’s nothing just a blank screen.
Should’ve thought this through, but I am a fool.
24 poems. 24 f-ing poems. The number seemed candid
Each hour pushing myself for a little more.
And yet, the truth is that’s not what I landed.
Instead it’s a fight against myself. A great war.
Keep moving, keep moving the music is playing
But someone took my seat
I can still see it over there
The perfect size the perfect fit
warm and cozy calling me home
Quick, stop the music, I’m almost here
Looking out from Restaurant Windows
Hanny, make sure you do not step into that puddle;
the view is so aimless and subtle,
looking out from these unclean windows.
At the lake stumbling toward us,
never seeming to reach beyond the shore:
if not to have a drink, then what for?
Still above our table swings the chandelier,
lingering of its light, the water damage
in the ceiling something I don’t fear
dad couldn’t resolve, either—but he can’t correct
the widowed sky outside, without a hand to hold,
its cascading sympathy like a confession,
the rain as diamonds shattering upon the sidewalk,
like the taps of our fingers on the table as we talk.
Crumbs of your food sitting on your jacket:
they’re so hungry to be noticed, but we just
seem to always let them go.
“Dad, how come when I’m not around, you have to stow
away and do things I wish I was there for?
Like going out for ‘delicious beverages,’
and speaking in the third person in the store?”
Even so, I admire the ambulance driving slow, hushed,
while a Mustang peels down the avenue,
trying to impress some flyleaf witness.
Mitchell Creek is running right round the bend,
and I wish I could see the river’s end
from the window, but I can only view part
of the bridge, the sentinel of the creek.
The food arrives before I even know,
the bill curtly expensive under the tarnished glow
of the dim chandelier light on the auburn seats,
for simple people eating simple food,
listening now and then to folk rock back beats.
A walk and dinner all in one,
living so close to the restaurant as we do;
must be why Auntie Jan and Grandma Millie
enjoy it so much. Today though, this moment of today,
I’m fasting for this day to end weakly, right away;
I’m eating fast, I laugh, looking out the window,
seeing all the gulls, a white halo above the silver bay.
I’m so full, but in no such hurry,
to leave today behind without a worry.
In hindsight, I think I spent most my desire
looking out the window than at my plate.
Walking away from the chandelier, its tiring ire
fading with the last shift, I step into that puddle,
happening to look back; and isn’t it a shame that they
clean the windows right after we leave—
only to become dirty again?
So here I am
battling sleep
so I can finish this
in one piece
but it keep pulling at my eyes
Sleep Sleep
why don’t you leave me alone
I will see you at the end
Pushing forward until the end
my phone battery is dead
how will i keep awake
Pushing not giviving in
Technical difficulties now
setting in my key board
is trying to Fail me,
Come on Key board I need you
for the next 9hrs.
Please don’t fail me now.
No matter the distance,
No matter how long,
I will not desert you,
I’m here till the end.
I’ll give you assistance,
I’ll right every wrong.
Above all else that’s true,
I love my best friend.
i often think about the guy i didn’t choose-
the one who blew my mind.
the one who shattered all my fears and who really showed me how to love.
and though there was no pomp and circumstance he often comes to mind;
i can sit in quiet retrospect and think about specific moments in time.
Piled up like freeze-dried memories, they often take my psyche on a trip
and i allow myself to travel back down memory lane-
the long conversations spent acknowledging life-
learning each other’s likes and dislikes-
just being there, always in the moment-
always present.
Maybe that’s what I miss,
maybe that is what makes me wonder…
that road not taken-
sometimes i can’t help but wonder
where it may have led.
I stood at the ocean, and watched as a seagull dashed a clam against the hard rock. Pecking, pecking, the tireless drone, like the words of denial we spoke, chipping and breaking away our connection, breaking and cracking sharply
Crack chip plunk crick.
We speak of impossibilities, across the seas, and yet we know, that no matter how sweet the words, the tender the reunion, we will never be what we see. The bittersweet taste in my mouth always lingers, your voice haunting some neural context in a faded dream. Words that you will never say come and rise from grey matter, your own voice trembles; it isn’t, it’s too close to the surface and threatens to split apart like an overripe fruit, and I weep for you, I weep for what we have lost, dashed across the rocks like the clam I saw in the jaws of that seagull, relentlessly torn by Nature’s distance until we remain, two halves of a shell lost at sea.
When she cried . . .
I felt the house shake
Because she was the foundation
When she cried . . .
The sky turned gray
Because she was the sun
When she cried . . .
The day was silent
Because she was
Nature singing
When she cried . . .
The earth stopped
Spinning
Because she was the axis
When she cried . . .
She turned her face
Because she was
The stronghold breaking,
The sun fading,
Nature’s silencing,
And my world falling