24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Boogeyman
Don’t look back, don’t turn around
do you really want to be found?
Check the cell, no damn reception
did you think you’d be the exception?
Trying to flee and the car doesn’t start
it seems that none of you are very smart
Girls shouldn’t fall every time they run away
and it is so not time to get naked and play
And, really, don’t let the villain off with one shot
I’d empty my clip, and give it all I’ve got
@ Renee Avard-Furlow
June 13 2015
Even If I Have To
I’ll take your abyss
and even if I have to
walk on a tightrope
the seemingly mundane
lights up all of this
I sink deep into your soul
I don’t even need air
no struggling to get away
where you have me –
is this place of feeling sensitive
I’m bleeding in a lightning storm
@ Renee Avard-Furlow
June 13 2015
Fingernails with my grit underneathe,
I wield my diry nails of fortitude;
I destroy the humid heat with my water tank,
My back hoe, and an ice cube down my shirt.
I dig the black earth into deeper night,
Filter in the manure and mulch.
Sticks and stones won’t break me;
They only make the soil richer.
And all of the pebbles in the soil
Sweep inside my stubborn heart
And layer the garden of my soul.
In the coldness of Winter, it is hard to see warmth.
The trees look like boney fingers, starved from the vitamins they so graciously accept.
The trees reach their branches as high as they can, still skimming through fog.
The cold air cracks the trees outer layer.
The cool breeze sneaks in, chilling the souls of the mighty trees.
The freshly fallen snow that seeks refuge on the tree’s branches, slowly finds a way to creep in.
The trees moan in the cold clutches of what seems to be never ending Winter.
They bend and sway in the wild wind, holding their ground.
If only a little sun would show to warm our brittle bark.
How much longer can they last this cold and wind trying to break their spirits.
All at once, the gray clouds start to break away.
An amber glow emerges. It gets bigger and bigger; stronger and stronger.
At last, all the clouds break away and alone there stands an amber glow of warmth.
The sun welcomes all the tree’s boney fingers. They raise up farther as in joyous acclaim.
The trees bend with their sway. The coldness starts to fade away.
The trees feel the vitamins they needed flowing through their sturdy bodies.
An energy of happiness is felt.
For no matter what, we all need each other. We can never give up hope.
We can never destroy, for our hands need to clutch that warmth.
An ever glow of warmth, pounding with an energy of love.
I keep reminding myself
that I am a good man.
Mistakes
were made. I made.
Do not define me.
Lesson I learned
have made me.
The better man. A better
man.
Who I have
become. Is
No who I
was.
Forget-Me-Nots
When is the best time to remember?
I remember the walks, where dad would remember
his old track and field and cross-country days,
Hannah and dad walking parallel, me in the back.
There’s a syllable of summer in the air, speaking
clear through the forgetful mess—the sun would
rise like spears glinting in the sky, the tentative
violence, the heat of the awakened sun.
Those summers at the beach, as you would get
out of the water from swimming,
every tuft and tussle and turn of the wind
would snap at the notched cramps in your side
from the cold. These walks, teeming with absent concentration,
we’d try to become the person our shadows are, so formulaic,
in the angst of memory, walking along the bike trail
where the leaves would walk behind us in the wind,
like footsteps. However far we get, when the time
comes, is it better to avoid the mud puddle
or leap over it? My notebook would get heavier with
new ideas, stories to memorise. There was
old Mr. Yanskas, inviting us into his house on Halloween,
and I’d wondered if he’d been in a war, or where
his own children were—but his wife gave us candy
simply for spending our time there. I think
I was a pirate again that year, or maybe I was a drummer:
I can’t remember—funny, isn’t it?
There were always the walks when we
didn’t want to be cooped up inside;
I never even cared if it was about to rain.
Back to the prior summer—or every summer, perhaps—
the gleaming speech of the crescent waves would
curdle and crinkle upon the shore, Hannah
never being allowed to swim out deep; but she
might’ve been better than me at swimming.
The sand would be clothing for our feet
in the parking lot. I wonder now, looking over the park rail,
and out over the lake: a net as wide as the sea
wouldn’t be able to capture all the life in it—
something, some remnant of a memory would escape,
no doubt. Only a couple days ago we were watching softball
games down at the civic center—the grass underfoot
conforming to our steps, the legs of the sun walking with us.
All the memories under the sun are not enough,
they are not my true joy. My legs are taut to the front yard,
the back yard; I must be watching myself from everywhere,
role-playing. But thinking to myself, the little blue flowers
in the back yard all thrown up in dad’s
dirt pile from snow-plowing, they’re still alive and
blue. I feel as if I’ll forget them one day, forget everything
that I ever collected to recollect.
Speaking was never an obsession;
Reminding yourself with souvenirs is not
as unshakeable as you think. As July may flourish
every shade of green, August will always burn red
in my heart. We never knew what all this oblivious love
between us meant, but I mean to hold it as a keepsake.
You can’t bury the weather of yesterday,
you can’t grow tomorrow’s filtering sunlight;
but I’ll find paradise at my desk rather than
at the end of smoke. Paradise, you’re a paradox
to me, and you won’t stay still, you’re always in
someone else’s hopes and dreams.
However misleading my reminiscing will be
down the road, I know this world doesn’t deserve us—
I will be me as best as I ought to—
however long it takes me to remember.
Turns out I didn’t need to be there, in the room
to know you had left us.
I felt your slowing in my own body,
like a clock slowing down and down
hands coming to a stop –
time still.
Crawling onto the couch,
curling into a ball in my old robe
breathing in…..out……..in…………out
slower…….still
The phone rang. I already knew you were gone,
I was with you all along.
Hard rain dives through dark branches.
Enveloping darkness surrounds
As invisible clouds devour the moon and stars.
Waters rush by,
Urging everything downhill.
Cool, wet diamonds coat the skin.
On the warm summer night,
The solitude is bliss.