24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Good Morning
it’s 9AM
time for poem #1
23 more, then I’m done
At this hour it’s easy
By the time I reach
poem #9
I may be out of my mind
When I get back in(my mind)
I’ll be ready for 10,11,12
and twelve more.
Dad wasn’t there that day
wouldn’t have been interested
so Mom filled the role gladly
did the dad-thing by
renting a row boat
she took us boys fishing
because boys needed to do things with worms and hooks and poles
and feel the thrust that oars made against water
it was a lake near a discount store with a highway going over
not exactly Nature
not exactly fish fish
sunfish
little ones
even smaller in the frying pan
You have my heart, take my liver.
My spleen.
You f*cking Butcher.
Carver. Carving me up.
You can’t dissect me anymore.
Not any more, than I dissect myself.
Every word, Every touch, Every moment.
I have picked them apart.
At seeing them broken, I have reassembled them dutifully.
Carefully. Swiftly.
I wrap myself in a mossy blanket of misery.
Wet leaves stuck to my face, forest kisses.
A slippery Selkie out of her skin.
I want out. Out of this forest.
To transform back to the cunning sea.
She will heal me.
Today will be about losing words. It
will be about verses falling apart, without
music or fanfare.
Nothing will rhyme. Nothing will be
described as it really is, because all
we have is speculation.
Outside, from a great height, far
higher than the gulf stream, all that was
ever written will fall apart.
Even the names of those we know will
be taken up in the wind of anonymity,
becoming soundless
as verse by verse, their bones become
one with the earth.
(c) Ella Wagemakers, 17.34 Dutch time (= 11.34 EST in the US)
It looked tasty so I wrapped my mouth around it.
When I tried to swallow there was a sharp feeling in my mouth.
Then a pulling sensation.
Then a massive lurch forward.
It felt as though my lips were being ripped out of my head.
I tried to resist but the more I struggled to swim away the more painful it was.
I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t breathe.
The bright light I only ever saw through the shimmering shield of my watery home was suddenly all I could see. I desperately wanted to close my eyes but couldn’t because I don’t have eyelids.
Then, I was flying for the first time in my life. Flying above my home with empty lungs. Flying like those creatures I often saw above me.
When I hit a hard surface I was grabbed by the hard hands of a big monster.
It ripped something out of my mouth and I screamed. I don’t think it heard me.
You don’t want to know what happened next because it involves a long sharp object – and being gutted and skinned alive.
It was very unpleasant and I died from agonising asphyxiation.
That was not a very good day.
Fishing on Fish Quay
Angling for an opening,
Casting about
For a date.
Hoping to catch
the one that got away.
Lining the walls
Of the clubs,
and the halls,
A lure for the one
Who wont get away.
Patience and beer,
Long night in store,
Come on, little fishy
Fall for my line,
And you wont get away.
The familiar sounds of sorrow
Seeps down windowpanes
Trickling teardrop kisses
Splash on the pavement below
You are not here with me,
As often as I can’t breathe,
As if you have taken my lungs as well as my heart,
deep down with you, far into the beneath.
With what could be,
A steel coffin wrapped around you all,
I wish your job was easy,
As I continuously wait for that phone call.
Together, we are apart and alone we fall,
You can’t talk and I can’t breathe,
With me wishing on dry land,
And you descended thousands of feet beneath.
Sensing me, it pauses.
Uncertain of what I will do.
But I am certain of my mercy.
With overturned pill cup and stiff card,
I trap it, carrying gently,
My little arachnid,
Out into the garden,
Releasing it to the wild.
Sensing me, it pauses.
Uncertain of what I will do.
But I am certain of my justice.
With canister of ‘Baygon’ (“Be gone!”),
I spray away, implacably.
This loathsome pest,
My chemical warfare,
Now reduced to writhing agony.
What is compassion, and justice, and mercy?
Is it what it does, or how it smells, or (shudder),
How it looks?
This is the way of the world.
© 2015 Silvester Phua
I’m here though you are not.
I feel so empty your all I got.
This horrendous void I feel is starting to tear me apart.
Not being with you gives me knife stabbing pain directly to the heart,
I hope she is ok, in good hands, the thoughts drive me insane.
I’m so alone and from the crippling thoughts I can’t abstain.
Dear God your not here and my life’s not the same.
You are my balance, my soul, you are the only channel thats on in my brain.
A very large part of me dies like a flower out of ground.
I miss you more than words can say when you’re not around.