24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Looking Into the Void
The edge is a tempting place
For me to go to scream,
Looking into the Void
I can scream about all the things
That I should somehow avoid.
The edge calls me forth,
The need to speak unto the void.
A eternity at my feet
With the wind pulling me
Towards the edge.
Over the edge, I’m falling—
No, just dizzying fear, acrophobia again.
Peering into the abyss, I see
Broken promises, no stars, planets,
Not even dwarf ones, no asteroids, moons,
not even super ones, no comets, meteoroids,
saints, astronauts, photons, multiverses,
—no heaven,
Quasars, Musk-bits, satellites, Major Tom,
Galaxies, black holes, nor space burials.
The earth’s angle rounded by curved space,
Einstein’s claim, overlooks a sun-warping place,
And orbits squared by ten, to the nth degree,
on the edge of knowledge.
But all I see is darkness, no matter, dusty, unlit,
Bent time, invisible quarks and gluons, one
Plane, indivisible, neither truthful nor just,
under Lunacy, without liberty
–Sandwiched to Sol, Ra, Surya
A morsel of the great nothingness.
Everything is so loud, deafening
Making it impossible to hear in a sea of a raging existence.
Everything is so heavy, the weight of the world
Overpowering an Atlas of a child whose
Own self-worth stems from proving she is capable
Of reaching for her dreams in pure perfection.
Everything is so dark, frightening and impossible,
But the life of a shell goes on
As hope dies last in the blinding light.
Only once have I spoken with someone
who truly seemed to believe the world is
flat
With great sincerity he spoke of pie-crust
geology keeping oceans in – like unbaked
quiche
When asked what he saw looking over
the edge – ‘clouds. no idea where the rain
falls.’
Sensing our dubious looks he suggested
going to see for ourselves, but Expedia was
booked
Apparently you can’t get there from here
let alone theological implications – where is
hell?
While I put little stock in pie theory, I can
say a good cherry with sugared crust is
heavenly.
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2023
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Time is a shadow
Time is a shadow.
It has no beginning and no end, but it is brief.
I can smell its beginning in the fragrance of lilacs. I hear it aging as the grass is mown. I feel time’s exhaustion in camp fires. It’s biting cold stings my cheeks. And I taste the tears of loss when time is up.
Time has no hands but I feel its pressure when it touches my heart with its fiery fingers.
When Grandpa Lundy climbed the East Lake Fire Tower—
A tall periscope of protection rising above the loblolly pines,
He measured time in the acres lost to forest fires.
No, that’s not right. He measured time by Sundays, his day of rest.
He would gather his family together on that day, and for a while, time would stand still.
Urgencies released their grasp.
He had time to play his banjo and sometimes have a hoot-n-nanny.
He believed moon shine was the devil’s doin’ and pert near believed it was what the serpent used to entice Eve to eat the fruit.
From his perch, he could only see tree tops, not the ground. Forests so dense, shadows and night walked hand in hand.
With his binoculars, Papa Lundy could see to the ends of the state, maybe the ends of the country.
When he was back on the ground, Papa said, “Now, Cindy, don’t you go playing near the garden. That’s our winter food. Youngin’s don’t see tomorrow, but I do. We will need them pole beans come winter. Go play by the back porch.”
Papa would shake his finger at me, and I would head to the back porch.
“This winter, we are going to have plenty of beans and collards. Can never have too many.”
From the back porch, I would look up at the fire tower and see the sky shaking its finger at me and whispering, “Tempus Fugit.”
And the shadows would grow longer and longer.
Cindy Herndon
There be dragons
beneath us
cavorting with angels.
What seem to be clouds
at our feet
is dragon breath
and feathers floated from
angel wings — all
evidence of a heaven
below, not above us
as we were told.
Shall we traverse to
the other side of the world
and find hell
in its rightful place
below?
Perhaps we’ll see smoke
looking like clouds
at our feet
raised from the fires
stoked by furies and fear
and pouring rain
from the cries of the damned.
Let’s stay on this side
of our world where
there be dragons
and angels.
Image Prompt
GOING ON AN ADVENTURE
Staring down the barrel
Quietly
Silently
Holding my breath
AIM
SHOOT
BUMBLE BEE FLYS AT ME
AHHHHH
RUN AWAY
It is impossible to imagine a color you have not seen
As everything is a recreation of everything else in the world.
Every book is a remix of a dictionary
The same 26 letters colliding on a page and
Clinging to the universal desire to just be happy.
Every song plays the same twelve notes,
chords composing fantasies about eternal love
and the reality of separation.
Every thought has been sung by others in some capacity,
Limiting our ability to write our reality
without accidentally becoming someone else.
the once great captain surveyed
the remains of her crew.
ruffians, all of them, but loyal.
evening sunlight cast odd shadows
as they worked to maintain the Galya’s course
to the end of the world
six months of frustration,
the death of four crew members,
and the treason of one. the Galya rocked
to and fro, across the endless sea
as the evening sun faded, the captain stilled.
a great flash of moonlight, blanketed the vessel,
blinded all but the captain.
her crew stood dazed, but she ran towards the bow.
moonlight marked the edge, and it called to her,
beckoning her forward.
the sea fell way to the edge – to nothingness
and still it called. the captain looked back
to her crew and her ship, voiced an “I’m sorry,”
and jumped, but did not fall.
instead she floated above the ship and the sea,
and became one with the stars
The quest is long. Years that stretch
Into decades, bones that feel every mile.
You ride metal, and flesh, the sea and sky.
At the end your body no longer cares
To see what is at the edge of the world.
Your heart drinks in the answer when you
Peer over the side: not turtles all the way down,
No giant’s shoulders, no mountain top.
It is the lovers, the dreamers,
The romantics, the hopeful, and all
The fools who carry it on their heads
Precariously, not careful but dogged.
You leap in to help.