24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I never got into it that much
truth be told.
It’s all subjective anyway.
Some aren’t even trying,
just splash a bucket of mixed-up paints
onto a canvas & call it a day.
But the ones with actual aptitude
keep it alive; their passion for their craft is
what makes it all worthwhile & they are the ones
who will continue provoking thoughts long after
the rest of us have come & gone.
Maybe that’s all it can do but
then again
maybe that’s all it needs to do.
cw: none
The problem is, of course:
the canary is a metaphor.
It is not a real thing, it is illusion,
and it rankles at the fact that
it is not real.
It is a tool, a device,
a thing to be used –
even when it is voiceless, its feathers ripped out,
when it bleeds ink instead of blood
and feasts only on misused paper,
it is still a tool.
(NOTE: I did not like the prompt given, so I wrote something different. It still needs a lot of work.)
Rejection
I
All life is a rejection of what went before.
We must grow and change.
To stand still in one place is to die before death.
In every choice lies a path of rejection.
II
Beauty is uncovered, a bud wrapped tenderly in a leaf,
it opens and presents its fragrance and color,
then withers and dries and falls to the ground.
The flower rejects the bud, the seed rejects the flower.
III
Rejection is a flavor of living.
One we must taste and put aside, or swallow whole.
To do or be done to. No one wants to stand alone.
Rejection makes way for the new.
IV
We must endure what we cannot reject.
Broken hearts, growing old, failures and fears.
Dreams and wishes propel us.
Sometimes good parents or education lift us.
V
Life flows from rejection to rejection,
and hope to hope. We want to know, we want to
be loved. Need for acceptance is learned from birth.
Seeking a soul mate motivates our actions.
VI
We wallow in youth and squander our gifts
on things we didn’t set out to do.
Our tank empties. We can no longer keep pace.
There is a point where we start to reject life.
VII
The corner is turned, not with flash and squealing wheels,
as imagined, but in the quiet, profound way the deaf must hear.
One day an honest face stares at us from the mirror
and without words says what we always dreaded.
VIII
The child rejects the infant, the man rejects the boy.
The old man laughs at what the young man doesn’t know
and the spirit laughs at the old man frozen in the mirror.
The future is still veiled.
IX
Rejection builds character, the wise used to say.
It creates the stones in the path of life we walk.
It frames the bottom and the top points of life.
It reveals the sum of who we become.
X
In every choice lies a path of rejection.
The flower rejects the bud, the seed rejects the flower.
Rejection makes way for the new.
We must endure what we cannot reject.
There is a point where we even start to reject life.
The corner is turned in a quiet, profound way,
but the future remains veiled.
The point where we start to reject life
reveals the sum of who we have become.
THIS STILL NEEDS LOTS OF WORK!!
The edge of the earth lives in all of us.
As we age we dangle our feet into the universe
wiggling our toes into nothingness.
Curtains of darkness hold us
restrain us, teach us
to evolve deeper and deeper into the everything
that exists everywhere.
These animal bodies made of flesh and bone
can’t see beyond the edge of the earth
but in death we soar through the curtains
bursting into the reality that lies
just outside our reach in this world…
where death dies and life begins.
Hour 2
My cherished memory is a picture
of my grandma sitting at our dining room table
with the wallpaper flowers behind her.
I remember feeling excitement
when she and my uncle came down
from “up north” in mid Michigan.
I remember getting
Little Ceasar’s Pizza Pizza
and loving it.
I remember my mom getting frenzied
before their visit and getting mad
when I asked her about it and
I didn’t understand.
I remember feeling connected
where extended family meant a world
outside of my isolated “Christian family”
where everyone else was “of the world”
and we were not.
I remember not wanting to be set apart
from the world
as I was part of it
and I felt tethered to the earth.
I didn’t want to be different.
I didn’t want to be “not of this world”.
I wanted to be a part of.
I wanted to belong.
My cherished memory is in a picture.
Duke is here.
Head hanging over the edge
of his bed
not mine, ever.
I have books piled around him.
He is fine with that.
Earlier he was on a pillow.
Lodged beneath a clean shirt.
Before that he watched his dude
type his own poems
in the other room.
Duke does not understand
crazy people up
in the middle of the night.
Writing things and making noise.
Now he lays, head turned
I can just make out his smile.
He pretends to be annoyed.
But he is a happy boy
sleeping between piles of books.
On his favorite bed.
Laying precariously
on the edge of his world.
Poem no 5
I have a series of paintings in red and black.
Some sixteen of them in all.
Before I did not like the colour black
And rarely used red.
Then I developed bad headaches
They did not leave me day nor night
And I had a real fright.
I started painting in red and black
They all showed people in fearful pain
With buildings burning going in flame
Such fearful sights that I did see
Days and nights in nightmares.
I painted a woman in a pit
With vultures feeding on it.
Then a phoenix arose from the fire
The woman put on a new attire
My headaches left me and I got fit
I am in love with red and black.
My canvasses are full of rivers of blood
With black oozing out like night
I find it such a restful sight.
Red and black has given me a new vision
A deep insight and understanding
To love the archetypal and old
As they are both pure gold.
—
Poem no 5
I have a series of paintings in red and black.
Some sixteen of them in all.
Before I did not like the colour black
And rarely used red.
Then I developed bad headaches
They did not leave me day nor night
And I had a real fright.
I started painting in red and black
They all showed people in fearful pain
With buildings burning going in flame
Such fearful sights that I did see
Days and nights in nightmares.
I painted a woman in a pit
With vultures feeding on it.
Then a phoenix arose from the fire
The woman put on a new attire
My headaches left me and I got fit
I am in love with red and black.
My canvasses are full of rivers of blood
With black oozing out like night
I find it such a restful sight.
Red and black has given me a new vision
A deep insight and understanding
To love the archetypal and old
As they are both pure gold.
Fixing my attitude
Though it’s a wicked life
Cleaning in sweet sad solitude
My messes that brought strife
Why watch the rain under the shade
When I can dance in it?
It soon slows to a drizzle
Pit-a-pat pit-a-pat
It’s the sound of a life starting to fade
I’ve read about gravity
The nine planets, aliens and galaxies
Incase I’m ever trapped in space
On the top shelfs are books so dusty
’bout the devil, hell and it’s calamities
He’ll hnows I won’t read a phrase
My gaze is ethereal these days
Books about everything holy
God, heaven and grace ‘s a yes please
For they’ll wipe my soul of every trace
On my way home
Only good days I’ll recall
I’ll forget the enemies’ zone
‘Nd all who made me fall
It’s my final moments
Hear my last words
Anoint me clergies
And to those I brought torments
To visions I have blurred
My sincere apologies
peek over the edge
all eternity dancing
cosmic dust bunnies
[Prompt Six: The earth is actually flat, you look over the edge and what do you see?]