24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Three days running
This thermostat has reported
Its maximum temperature.
And though the skylights admit
A pearly grey luminescence
Hinting at rainclouds,
I can feel the humid breath of summer
Rising outside the circle of the fan
In vaporous rings,
A giantess smoking.
I remember one midnight mass years ago.
A quaint old church some miles away.
Lantern in hand, our boots crunched in the wet grass.
Our laughter ringing clear in the empty country field.
And thereafter, as beech firewood burnt in the fireplace,
We toasted each other, and promised friendship forever.
Memories still waft through time’s mist.
I smile in my recollection.
The Piano At The Station By The Beach
I looked one day
And there it was.
A colourful, striped piano.
A Punch and Judy themed instrument,
Clear centre of the station.
I laughed, and looked again.
The piano was standing still,
A red and yellow beacon,
Announcing to the crowd; here I am,
A lantern shinning full.
Donated by the local council,
A sign proudly proclaimed.
For all the people to stop
And play
Or listen, on their way.
Towards the city centre,
Or straight down to the beach,
With music in their ears
And songs to guide their feet.
This piano at the station by the beach.
Liberties taken with changing beech to beach and laughter to laughed!
Beauty is sumptuous riders of uncertainty
Truth is no certainty, you under the lantern of reality
War is not irrefutable, givers of reason
You wonder why be reasonable, in oceans of treason?
Fights are necessary, dreamers of amnesty
Yet blessed with reason peaceful, do not receive cruelty
Peace is the courage, priests of satisfactions
Are as they as satisfying, holy transactions?
Fear is ever worshipped, guardians of the faithful
Dare not play with faith since it is job of the fearful
Words are for meanings clear, listeners of perception
Though it has been perceived their laughter has reception
Forgiveness is so vast, regiment of mercy
For each merciless soul demanding decree
where ferns now grow, in once cherished grounds
and jars and jars of muffled sounds
Truth is merely a decision, collectors of wisdom solemn
Between truth and notional apprehension common
And they say, beauty is sumptuous, riders of uncertainty
For happiness maybe peace in misery.
to think without language
would be to perceive
a reality
unwrapped of fabrications,
the true of things
the image
if we forget to talk
we forget every page we’ve read
in the “how-to” for liars
language creates monsters
who write themselves out of
their monster bodies
with things that look like poems
but are really just another way
of pretending
let us be mute and deaf
make us immobile
the truth would
no longer be
slant
__ar.
(“slant” is emily dickinson reference.)
These games,
They strain my brain.
Deciphering same
Will drive me insane.
Who shall I blame
For all this pain?
Or should I refrain
From naming a name?
It’s too much strain,
To play that game.
Hour 4 – 9:00 AM
I’ve been a menace in my dreams.
I’ve heard the child’s loudest screams.
We take a vote one more time.
And slide on through to the other side.
Unrecognized in this frame of mind.
Where we’ve swallowed our demons,
and held on to our pride.
I’m elated to tell you I’ve found the truth.
Buried beneath all this money there’s the root.
The cause, it’s unconditional, it’s bearings are mute.
Disguised a society covered in soot,
barebacked, & left with no loot.
– J.C. ©
Hi, Anxiety. I knew you’d show.
But maybe this time you just want to say,
“Bon voyage,” and wish me well.
For you know that this time,
You are not making the trip with me.
It’s no surprise to me
No one knows you as I do
Hearing, listening
You narrate what you do
Can almost see you cross your arms
Defiance in your eyes
Giving back the grief to those,
So much to their surprise
It has me…
Slipping away, I’m slipping away
I’m slipping away with you
Lost in the day, I’m slipping away
I’m slipping away with you
How strange it is
How different we are
And still we see
The same elusive star
Is this the bond we share
This literari of our minds?
The give and take, articulate
The stories rarefied
They have me…
Slipping away, I’m slipping away
I’m slipping away with you
Lost in the day, I’m slipping away
I’m slipping away with you
© 2014 D. Edward Croy
They were phantom books
the ones lost when screens
became the way we called
our information to mind
The books that fell through
that unknowable space between
space where names in drawers
once told us stories
Now, the click clack tap of keys
beneath our fingertips call
what we need into being
once it was the rasp of wood
A living thing, wood. Cut and sawn
it still breathes out a forest home
even years later, when small cards
on metal spindles fill its belly
Even when I dream of cubbies
holding the world’s secrets safe
cradled within once-living heartwood
tangible as real as ancient wisdoms
But the feathering of air whispers
it holds secrets too floating on thermals
like dreaming birds their wings outstretched
reaching backwards into time like phantoms