24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Your blue-tinted needles poked my curiosity.
How did you sprout in this terrain?
In this drought?
In this time of fires running wild?
How did you stretch so high and wide in this environment?
In this era of distrust?
In this time of turmoil?
Your blue-tint inspires me to sprout, run wild, trusting myself to plant hope.
The sky opes its mouth.
Clouds burp out.
I smell raspberries. I taste
soot. I hear
silence. I touch
your face. I see
persimmons ripening.
I taste melancholy. Bernie Sanders
flies over LA. If I stand on my toes
I can just barely touch his shoe.
My hand avoids
your face. Dogs surround the tree,
sniffing at its bark. The tractor
trailer sails through the miasma.
No way is he gonna be president.
Coffee is …..life
cream, not milk or sugar makes the cuppa
tastes like morning sunshine
smelling and sounding, like a wake-up call.
Tim Hortons, Second Cup
it tastes even better in the afternoon as a pick me up
or would tea be better?
Jitter juice, I can’t decide.
If a tree falls in the forest, can I also be a coffee snob?
” I have been thinking about you for a latte”.
Love and coffee, intertwined
black gold indeed.
Tim would espresso himself as a cappuccino, wouldn’t he?
What will it be today?
Sludge? Mud?
Magnifico….
Beans can jump, yo
brew is beautiful.
(Prompt response to Twenty Little Poetry Projects
Prompt explanation of Twenty Little Poetry Projects rules at: https://thepoetrymarathon.com/blog/the-poetry-marathon-prompts/prompt-for-hour-three-5)
Hope is the thing with feathers
She will not be able to speak, to see
The time will come
Merry will she not be
What cannot be said will tie her tongue
Unsaid, unspoken
Her soul sinking with the disappointment of it
The lights will dim
All may be lost
The only touch remaining will come from the fingertips you cling to the cliffs with
Yet the mines, the anvil will call again
She and you and I
Will sing
Well, perhaps sing is too kind a word for the sound that will be made
Yet the tune, the beat, will persist
The miners hope
The bird, kept breathing in its custom iron lung
Will bless, curse our hopes in yellowed morning light
So encouraged, I shall follow it
Shaping myself back into being
As the transcendental canary folds me
Into a new origami day
With an “ohayo” on its breath
She, I, we – may yet learn the petrichor of hope
Even as sight and light fail
The refrain is the awful truth of pain
Birds fly free – but me?
I am made of flocks of yellow origami
Bound together by only a breath of hope
I sit alone in silence
Wondering where
I went so wrong
It seems that everything I do
Creates an avalanche,
A storm
But here in solace
I find my peace
I thing of things
That I released
But one by one
They come to me
So we can finally agree
In life we choose
And we accept
That which comes
With choices made
It can’t be taken back
Once chosen
But moving forward
Our options open
We get to sit
In silent peace
And think of things
We have released
Because they’ll always
Creep back up
It doesn’t mean
They must remain
They go or stay if we agree
in silence is where
we find our peace
~Rebeli
Poetry…always part of my teaching.
observing my students, I recognize the poetry within each one
their potential is craving to be put on paper
they all have capabilities, they all have something to say
it’s up to me to encourage, help them find their voice
our project is to make a class poetry quilt
they get divided into six groups, each with four children
each group gets to design a quilt block using fabric,
then all blocks are sewn together.
complicated! complicated! complicated!
ever so slowly they each write and edit each other’s poem
they’re all masterpieces!
put the cloth through the printer
cut out the blocks
their work is done, now mine begins
I sew all the blocks together at home
Voila…prize winning project is done!
Darkness is the absence of light.
pitch black;
silence
null and void.
shadows that cannot exist,
but they do exist
only in the darkness
in the unexplored places of your mind.
Darkness is a blank mind.
unthinking
unfeeling
no emotion
no where to go
nothing to do,
but what do you do?
Do you seek light
when there is no light;
or,
do you look for light
in the mist of the darkness??
What is light?
Light is the absence of darkness.
bright,
shining,
brilliant,
illuminating and revealing.
light that unveils the truth
that darkness tried to hide.
The truth
that everything
you need still exists
even in the darkness.
Life is a prison made of brick walls that reach the sky.
Loads of responsibility like laundry and landscaping,
Along with chauffeuring the kids to tournaments every weekend.
Just wishing you could curl up on the couch and fall asleep.
Loads of responsibility like laundry and landscaping,
Chores that are never completed even when you finish early.
Just wishing you could curl up on the couch and fall asleep,
Knowing that your prison walls will never fall.
Chores that are never completed even when you finish early.
Along with chauffeuring the kids to tournaments every weekend,
Knowing that your prison walls will never fall.
Life is a prison made of brick walls that reach the sky.
Hour Two
Rays of sunshine
pierce through the
fabric of hope
like hot daggers
searing
cauterizing
the wounds of
winter’s blush
melting the ventricles
of a heart’s cold season
when the chamber doors
had closed
like an iron fist.
A heart that beats
with filagree
laced by fingers
that cradle it softly
heated by touch
and breath;
a fog of heat
in the early morning
hovering over
the hard ground
as it is loosed
from months of slumber.
Watered by the spring-
a fountain of youthful
optimism
for the promise
of life
in this new season.
Strong stemmed, they balance multitudes on their heads.
In their roots, the ley lines of all the world adhere.
Magenta, rouge, and rusted-iron petals, velvet to the touch,
Can add their glory and slightly bitter taste to brighten ice cream,
Yet from all this glory – no fragrance and no sound.
They breathe the sun, reminding me of Aunt Jinny
In her Salisbury garden who sang summer with them.
Long stemmed, short lived, they are fully “woke”.
It is told that if these annuals come back another year
Your fortunes will expand.
Yellow petals of its head, used in a tisane, will sooth an aching heart.
Ablaze, they exhale joy.