24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Here and there,
you may find them everywhere,
some on the walls,
while you are on call.
The one in the back,
a notebook in the stack,
sweet nothings,
tell no one,
deep secrets,
tell no one.
Those memories,
like a treasury,
Maybe like feathers,
sometimes we gather.
Those scribbles,
Here and there,
Happy times,
Scattered everywhere.
Each decade is a shock of revelation.
True, by looking back we know we grow.
We age, we laugh, we cry, we grieve,
and the racing river of time does not cease.
Wild hairs, fine lines that turned to wrinkles,
the sagging body, the weakening grip.
The old mirror is a silent and harsh critic,
no matter what spotlight illuminates our way.
In my mind, all life is still before me, but
The mirror bares the brutal truth.
“You are old, Father William” Alice said
in Wonderland. He did not seem to care,
But the young girl I was only yesterday
Is shocked to see all her white hair.
*For the people of Lahaina and Kula*
There’s an edge to these winds
These gusts of wrath
A sharp, deadly edge
Born in storm cells, creating hurricanes
Transmuting spark to flame to raging firestorm
These winds carry pain
Carry the ashes, the remnants of destroyed homes
Destroyed dreams
Destroyed lives
Destroyed culture
The wind blows, impassive, uncaring…
Like the parasitic vultures that feast upon the vulnerable
Like those who see tragedy as opportunity
Like disaster capitalism
These winds bring change
In form of grief stricken ohana
In form of a devastated community
In form of unstoppable flame
Winds of loss
Winds of greatest cost
Winds of pain
Hour 2
9/02/2023
“Little Things…”
There are moments …and then – there ARE moments – where life as we know it …pauses. Moments untaken for granted. Moments unlike any other instant of existence …that pause a soul.
“Little Things…”
A nothing special day…
busy, wandering,
feeling worn
feeling older
feeling the heaviness of BEING …me… now.
And the mind – wanders
an unforeseen path,
and thoughts just …become…
more – with each step
more with an unknown focus
MORE with a NEED to DO
something
NOW
…but what?!?
And the feet – unconsciously
follow the thoughts…
and then the mind awakens
as you pause
and the eyes …smile…
and the heart …laughs…
and you count your pennies
…just enough…
and the bouquet of bud roses
walk with you
just because …because…
it’ll brighten her day,
as it just did yours.
Chris
(C) Chris Twyford 9/2/2023
I wish to meet in a museum
One I have visited before
Where I already have a favorite room
Because there is a piece there that tugs at the heartstrings
And I haven’t figured out just why yet…
There will be a bench
Wooden slats that somehow fit the spine
As I lay back
I do this because I am comfortable
Because I can move my body in this world
Without external guidance
Can stretch a little even
Let my boots hang over
Hit floor
And my eyes are closed
So I don’t see her coming
Just feel a small warmth
A different tug and pull
In my right draping pinky
Bored?
She will start
And I’ll feel like a honey trap
Lids stay shut
Because here I am unbothered confident
But I smile still
Because here we are also not rude
Not at all
I say
And I start to wonder what she looks like
I still see it here
I explain
Behind my eyelids
The blues
The lilies
I am making sure I stared long enough
For the image to burn
This is how you rob museums
This is how we keep details
Until we don’t
And then there is the trust fall
No response
I am the girl in the museum
Unseeing
And speaking to the ceiling
Falling into embarrassment
The bench dissolving until
she sits
And I am here again
Held
But not before one lid has peeked
There is shoulder bones under taught black and gray knit
Blonde just kisses their valley
Thick and straight
I see the hand holding jacket on lap
Just the back and wrist of it
Veins like steel over scaffold
With soft curtains that show middle age like a class act earned
Close again because it feels safer
Safer because all I want is to keep looking
Then the shuffle
And she is lying here too
I feel her shoulder greet mine
Politely
I picked one
She says quieter now
Let’s test this theory
And then there is her breathing
My chest stays loose
My muscles unflexed
Like they’ve lied by this side a million times before
Been kept company by its warmth
She smells of wood and lilly
And I can feel myself commit the shallowest of drownings
As the back of our hands
somehow meet
And I wonder if either of us had any say in it
Here we leave the bench eventually
And go on instead to memorize each other
Here she is a masterpiece
And I need not shift to keep her
There is no burning to cling to memory a face that will allow itself shyly into photographs
Will look back at mine over city cafes and wooden porch chairs
Here I met her and she stayed
Even after I let both eyes open.
In the distance,
I see the silhouette
of the ladder going both up and down.
Taking me from Sadness and Sorrow to Joy and Opportunity…
Challenge and Change-Growth.
Up and Down-
The Choice-my own as I climb up or down
this ladder of Fate.
Destiny’s dance has nothing to decide
as I try not to slip and slide.
This Jacob’s Ladder ride
does not have the strength
as I am stronger inside.
The first wrung may seem distant at times
dissolved in the mist like
the promise of a lover’s first kiss.
But I leap forward in faith knowing that
my future rests on this first step.
A few days ago I turned seventy seven. As my family celebrated around me, I realized that in ten years I will be eighty-seven, almost ninety. My two youngest granddaughters will be fourteen, almost seventeen. When I was seventeen, I don't remember thinking "what will I be doing when I turn twenty-seven?" My life was ahead of me. Love, sex, six children, goats, chickens, gardens, deaths, arthritis, glaucoma, high blood pressure ... all in yet to come. In ten years I'll be eighty-seven, almost ninety. If I'm still alive and the world hasn't ended.
They told me I was wasting time
When I could just beg for change
While I sat at the computer
Writing poems for a page
That had yet to exist, you see
I’d not yet found the strength
To give my writing to the world
I’d not yet found my wings
But I knew that day would come
And I knew the time would go
And I knew my way with words
Would help me find a home
I’d been living on the streets
For two years by that time
And for every heartache I found a way
To make another rhyme
While they were out there changing nothing
About the way they lived their lives
I was sitting in a library
Writing words about the whys
Building something for my future
For the future of my son
Determined to escape all that
I let my ink just run
While they were laughing at me
And calling me a fool
I turned the pain to poetry
And made my pen a tool
Now look at me, a decade later
With two books that bear my name
And a following I’d not imagined
When they were calling me insane
I’ve made every dream I had come true
And some I’d dared not dream
In those days of darkest nights
When I had not one thing
That I could call my own, except
My notebook and a pen
A million heavy heartbreaks
And one or two good friends
While those that called me crazy
Are still in the same place
Or laying underneath the ground
Just a name without a trace
Of anything they used to be
Because they refused to change
While their crazy was addiction
And they called my crazy strange
They thought I was delusional
But it was something I could see
In some distant future
It was waiting there, for me
So let this be a lesson
Look at me standing tall
In the center of the kingdom
That I built from something small
Don’t let them tell you differently
If you have a dream for you
Give it everything you’ve got
And make that dream come true.
~Mandy Kocsis©2023~
Prompt: write something from the view of yourself 10 years ago.
Thinking about the future is hard for me,
I am not a planner, I just let it be
I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of woman
But here’s what I would like to be doing…
I will be 63, here are 6 dreams to share with you
hope all these desires and predictions can come true…
Joining a Bowling league is a must
and taking up baking and making a crust,
babysitting grandkids on my lap
and definitely taking a daily nap
Travelling far and wide to see the world with my love
and sitting on the couch reading, not getting a shove
So many plans, and yet so far away
It was nice to think and plan for such a day
Here’s to the future me,
Whoever that will be
Sausage McMuffin
I still haven’t finished my breakfast sandwich.
Now it’s cold.
Do you know a cold sausage McMuffin?
A ten year old memory.
Crusty, no longer soft.
Just dry and crumbly.
Congealed grease
Little blobs sitting there staring at me.
I don’t remember what I was doing ten years ago.
Maybe writing a poem.
No matter.
What matters
is today.
No, not today.
What matters is this moment.
A deep breath.
Soft fur.
A loving joke.
I take today,
this moment,
and toss rest away.
