24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
AND THE TRUTH SIMPLY RESTS
honesty doesn’t have to cut
“tough love” is a bully with a smile
there is space for a kinder truth
the curiosity to ask your anger
which raw unseen vulnerable face
he thrashes so fiercely to protect
so really query yourself in the heat
whether the flames are worth the ashes
and what can be lost forever to the cruelty
of misplaced rage disguised as love
or you’ll never know the tender touch of honesty
We’ve gone around so many times now
& though we’ve gotten accustomed to it,
it’s hard not to think about what the fiery blaze
might portent for our future.
Would it bring about a shining tomorrow
filled with golden opportunities & endless pathways
to success? Or is it just another false prophecy designed
to provide us with an unreliable sense of security?
Looking through history, it didn’t work out well for those
who came before but they may have employed the wrong
strategies in their quest for the elusive tabula rasa.
In any case, there’s only one way to uncover the mystery behind
it all. So at some point, you either need to light up a match or accept
what existence has become and roll with the tide.
Done at last. I’ve struggled for the past few hours, but got it done. Will post the rest later today after some much needed rest. I slept in 45 minute intervals during the last couple of hours but now need real sleep. My cat has been with me all night. He would not sleep without me.
My mother still plants flowers
In her garden every year
There are tomatoes and cucumbers
Pumpkins and squash
Figs and pears bend the branches of her trees
Herbs live outside the kitchen window
And every year there are flowers
Roses climb the fence
Daffodils and columbines in the front yard
An angel trumpet calls to heaven
And a Confederate Rose is at the bottom of the drive
My mother’s garden is nothing without flowers
24 One More Time
How many turns around the marathon block
Are left for me and others and you
Challenged and tired but yet grateful
For the time and mind to show up again
A community of word lovers who share
Across invisible space and boundaries
Truly a miracle of enduring humanity
Lest we forget where our goodness resides
Bodies under siege
controlling men weilding pens
raping our freedoms
kidnapping our liberties
taking hostage our bodies.
Stardust, are we?
Sand to be sprinkled
as salve over weary eyes,
lay your body down
be held
in the tender
arms of sleep—
we are stardust
What a joy to know you!
What a joy to smell a flower!
What a joy to have mountains!
And sea as well! Sheer joy!
In that blurry kingdom of inspiration,
muses are trapped in coloured bottles
where grain alcohol transports them onto blank pages.
These muses dance on the slippery pages,
making efforts to stick, to be counted, and be read.
Sometimes, the birthed words fly into the eyes of the drinker
who then shakes off catapulted confusion by seeking the bottle once more.
Paper balls, cracked pen stems, and white spaces adorn.
In a sane minute or two, a sensible chord is struck
in that cloud of dust where clarity is ephemeral.
It might be great art to gamble with muses resident in a bottle;
perhaps not the thought that they live anywhere at all, muses!