Hour 4: One Hundred Years Beyond (Haibun)

To be the caretaker of this old farm is a precious thing. To be present for soft summer dusks, silent winter nights of glittering snow, the vibrant  light of maeshine, and a small country road silvered by the harvest moon – all these mark our time and place, when the heart, called to each new moment, gives voice and sings, ‘Do you see? Do you see?’ That I seek and find someone will come to know and care for this precious space as I have loved it and thrived within it is my future wish.

Step into this space.

Feel the heartbeat of the soil.

Know that you belong.

A dog-faced watch

There’s a faint ticking

– always –

when I’m around her.

… and her floppy, floral sunhat

and her formless, multi-colored dresses …

It’s soothing

knowing

that seconds are going by and we are living.

My Feet

My feet fit my body

They fit just the right way.

they are just the right size.

toes and heel

they make their stand

they don’t have to work

for anyone else, but me.

 

they are my feet and I’m glad they are mine.

 

My feet can carry me

where ever I want to go.

On a stroll in the park

down the hall in the mall

across the meadow green.

it doesn’t matter where I want to go.

My feet may complain

but at the end of the day

they are my feet

and I love them just the same.

 

Debra A. K. Thompson

Feeling Down

When you are feeling ill.

Waiting for the doctor’s pill to work

When there is nothing you can do

but sit in your pain.

No pill can fix it

No alcohol can drown it

This is nothing to take your heartache away

So you lay there feeling blue

because there is nothing else to do.

The baby blue pill doesn’t work anymore

So you keep having a belly ache

washing it away with water.

But that doesn’t always matter.

So stand up tall and fight it all

no matter what the pain is

you will stand it all.

 

The Future is History (Hour Nine, A Nontraditional Minute Poem)

 

The Future is History

 

Technology has trained us to

depend upon

our devices

to remember.

 

Ev’rything we once knew has long

been forgotten,

parts of our past

lost forever.

 

It’s time to take our future back,

to remember

exactly who

we think we are.

 

 

****A traditional minute poem is composed of 60 syllables split among three stanzas, with each stanza having four lines where the syllabic count is 8/4/4/4. Traditional minute poems are written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme of aabb, ccdd, eeff. I couldn’t put a true traditional minute poem together in a day, let alone an hour. So for the sake of saving time as well as what remains of my so-called sanity, I eliminated the constraints of rhyme and meter, devolving into the nontraditional minute format seen above.****

Cirque de la Lune Hour 12

Cirque de la Lune (Valkyrie)

Dyer-Bolique, your humour astounds me,
Words so bold and yet painfully dry,
Though I am not so deceived,
But I am intrigued,
And longing to make that clown cry.

We wait beneath the canopy of the trees,
Morose, hideously masked, noxious.

We wait for the inevitable, mismatched battle,
As the clown’s date rejects her potential mate.

Dyer-Bolique, diabolical in his deviant planning,
Meticulous in his over-abundance of supplies,
Has woken the sleeping dragon.

Bear trap and barbed wire, pulleys abound,
Mechanically minded he guides, ever attentive,
Always paying note to their troubled discourse’s climax.

Prim and proper leaves first, nose high in the air,
Disgusted by her blind date’s plain appearance,
She strides furiously into the trees.

Silent bait, for the clown will eventually follow,
Silent, but must be forever silenced,
The bear trap snaps…

Silence breaks into a raucous, short-lived scream,
Silence endures as my lover’s blade steals her head,
Send in the clowns, he comes, unable to accept reality.

Phone’s light guiding, he sees her, behind a stump,
Her head stands tall on a branch, summoning the fool,
Hurriedly he runs, trips, wire tightens about his ankle.

There the pendulum swings, hanging inverted,
Shocked as I approach, such a sight for sore eyes,
Bionic woman, he pleads for assistance, cries for help.

I push his form as it hangs by one leg, it swings again,
Implores and fights, I tilt my head nonchalantly,
Thrilled, impassive, detached, I flay with lash.

Cleaves clothes from flesh, and flesh from bone,
Another swift movement gnaws another welt,
As my Urumi rises for a third strike,
Dyer-Bolique grabs and clasps my wrist tight.

Into my hand the hilt is placed, machete ready, sharp,
Taking a step back, and drawing my strength,
And drive the blade down vertically.

One half of the clown slithers down,
Better a quick death than to drown.

Ode to a Golden, Hour Eleven

Ode to a Golden

I cannot have a bad day when Rosemary is around.
Dancin’ Rosie, Rosie the Nosy,
golden Rosie make me smile
until my cheeks ache,
sides hurt,
and happy tears stream down my face,
because love grows where my Rosemary goes.*

Oh, I love my Rosie child,**
tappy toes, happy Rose
as she wriggles and shimmies
from one pack member to the next,
grinning her doggy grin.
Rose gold, lovely,
furry, funny baby:
life is better with you in it.

*line from the song Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes, by Edison Lighthouse
**line from Cracklin’ Rosie, by Neil Diamond

 

Teddy

She had a habit, bought Angora Rabbits.

They’d live six years, then she’d gush the tears.

Animals not too swift, not on their feet.

Angoras are angry, angry, and not very sweet.

This Angora, Angora she named Theodora.

Hour 11: One Winter Here

I feel close but far, at home and one step out into a familiarity that refuses to recognize me,

Like the glittery flower shop across the road that doesn’t sell anything I can ever like even if i love it

Like the cars all big and small but mostly big that drive past me refusing to hit me knowing I want it?

Like the tables and chairs placed close enough that I know everyone is talking but far enough so that I’m forever wondering what

Like the tongues they speak all so familiar to me, familiar like my own, that refuses to flow as smoothly from me only slipping wildly

Like the smoke that two strangers blow from their cigarettes sitting 5 feet away in the same direction but somehow still my way 

Like the many homes I’ve lived in and left behind, I have had to befriend the city, the streets, the strangers, the vendors 

The walls of my house that refuse to hold my memories so everything is always either falling or fallen 

I can love it tonight, the Kashmiri chai, the cold air, the people who can’t trace their home back to the city because it’s only a little older than me 

I will love it another night with food that is only close to everywhere else, and love that is ink with water, similar but useless

I will stay a winter here and we will pretend this was love, and then you can let my memories fall and break. 

Hour Eleven – Hilarity

Hilarity

We looked at each other
Across the table
As the grown-ups talked of serious matters

He raised one eyebrow
I stuck out my tongue
Our cheeks grew red from holding it in

A sudden eruption!
We squealed and shrieked
And fell off our chairs in emancipation

The grown-ups eyed us
Underneath their stern faces
They must have longed to roll on the floor too