24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Don’t talk foolishly
It makes a sense of humour
What a great fool!
Stop and stop
You can see
That crazy root.
Now what?
Let your words to stop
Making all fussy words.
So ridiculous-
It’s unexpected
How can you act foolishly
To achieve all sets.
Just stop all
And Don’t let down
Your mind and head.
Stop all words to utter
Those only cause a fuss
To provide abnormal hut.
Hour Eleven – Write a poem about laughter without ever using the words, laugh, laughter, or giggle.
The Stand-Up Act
Everyone was happy,
I could see.
Everyone, that is, except me.
I was on a roll, out to troll
the good folk of Glasgow.
With a poker face
and practiced lack of grace
I let insults race
at a furious pace.
Aimed at the centre of the second row.
Up on stage,
that bright white-light cage
Self-deprecating rage
from an unscripted, unseen page
spill out, as the chuckles grow.
Joke after joke
I continued to poke
fires stoked as I spoke.
Through irreverence, all barriers broke
and they wanted more, much more.
They lapped it all
and clapped at my gall
till my patter palled.
The applause in the hall
brought the house down, stood the audience up.
I’ll split your sides, I’ll rid your frown
I’ll tickle your ribs, turn you upside-down.
My one-night stand (up) in your town,
I don’t smile, I’m your modern-day clown.
Brewed in the inner most part of my being,
My smile escapes
It travels
It blooms
It spreads its tentacles across the four walls of the earth
It radiates
Like wild fire
Its contagious touch turns
everything and everyone
into a smiling movement
It is a smiling world
Tip toe
Around the abortion
And the premarital sex between white kids
And deviant reputations
Tip toe around
And don’t put your heel down.
She was a twinkle in Grandfather’s eye
my lovely, precious mother
Objectified. An icon. Not human.
But she was my mother!
She would be 96 this year
were it not for erections
and selections of commodities
like me.
She was my MOTHER!
My mother, my mother, my mother
the one who brought me
from the timeless layer
of infinity.
Let me ask, then…
Let me ask of you
who on high took her
took her, took her, took her
for having me.
Let me ask, then…
Do your children need
their mother, the gun bearer?
Do they want her?
Their mother, mother fucker?
Let me ask, again…
Do their babies need her children?
Grandchildren yours, who
above it all should be below?
Below, below, below.
Bored rubes!
You’ve nothing better to do
than maim and command.
Not a relevant thought
to rub between brain cells.
Ah, to steal and do nothing!
Put on a show to lie
about my mother.
Fuck you.
And fuck the hags you rode in on.
“Over the place where Long’s Peak and its slightly less imposing companions stand in lofty isolation and invite the summer tourist to their cool retreats, the waves of an open sea once rolled and its tide as ebbed and flowed, unhindered by rock or shoal.” (NPS.gov)
Meadows swim: yellow, periwinkle, and green
framing curlicues of snaking streams
washed down from the mineraled mountain
I touch an icy, bubbling flow and salts eroded from ancient glacial slabs
coat my finger connecting me to those upswept ocean floors
The sea is now the sky, tides of air directing the clouds like swells
reflections wafting through the horseshoe streams
bringing clouds back to earth
Mirrors interrupted rhythmically by waving grasses until
it all feels
like an ancient weaving
like time turned over
like I have always walked here
Snake enters the hole
Snake fits hole
Hole doesn’t fit Snake
Men enters earth
Men want earth to fit men
Men destroy earth to fit self.
10 Understand
Metal door creaks open on rusty mailbox
The fire red flame decals flaking off
Do no step in front of passing cars
Though the library waits steps away
I remain eager to grab that packaged
Book inside to read after dark
Only banned books this summer will
Teach me how to know and feel a world
Remote from my country graveled drive
Understand how it is for others beyond
This clapboard farmhouse in need of paint
I come with sincere and humble intentions
Spaghettios rule
a treat so cool, after school
makes me miss youth’s kiss.
– Sandra Johnson, June 25, 2022
We cover our mouths
gasping for air
snorffling through our fingers
Whatever it was
one of us said
that was so funny
doesn’t matter now
L contorted so hard she farted
A spewed the Sprite she has sipped out through her nose
I heaved so hard to breathe my vision went splotchy
I don’t remember how we composed ourselves
to finish our dinners
pay the check
each head our separate ways
carrying some gem to rediscover
for decades to come
[Prompt 11: Write a poem about laughter without ever using the words, laugh, laughter, or giggle.]