24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Sometimes it hurts but was is it?
it. Such a simple yet complex word. it can be anything. It stands in the place of what you need it to. It is always there.
it. It can stand alone. It can stand in a group setting. It can do whatever you need it to.
it. It is. It is not.
Text Prompt
Every year we have a new form prompt, and this year, it’s the Gigan, which is an invented form. There’s a detailed blog post about it here, and it includes an example Gigan, which always helps.
Gigans must be 16 lines in length with seven stanzas (each stanza is separated by a line break). It goes couplet (two lines), tercet (three lines), couplet, couplet, couplet, tercet, couplet.
The first line is also the eleventh line, line six is repeated as line 12 as well.
Optionally the closing couplet should put a twist on the poem, but that isn’t a requirement.
Blue Moon Valley
~willjxn~
Let me walk in blue moon valley
where the blues sky people lived
Take me there to walk the wind
Lift me up to touch the stars.
Skip rocks on the winding streams.
Morning cross The Blood of Christ
Evenings guard me by a saint.
Spirits of the blue sky people
Sing their song in wind and rain.
Pray for me, blue sky people
Let me walk in Blue Moon Valley
Morning cross The Blood of Christ
Pray with song and dance for life
Moon alight upon my face.
Sing with me in Blue Moon Valley
Dance a prayer of grace.
Forgetting yourself is not divine
Understand that age is the only concern.
Her gaze, lust, seductive honey
It ignites your desires and glances
You get confused in your imagination.
When she accidentally encounters
The nerves in you are out of tune
You are a depressed patient
Do not realize that you are burning within yourself.
If she throws her eyes open, if her smile is intoxicating.
Forgetting yourself is not an illusion
When you are on the honeymoon of her thoughts
When she accidentally encounters
Forget yourself with a smile
Only when you walk into her youth garden
Forget it as an illusion when provoked.
That’s the way love goes, transferring my negative energies into a divine connection.
Sisters, you know the feeling on two occasions?
That’s day and night I’d go for broke feeling.
The weak in the knees type of love lasting long after the honeymoon.
Cause when your heart start beating triple time with thoughts of love on your mind.
I can’t figure out just what to do when the cause and cure is you.
When you no longer need to search for that real love.
After praying to God,
To send me someone real.
To caress me and to guide me towards
A love my heart can finally feel.
The eyes have it I can make my way Through the dark See where I'm going, where I have been I can retrace my steps Just for the sheer pleasure Mostly I move forward Feasting on the vistas and horizons Yes, the eyes have it For the colors of the day The shadows of the night Making my way through my world I'm grateful that my eyes have it Even though they are enhanced By framed lenses perched on my nose I still see with clarity all around I would miss hearing The sounds in my life Even the cacophony of chaos But I can see it So it's no contest When asked: Sight or sound? I choose sight because The eyes have it
I’m looking down at the
pretty yellow cabanas
all in a row
like students in the classroom
eyes forward facing the
sun drenched gleaming water
The cabanas look
more like umbrellas of a
single monotonous color
standing at attention
like good military soldiers.
I prefer the international umbrellas,
the multi colored ones
that I saw at the lavender festival
last week.
They were much more vivid
set against the constant blue of sky.
I’m looking up at the
pretty colored umbrellas
and lost where
mysteries abound
in the chaos
of multi anything
Hour 8 – Journey
I would walk to the end of the world with you
I don’t know where it starts or where it ends.
Any time of day or night, I’d be ready
even if we got stuck along the way
all we’d have to do is ask for help,
I reckon it would be a fun journey
plenty of ups and down along the way
Even the thought of it lifts my heart
journals filled with our adventures
Lead the way, I’ve got your back
I would walk to the end of the world with you
I reckon it would be a fun journey
as many places as possible to cover
I can visualise your bright smile even now
However, should my journey end before yours
leave me there, don’t forget me!
A man gazes at his son
Remembering
The words his father said to him:
‘You’re a chip off the old block.’
His son looks up, sensing him there
‘Pa?’
Oh, it’s nothing, I was just thinking,
I used to sit like that too.
Thoughts turn to his father, again,
Bloodied
He limped up the porch stairs to hear –
‘You’re a fighter, just like me.’
Everybody tells him, that boy is your twin
Yes,
He is my golden boy, of course I’m proud
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
My father said much the same thing,
But
Then I grew, and changed, and left
And my father’s pride left too.
And so, I wonder, as I look at you
Will
I love you, when you are grown,
And no longer the image of me?
Mancala stones
Shining and pretty
Lovely little bits n bobs
Jade in color
I want to put them in my mouth
Swirl the rocks around my teeth
Like candy, though they could
Actually break my jaw with ease
Each little rock a seed
A row of plants encased
In metaphor from ages past
And while we play with stones
Not beans
The metaphor still lingers
In a way I fulfill their goal
As on my teeth they clack
Food for the winter, food
For the soul
Mancala stones on teeth
Wishful Thinking
Like Wordsworth and the Lake Poets
I wish to rusticate; leave the bustle
and daily grind behind; the tiresome
car alarms, the screaming children, the
mournful howls of the dog two doors down.
I wish to sit in a bower, framed with gardenias
and listen to fox sparrows call to one another
from the hidden branches of blackberry bushes—
watch while bohemian waxwings get tipsy
as summer wanes under September skies.
Like Wordsworth and the Lake Poets
I wish to sit in a bower, framed with gardenias
and lose myself in the quiet moments thinking
of how fortunate it is to have this treasured space.
Then the phone rings and the clock ticks toward
the supper hour and children need to be fed.