24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The clay of us
Clay of us are the ground we walk on
Soil and rocks are our weary bones
Trees are our long our gaplegs and arms
Stars are our eyes the moon is our face at night
Teeth, our nose and ears our feeding machine
Tears, we cry are our rivers of water fallen on down below to see
BBQ
On the way home from the picnic
we both mentioned how long it had been!
Back yard BBQ.
New acquaintances.
Friendly questions: Where do you live?
How do you know (the hosts)?
What may have seemed normal, now
is still feeling strange.
Our Covid life has been so
isolated. Now . . . we slowly
remember the sweet pleasure
of social interactions.
I packed our cooler with veggie burgers
and fixings.
Tray grilled fish she brought home from Alaska,
and some kind of meat.
Chris brought a potato salad and vegan
carrot muffins.
Joanne and Phil made a big green salad, and
someone brought strawberries picked
that morning.
Remember potlucks? Our house full of
friends, everyone eyeing the table full of
delicious food.
Remember sharing food?
Meeting at restaurants, then
going to a movie?
Thus far, we’re sticking with the outdoor
events. Luckily – Summer has finally
arrived.
When troubled times continue
tearing us apart in our country –
banding together with old friends
seems the best antidote!
In a century the plants will cover our memories. The fences we partitioned, the walls we we set to divide the land, all buried beneath the intertwining mass of green and black ivy.
Our bodies long dead, voices lost, all that held meaning dissapeared. Dissolved to dust and wind. And our songs have all stopped, their notes imprinted in our genetic code, dust and wind.
Trees expanding boundless into the sky, with boughs that stoop so low they almost touch the earth. Wild grasses consuming all obstructions in their path, reaching upwards through the shadows of larger plant life.
In the middle of the field, with its paint peeling in the sunlight, stripped to the white wood base beneath corroding lacquer and paint, a piano disintegrates continuously, and on its base there are one hundred keys, chipped, cracked, worn to the plastic center.
The body still stands, holding strings too rusted to sing. In one hundred more years, there will be nothing to find here evident of the music that was once composed.
VIII.
Such a marvel I think
as I observe these tiny
feathered beings flit and hum.
Hummingbirds fly hundreds of miles
in a day and weigh
less than a nickel – I have read.
But I know that what it is like
to hold a Hummingbird,
– is incomprehensible, unless you have.
A feather-soft weightless heartbeat
– in your hand.
She wanted to touch the chubby legs of her sister’s baby, but by the time her fingertips touched the child, he had turned to hot blacktop.
The toe beans of her best friend’s corgi puppy? Turned to a handful of pebbles you’d find on the rocky beaches of Croatia.
Her first love, a marble statue now, that several boyfriends later made her get rid of because he was insecure about his latissimus dorsi muscles. She sold it to a gay architect.
She had never used her power for bad, unlike popular theory.
All accidents.
She wasn’t the vengeful type.
Finally, she took out her eyes with a ice cream scooper and as she rolled them around in her hands to take a look at herself, she found the smooth, caramel skin, the dark hair, the red lips were a gray, rough concrete.
PORTRAIT OF A GREMLIN CHILD GROWN UP
~for Peyton, and the mullberries
the adult in me is a color vampire
draining the rich greenness out of the woods
what I touch I consume
what I consume is left listless
straining into something like classy
the way a gold sharpie can lend an air of wealth
without the breath to taste any aura of illusion
this wasn’t always the way
once there was wildness
berry-stained exuberance & gremlin delight
the way memes, like poetry, capture a heart
without daring to think next of how to tame it
the adult in me is hungry & ugly & bruised
& more than anything ashamed of all this being
so do I wish myself back into color?
are you wishing with me, climbing up into the brambles?
do I turn pages hoping for another splash,
berries again this time instead of wine?
choosing grass stains over sex sweat or maybe
only so simple as choosing not to choose
my sorrow above my joy
our sorrows and our joys share us all in time
scratched arms and full bellies go together
choosing to love like I don’t know my own hurts
reaching to see the colors I can give instead of take
A title of his poem,
suggested title for his book
relatable more than ever.
I remembered when I first heard
the news.
All regrets of the words
I meant to say to you, but hadn’t.
The shy poet writing in her notebook
was too shy to tell the popular wrestler
how she felt in high school.
I speak them now to a Mass card
attached to a wall with your picture.
Still I can’t wrap my heart in acceptance
even though my mind knows you’re gone.
Each moment in every day I shed silent tears
invisible
know you hear them.
I don’t think it’s possible to forget a face
But you could be surprised by one
A long passed relative staring back at you
As you mindlessly flip through your digital albums
Expecting memories of trips past or saved recipes but
Seeing instead your ancestors looking on
Remembering how you taught them things
Like what the Internet was
And how you pretended to love meat when they cooked you
Cheeseburgers
How she painted and sculpted every day
But only portraits of long dead authoresses
Or cats with human faces
While he peddled rigged arcade games in giant warehouses
And gave you porcelain dolls and monkeys that played piano on strings
All of this comes back
With a swipe on a screen
As you looked for what to make for dinner
I walked on roads of asphalt towards the big great dam, the pool reflecting the clouds in the child’s eyes. Its water the colour of the sky, it reminded me of the lakes in Slovenia that filtered themselves through layers of rock. Remember how you told me I was going to a petting zoo the day you would jump out of the sky? How it was a surprise, that I got to fly with you? I remember the car almost falling into pieces on the way up, kicking my feet in the air, how it almost failed. I do not remember my mother’s fear, only know about what she told me. How all the muscles in her body contracted. My mother is not a religious woman so she did not pray, but I want to believe she looked for all the dandelions in the field, rubbed her eyes so fiercely in search of an eyelash they turned a sleepy red only so she could wish for my safe landing right there on the big white x. All her kisses were with me, a mother’s child, hanging in the air living the best life. The cocoon a comfortable cushion among the well-travelled birds. My father was on the top of the mountain, ready to jump after me in case the parachute did not hold. After I landed, I hugged my mom. When my dad hit the ground, I hugged him. I will always remember the fireworks after. Feeling home. Feeling loved.
Parading up the Canyon of Heroes (Poetry Marathon 2022 – Hour 7)
In Manhattan up the Canyon of Heroes
Are parades to honor those
Who have done something amazing
Usually NY sports teams that have won
The championship for that sport.
They parade up the Canyon of Heroes
In flatbed trucks and cars
And people line up to cheer them on.
We throw from the window bits of pape
(What at one time was shredded paper
Known as ticker tape
And is now paper shredded in a paper shredder)
From the high rise office buildings that still have windows
That line Broadway in lower Manhattan
And they turn on Chambers Street
Along City Hall Park
The Woman’s Soccer team, the Yankees, the Giants
When they won, they paraded.
And from time to time real heroes
Returning veterans
Parade up the Canyon of Heros
911 First Responders
Covid Pandemic workers
Also got to parade.
I would take a camera to work as the building
I worked in
Was on the Corner of Broadway a block North of Chambers
And I could take a ton of pictures
And I would share them on Facebook.
I never stood along the street to cheer
And I never threw anything out the window.
Littering even for a good cause was not my thing.
In some of the pictures the shredded paper was so thick
It looked like colored snow.
We should have a ticker tape parade
In honor of the passing of ticker tape.