24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
How is my generation supposed to survive and
Thrive in the country we’ve created here?
When every conversation is me versus you,
When all the things we have built are
Teetering on the edge of a cliff, we’re living
Our lives waiting for the other shoe to drop despite
Being told our lives were so easily mapped out, it
Should be easy if we weren’t lazy, right? Burn it all.
A windowpane etched in desire
From the vineyard the old oak is admired
In the space of urgency, the dew presents
Knitting into time as vines entrap the scene
Push back the witnesses as the pavement retracts
A hardline pull of the busted hard back
Tossed across dust ridden floors
A semblance a daunt kept at bay
The absence is best to ignore.
2022 prompt 5 / hour 5 “you’ll understand when you’re older”
Goddammit he had finangled his way here to the study at the centre of the castle
Only to find that the senior sorcerer’s favourite mirror only showed *clouds*?
This could not be real?
This could not be all there was?
All enchanted mirrors could show
Other lands
Other worlds
Other places
Other possibilities
Other times
Other alternatives
For what could, might, should be influenced by
The enchanters,
The magicians and
The sorcerers
But here
In the inner room
In the calm
In the quiet
There were *clouds*
There was a never ending, never failing clear sunny day
He breathed in and shook his head
This was a stupid challenge
What was he going to tell the other guys?
He was going to just have to make something up
Because seriously this made *zero* sense
All that skill
All that power
All that potential
And the senior sorcerer had a magic mirror of a sunny day with fat fluffy white clouds?
He shook his head again
Maybe his mum was right
Maybe he would just need to be older to understand some things
Then again…older people were always telling you that while either
-looking really grumpy; or
-looking really sad
He just hoped this one wasn’t sad
Merry – LordCricket 2022 poetry marathon
Mars in Leo
You come on
like a forest fire,
but I am half-asleep.
Ten years younger,
you still stoke the furnace
every day.
I am content to sleep in
and shuffle to the kitchen
for coffee.
What will
become of us?
We met in flames,
but will die
in earth, sooner
than either of us
imagined.
I could have a
seventy-year-old beau
with real estate,
instead of a slacker musician
who works
at Ace Hardware,
but oh,
the warmth.
We’ll go cold too soon.
Go ahead
and poke the embers.
Pretend
Sunflowers sit in a vase
starting to wilt just enough
to lose their vibrancy.
A people sit in basements
far from secure, not meant
to be a living place in what for
some of them will be their last days.
Knitting, clinking wine glasses
as if their lives aren’t shattered.
Pavement above an empty space
littered with remains of yesterday.
Nails scattered from the hinges of
what seemed like solid oak doors
now hanging crooked by a thread.
A solitary man in a proper blue suit
strolls along the deserted street
satchel in hand
looking like he has not a care
in the world.
Because the world he knew
is nothing now.
And the world he sees
is so foreign to him.
That what was him is lost
in a future so desolate and
dark that all he has left is
to pretend.
In 3022,
we shall not have floating cars
the physics of such a thing
preposterous!
No hoverboards or floating trains
only movies can still conjure
because necessity trumps avarice
when basic staples cost more.
No teleportation or flue powder
same ol’ car, plane, train or buses
only virtually still you can
meet friends in other countries.
Time machines and portals all
just junk under future’s pall
casting shadows like monsters
maybe the aliens we conjured?
But cryogenics, rejuvenation, i do hope
become a future thing
because I’d like to jump some rope
a 154-year-old child, full swing.
– Sandra Johnson, June 25, 2022
One Day
When you grow up
queer and closeted
One day often feels like
a never coming promise,
a book without a last page,
a destination you’ll never reach,
a door handle on fire,
a window covered in barbwire.
In a 90 degree sun speeches day
1000 in subway degrees
Sweat beads
On your back
You ponder.
Do backs sweat?
Clearly
Makeup melts to a tan drip,
Now the perfect slip for a pottery piece.
You can fire that sucker right in the subway.
Homecoming
An oak a century older than my home
peered sternly over the rooftop at me
as my steps meandered up the front pavement,
past the last sunflower not stolen by squirrels
in my dooryard garden.
I stepped through the front door
and hung my writing satchel
on a convenient nail,
inordinately pleased to be enfolded
in my space once more.
With my son’s mulberry wine in a wineglass
and cheddar cheese on a plate at my elbow,
I settled down with a new hardback
and the evening’s knitting at my feet,
content at the end of another day.*
*Use the words oak, pavement, sunflower, satchel, nail, space, wineglass, cheddar cheese, hardback, knitting.
5 Wallpaper
I want to live in the wallpaper at the funeral home.
Can you see it? Few colors, white, grays, and greens.
showing distant hills. A simple artist’s rendering.
A red house sits behind a brief hill suggesting an old
school. The split rail fence, still true and unworn,
now settled near lanky birch swaying spring leaves.
In the beyond, white houses, perhaps a town. One needs
good vision to see who lives there and wonder why. It is
the red house where I live.
No longer a school holding decades of memories with the
rusted iron swing for children years grown and gone. I will swing
there soon and consider the gentle mountain far away.