24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
The two cellos played
together, music foretold
their detours managed.
The two cellos spoke
with the soothe of melody
some variation
Husband and wife share,
their story tells of living —
not all unity.
Life, so like music,
ahhhhhh, sometimes, sweetly in sync,
other times on hold.
By Nancy Ann Smith, Poetry Marathon #3, June 25, 2022
What is life if you don’t have friends?
friends are people who share a common bond;
the bonds of life and common things
like the fall of leaves and the smell of grass.
shared ideas and a likeness unencumbered
by barriers of race, creed or color.
Friends lead to friendships
a kinship like no other.
The ability to laugh, to talk and to share
the commonalities that make us all
the same, but different in so many likable ways.
It’s hard to imagine life without a friend.
City of stars,
don’t let me down tonight.
I have wishes to make.
Pictures to take.
If I could set myself free,
I could breathe.
Later I will hang the pictures on my walls,
to remember I’m not alone.
City of stars,
your beauty makes me forget my pain.
“But I have promises to keep, miles to go before I sleep.” Robert Frost
Signing up I obliged to commitment to complete the task at hand.
I will write twenty-four pieces of poetry in twenty-four hours.
I will not quit when the challenge becomes challenging.
When my eyelids feel heavy
I will drink coffee, eat chocolate to stay awake.
Even when my vision blurs with tiredness,
it’ll not scramble my ambition
the finish line miles away,
but my metaphors stir inside
stretch and exercise within me.
They wait to race upon the paper,
pace upon my screen.
Promises kept like laws obeyed,
sleep is overrated.
The Arrangement
I’d like to have
an arrangement
with you.
Could we be two cellos
playing side by side?
I’d like to
play a duet with you,
side-by-side at the
piano. Fingers occasionally
touching. Our music, rising
and falling. In love.
May we tune our
instruments
to perfect harmony.
Accept the cacophony of
everyday strife-
and play through all the storms
life brings to our stage.
There’s a beautiful rhythm to our lives,
an easy ebb and flow
like a pair of mellow cellos
playing on our heartstrings
We sway and bend like willows,
stand firm and strong like oaks,
coo and neck like doves,
to the music we compose.
When apart, our rhythm broken,
we long for one another.
Our duet performance
more melodic than any solo.
A Trip to the Supermarket (Poetry Marathon 2022 Hour 3)
Painting within the lines
Finding the right ruler to measure
With colors found in nature
Coloring in by numbers
Painting becomes a number game
Superrealism superimposed on reaslism
My hand shakes with anticipation
And slips across the page
And all thought of accuracy evaporates
So you can see from the evidence
Of page after page found in the garbage
I cannot draw
I have a camera
Still life photos
Downloaded to our computers
We run them through
Programs to saturate them with colors
My favorite photo is a weeping willow
In a meadow near the desert
Where the extreme heat
Creates vivid waves
Upon a clear background
My favorite color is a hue of purple
Not found in nature
The extreme sun washes out
Any hope of shadow
I choose no shadow
In the box
I choose no wind
In the box
I choose no people
In the box
The meadow is barren
Life is still
Purple fills the box
I draw in some hills
And some clouds
The sky is a contrasting green
More green
Contrasts well with the purple tree leaves
And pinkish meadow
I do not draw within the lines
I do not choose colors found in nature
I am not very good with instructions generally
But yes I am on my way to buy groceries
In the same supermarket
Where housewives go with their shopping lists
And husbands go with their cell phones
To ask if that is what you mean
But I would rather take my camera
And take pictures of Campbell soup cans
And saturate the colors to purple and green
Until the photo becomes indistinguishable
From a lonely purple tree flowering purple in a meadow
Within a still life of pinkish weeds, under a green sky
Cello drums out his rhythm,
in time using his base note biblical
forms – sheet music.
cello answers in her high, treble clef voice
in two two time against Cello’s
four four rhythms.
The sound of their strings
accordantly unique
within their harmonious bonding.
Cello’s rhythm increases
reaching deeper and faster
cello’s staccato pure beneath his.
Intensity increases, volume louder
and louder and louder still!
Strings vibrate, tension builds.
Their climax reached,
they fade away
into silence.