24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
“But I have promises to keep”
A phase that is so mundane
As soon as the words left my lips
I forgot your name
In nature, the truth can be sought
The illusion of grander days
If I turned back to you
I would lose my place
So instead, I’ll whisper sweet dreams
The ones you need to hear
The edge, you gave it to me
Like my promises…I’ll hold you dear.
You know when you
look for something
the thing you see
is almost certainly
the thing that it is not.
Not today. It swooped
and soared taking
a perch on a higher
branch of a tree at
the water’s edge.
Me and my loved one
looking, craning. We
had followed its flight
path. Now to find it.
“That’s a branch,”
my loved one, laughed.
“That’s not it either, Dad.”
(Oh to hear that name
called.) Then we saw it,
and upon seeing it we
could not look back.
We won’t look back.
If the eagle is freedom
and freedom is sweet,
sweet freedom is ours.
A little bird told me.
I know it when I see it.
With care
she holds
my hands in hers
as a smile slowly appears
accompanied by a pair crow’s feet.
She recites a prayer
to give me strength for a new day,
and to keep me safe.
With care
her arms wrap around me
as she whispers
“I love you.”
and
” Have a good day at work.”
Always with care
she’ll embrace me
and lets me go
with a soft smile
that warms my heart.
With care
I will remember these actions for a lifetime.
The moment when you’re able to
breathe freely
no longer having to grit and grind
your teeth
the tension so thick a knife can’t
cut through it.
those days are behind me.
now I can just breathe.
i walk into the classroom, the new boy indeed ,
wondering which of these hungry predators , will choose me on which to feed
my stomach turned and my hands become stiff
yes at this moment if i had a choice, i would have rather jumped off a cliff
this feeling of being stared at by dozens of eyes
i knew it would bad , but this , i did not realize
i was nervous and anxious and scared to make friends
what if all they cared about was money and brands ?
this was the days that i wish i should have stayed in bed
for this , is surely something that i simply dread
i had to be strong , but i wondered if that was something i could do
“ i can do it “ , just a few hours to get through.
i tug at mama’s sleeve
she’s stopped walking
and is staring
at the hotel entrance
i feel her body go stiff
there’s a couple
framed in the doorway
of the hotel
doing a couple thing
and mama can’t stop
looking
mama, what’s wrong
she doesn’t seem to hear
as the couple come apart
her eyes two pinpoints
deeply focused
and the man
suddenly tumbles
down the steps
she drags herself closer
i follow unwilling
it’s papa, i whisper
on seeing his face
But she clucks,
and pulls me away
walking briskly
i want to ask
if there is some mistake
but she’s smiling
humming
i follow
disturbed
confused
she’s still smiling
when we get home
The winter for
Glowest on
You coldest
Desperately needy of shelter
Grey covers wraps around you
Like a blanket or cloth thrown over
Thick warms the bones
Driest days of daisies
In the dawn of nights
Ebony darkness
A hot tea to sip on
Over hot apple pie
The perfect time for banana pudding
Whose woods these are I think I know. Robert Frost
Ganja dude,
right out of the 40’s black and whites. Only him in the color of truth.
Good stuff, jerk pork tastes the best,
(can’t call it the munchies there),
one finger’s worth, only a dime Jamaican.
Coconut palms, fronds, master wind conductors,
randomly flung, no farm house, no rows, perch gained along Nigril’s beach,
drifting to moonlit.
Wave rhythm, salt smell, backpack pillow, nothing,
nothing, nothing could beat this.
Then ganja dude, him in the color of truth,
switched frames.
Oaks everywhere, leafy bunches against the sky, darkest green,
no fronds, no skinny scaled perpetually layered stems,
no power to re-call the hypnotic palms.
Only today, maybe it was yesterday,
I can say, or said,
Whose woods these are I think I know…
…These woods are mine, mine,
these woods I brought with me,
these woods are mine
from home.
Not exactly a text prompt
Listen to the following song before writing a poem, you can also play it again and write with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5j1AwBaPtk
Image Prompt
Nowhere to stand
In this wetland
Its easier to climb than it is to walk
Bridges from fallen trees
Swatting at nettles and at the bees
Maybe it was a yellow jacket
Slashing through blackberry bramble
Was only part of the slow ramble
Rarely was there need for talk
Mud so deep and thick
Tried to gauge it with a stick
Once I opened my finger with a hatchet
While the property lines
Aren’t well defined
Whose woods these are I think I know.
Last line prompted from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”