Wonder to be a honey bee
The honey bees buzz,
Like a lemonade fizz.
They take honey from flowers,
They are Honey’s lover.
They are very hurry,
To take honey.
If it is time to home,
They return back to their comb.
hour 18 prompt-just be still, and listen
my brother, bless him,
was the sort of child
who had the energy
of a ferret wild
he never met a tree
his limbs did not christen
his weaponized eyes
with tears would glisten
my mother’s imploring refrain
“just be still, and listen”
The Joy that Life has Brought
POEM 24
I have been a rolling stone for years now, traveling from state to state.
Six months here, perhaps a year or two there.
Uprooted, unsuited left out of that steady flow of home.
If I didn’t have or make a desk wherever I was I would surely have died years ago.
I need that chair at that desk however makeshift, and that has brought me home.
My stories piled high on one corner and a window to see a Cardinal or a red bird swoop across the yard singing and calling.
My heart can rest when I sit and write, conversing with characters, researching, just looking up words.
I can sit in front of the screen typing, setting down words and phrases like puzzle pieces, for hours on end.
when my neck grows stiff and my legs feel bulbous, I walk about for a while cleaning my friends’ pool or painting a clients house.
Then the iron grows hot again and I must strike.
One day I’ll settle in my own home at my own desk, but until I receive such a blessing, I will make a desk wherever I am.
I will confront my protagonists and watch them dance onto the page and take a bow.
Hour 16 – My Dad Called
On a Sunday afternoon, my dad called.
This was unusual, since, well,
We don’t call each other. So
I knew that meant that
Something was very wrong.
I hadn’t even answered yet,
Heart in my throat, racing,
But I knew it was my mother.
Otherwise, it would be her
Name on the caller ID.
“She’s having chest pains,
She can’t breathe. Just
Come to the hospital.”
I wish I still had no idea
What a pulmonary embolism was.
I sat at her bedside all night, the
Doctors said they hope she’ll
Wake up by morning. I don’t
Want to think about what I’ll
Do if she doesn’t.
The beeping of the machines
Has never quite gotten out of
My head, even five years later,
Even with her completely fine.
To stand on the precipice like
That with the one person who’s been
There since day one is a different
Kind of terror. And two years later,
When my aunt died in that same
ICU room, I couldn’t help but
Thank God for the first time in
My life, and believe in miracles.
2 am Walk
I hear my boots
Scraping on the pavement
On an empty street
At 2 am
I see ribbons of light
Swirling around me
Ghosts of the cars
That went by
I feel prickles
On the back of my neck
Caused by the person
Following me
I breathe humidity
Thick in the air
I wonder if my companion
Can feel it too
I stop
My follower stands next to me
“Why are you here?”
“I was worried.”
How the Ferweard Fair Straits Formed Between The Southlands
I might be insane, but the place I feel most at home is a world I made up over a couple decades of creative writing. Hmmm…
(for hour 24—prompt: the place I feel most at home; here’s a poem from the history of Onweald)
How the Ferweard Fair Straits Formed Between The Southlands
In the days when Ella joined Mahriket
And the gods could bask in her grace
The generous Goddess Katherine Fair
Voluntar’ly stepped down from her exalted place
Katherine sighed upon The Southlands’ war
Within her heart shook to breaking
Over decades of sons lost of mothers
And daughters who morn widowed queen
Katherine sought no champion to join her
With tones of love filled inflection
She bowed to ask Old Rothahn’s favor
Taking twelve centuries of perfection
To the city beyond the Freotho
Where she wove spells of such power
No man could withstand or behold
The princesses, goddess, felled palace tower
Fueled by her heart, fueled by her love
Her final act put all geasa in motion
The followers of Lorena and those of Lenora
The waves parsed in two, separated by ocean
Home #thepoetrymarathon #prompttwentyfour
The house is in need of paint, father,
plaster peels off the walls.
The verandah stares vacant and blank,
no life within its halls.
It’s just a house, I said to myself
as I passed down that road,
just a house, abandoned and dark
that once housed our souls.
How can it then be, just a house?
I thought again as I gazed at it.
This is the house where you died
and the home where we lived.
So do not laugh if you find me there
gazing back in time and space
there are houses and then there are houses
not all of them broker peace.
Taunt me not if I see my childhood
etched on every parapet and sill
I may grow in years but am none the wiser
and this little girl needs you still.
Hello Darkness
Light bends defiant
speeds in flashes wraps around
finding its own path
standing tall ready
impact never comes this time
another trick of light
darkness walks steady
absent of chosen pathways
mysteries abound
Fulfillment
Fulfillment
Rice boils on night stove
life bubbles on emotions
both cravings fulfilled
Hour 24
@varenyas
(Hour 21 of 24) “maturity”
you yearn for the sun, growing to escape
my stifling selfishness, cannot hold you back.
who am I, to stand in your way,
the time has come, to cast me off
without a second thought, no glances back.
reach for the stars, aim for the heavens.
I will hold you back no more.
© 2021 S Phua