Shiver
I miss the way
Your fingers feel on my skin
How they slid over my back
And down to my waist
Ghosting over my shoulder
And sliding down my thigh
People don’t get to touch me like this
Not often
And the memory of it, makes me shiver
Poem 24: A Tribute to Kaitlyn Sutey “The Cottage”
Never mine
but always the place
somewhere up north
a home, for my laughing face
The badminton net
and horseshoe pit
clearing the brush
and the Muskoka-chair to sit
The black flies and mosquitoes
never to leave
but we were never distraught
our tales to weave
The creaking dock
the weeds and snakes
remembering the eeks
and broken rakes
frying eggs
and munching hot dogs
taking snort naps
and chopping logs
Those starry nights
answered my dreams
the call of the loons
and rain in reams
Canoes and runabouts
the dingy that leaks
and replacing the window
for the raccoon peeks
More chapters to go
as I pen ideas on deck
past joys and sweat
on this memory trek
The Finish
I can see the finish line
the ribbon yet to cross
I enjoy the marathon
and the sleep that is to come
I am so humbled
to finish this test
And to do it
with you the very best
I’m not alone in this
trialed contest
I have the poets heart
all those writing next to me
Let us cross the finish
with our last of this tired poetry
(Hour 19 of 24) “one day by the sea”
Once at the beach,
I walked on and on.
Following the shore’s meandering contours,
To see where its siren curves led.
I was curious to reach the end.
I never did.
© 2021 S Phua
Hour 20
It’s late in the evening and I am walking
and my profound thoughts walk with me.
The countryside road is so peaceful now that
the gossiping neighbours invaded their homes.
The starry sky inspires me a great deal
and I have the impression that
he’s about to tell me a good story.
I open wide my arms, waiting for his bliss!
After that I’ll give him a good night kiss. ❤️
Alade Street
Alade Street
I remember Alade Street
It was a wide one, untarred,
hardly traveled by other than us –
the dwellers of the street
It stretched from the residence of the mayor –
The Baale we called him
All the way to Mrs. Kojo’s residence
There were side roads dispersing from
This quiet, untrunk-like trunk road
Of the tributary roads, two were tarred
The rest were like the trunk –good sand sticking to the ground
They were travelled by the bicycle riders –Raleigh was a synonym for bicycles then
I liked Alade Street, there was no up-down motion of even the bicycles
They just crossed Alade street to go on to Morocco Road and others
So, we were safely out, and flew our kites
We won competitions as one kite reached higher than the rest
And we bade the champion tell us how he got a higher height
Come Harmattan, we ran up and down
Trying to catch the cloud we saw from the other end
But the cloud always cleared before we got this end
And when we looked, the other end now had the cloud.
We never caught a cloud, but we never stopped trying
In Alade Street
Hour 13 – Death as My Mother
When death comes I hope she
Takes the form of my mother.
Even if it is a lie, I hope she takes
Me into her arms and lifts me into
The afterlife, the way she held me
When I came into this world.
It would be the only fair thing
In life so far.
The Who, an overgrown tercet.
The Who has always been a dysfunctional family:
Entwistle, the remote father, Daltry, the empathetic mother
and Townsend and Moon, the errant sons.
Believing In Unicorns
All the poets had a
Unicorn
Black or gold
All the poems
love themselves
All the words
have failed
All the poets had an
Unicorn
Prompts for Hour Twenty-Four
Text Prompt
Write about the place you feel most at home in.
Image Prompt
