24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Hr. 7 Prompt 6
You must be going now
The time has come
We may never meet again
We had a moment in time
Please don’t take too long
This was meant to be
Life happens so fast
Hold on to those moments
Become what you’re meant to be
Don’t let anything stop you
Shine forever bright
As strong as your will
To write a self portrait I have to step back
And take a long good look at myself.
I turn to the mirror, eyes, ears, nose, check.
Two hands, two legs, a torso, quite a normal
(albeit short) human specimen. Unruly hair,
Glasses that balance on the top of the head
And often fall. Oh yes, the shorts, irreplaceable,
Since the pandemic. That is me, as far as physical
Appearances go. I like a good steak, I do not trust
In Gods, I’ve been called ‘irreverent’ and worse.
I live with my mistakes, I do not let them define me,
And I strive to be happy. I keep to myself
Most of the time, I have a few close friends, well-defined.
I enjoy my music, the company of those I love
In fact I’m quite an ordinary girl just doing my job
Of being alive. Don’t cross me though, I never
Learned to forgive. I don’t try too hard either.
Just a regular soul disguised as human.
Free-write
You perfected your craft
of breaking me.
But I mastered the art
of putting myself back together.
At 11, I thought I hated my hair.
All frizz and fluff and just
too large. My mother told me
I wanted sleek. I wanted straight.
I wanted what my sister had.
Nothing could get me there.
She tried braids, but fuzz
danced at the surface. Even
weighed down with thirty seconds
of Aqua Net, its will was too strong.
She tried hot oil, pulling
and scalding, and yanking with
each whimper. My scalp bled
and burned, and my hair shone
brightly, a halo floating above me.
She tried a curling iron
that always burned my ears.
There are scars that mark
her slips. They stayed for an hour,
maybe, until they cooled, then
my hair grew, the heat fertile soil
to bloom.
She tried hot curlers, their spikes
holding them fast, the burning
prolonged over night, a cap
covering my head to hold
the heat in, and the itching itching
itching that I couldn’t scratch.
They fell in the early morning.
She tried a perm. I ran
full speed through trees and grass,
zig zagging across an acre
to escape the chemical smell
and sting. My hair blossomed
into a sunflower, reaching away
and toward the light.
She taught me how to pull
it into a bun, to gel it all down
slick against my skull. It only lasted
to the afternoon. She gave me
mousse with the strongest hold
to tame it if I could. I could not.
I fought. Win. Lose. Win. Lose.
I grew tired. I stopped fighting.
I conceded. My hair slowed and showed
why she couldn’t be flattened,
burned, poisoned to fit
what my mother wanted, what I thought
I wanted. There was never
anything wrong with us. My hair
would never be sleek. It will never
be straight like my sister’s.
All she wanted was peace and to curl.
You’ll never know,
You reel from the impact.
You’ll never know,
Great is our God who warns us at right time,
That its sparkle may amuse you.
You’ll never know,
You try & try to rise but you cannot,
death draws his cordons in,
We die soon.
(Source : last line cento with poems of different poets, source link : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YuEZ2gcTQw9SCJr9Gr7TjxA7FfdhXArD1CHJxVvvrVE/edit?usp=drivesdk )
No one wants to live
to see their parents
become children, dependent,
vulnerable, leaning on canes
and walkers and others.
The mourning. The shift
from child to care giver.
The exhaustion.
No one wants to see it, to live
it. Roles reversed.
Guess I should have
checked out when
I was six.
I am a catalog of genes, and someone lost the index.
Blue eyes, brown hair(not too long, thick, dense) hips
and thighs for running short distances, a laugh that
someone says is like an aunt, a smile that was braced in,
a nose straight, soft, long lashes, mesomorphic basic
amalgation of genes messily slotted and categorized
a pinch of this and that, a mouth that talks and a smile
that crinkles the nose and a body I punish for crimes
I committed in grief, in self-pity, and I swallow my pride
and just look at me. Look at the insecurities and
see the pride, the shame, the joy, the grief, the pain.
I am what my mama’s mama made, and yet I am me.
I’ve seen Kamehameha rule the islands. I’ve watched the whalers come and go.
I smelled the sugar cane and wept when it left.
I partied with Marines as they prepared to do battle with the Japanese. I mourned as fewer came back than left.
I’ve worked hand and hand with visitors as they scrimped and saved for the vacation of a lifetime.
I nurtured the children, the businesses, the workers as Covid 19 ravaged their ranks.
My name is Hawaii. I have always been here and no matter what happens, I always.
Since I am alone every night
in my king sized bed, I keep books,
heating pad, water, by my wall.
Oh.
She makes so much more
sense now that I know
what it is to be too small
for your bed alone.
She kept her bible, newspapers,
cordless phone, by her wall.
Mine on the left, hers on the right.
Mirror, mirror, mirror.
She slept alone for 28 years.
That length of time is too
large for my brain, pushing
the edges outward. Bending.
Stretching.
How? How did she do it?
No dog or cat or plush
companion. Utterly alone.
How did she sleep, unmoving,
so when she woke her bed
looked undisturbed?
What other secrets was she
hiding? Whisper them through
the miles, across the years,
and into the heart of the child
you loved best.
Understory
This morning I fell in love
with the Tropical Rainforest shower gel
I bought yesterday in the dollar store.
No mind to curtains of snow falling
outside my bathroom window, I was
transported through the steamy veil
to stand beneath a misty canopy of trees,
caw caw of birds, screech of monkeys
trapezing from limb to limb, air heavy
with humidity as I inhale the heady scent
of jasmine and mango.
I step into the spray, my feet hover
over a floor of ferns and loam adapted
to low light. I shiver in sheer delight.
A lustless devoid of compromise, and
lacking a vow of monogamy, I revel in
the freedom to bask in naked admiration
of a scented mirage.
Tomorrow, I may find myself falling
for the new and improved polar mint
fresh taste of toothpaste…
how I love falling
in love.
~ J R Turek
June 27, 2021 Hour 19