24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
A joy on a busy New York
Pulling over
Put of the crowd
Unnoticed
To dine alone
Book on hand
While thousands flow by
Ignoring me.
Heaven.
Having a baby is rough.
Everyone sees the baby.
Twins is worse.
Triplets impossible.
Everywhere with a giant yellow wagon.
All eyes on it.
All mouths gaping.
There is no more
Disappearing act.
There is no more New York magic.
A Morbid Misdirection
The Naïve Valkyrie, to confidant in your haste,
Those who would be devoured by you, issued swift invite,
For you saw what I allowed you to perceive,
A repour in civility concealing a desire to deceive,
Pride’s punishment,
Watch closely.
The Naïve Valkyrie, driven on by blood fueled salacity,
Preoccupation and control of those you ensnared,
For you saw what I allowed you to perceive,
Absorbed in your own hellish and brazen cravings,
Lust’s lament
Watch tentatively.
The Naïve Valkyrie, murderous movements filled by outrage,
An aspirant in righteousness and spirited vengeance,
For you saw what I allowed you to perceive,
Provoked on course for retributive and unrelented justice,
Wrath’s worthlessness,
Watch over here.
The Naïve Valkyrie, resentment of your possession’s past life
Indignant and malice compelled you to seek the self-tormented demise,
For you saw what I allowed you to perceive,
Compulsive in single minded direction, ever causing a painful decision,
Envious enmity,
Watch carefully.
The Naïve Valkyrie, a glad reprieve I shall grant you solace and reprieve,
Your far travelled palate accustomed only to the finest,
See what you wish to see, as I want perceived,
Enjoy my succulent offerings, prepared only from the finest fare,
Gluttonous gourmand.
Are you ready?
The Naïve Valkyrie, if you chose what you should perceive,
You would no doubt be accustomed to that taste,
For within the trappings of your own larder and kitchen,
I processed the meal you consume, not wanting your brother Jon…
to go to waste.
Hour 8 Prompt 8
The Older Sibling
As the older sibling I felt responsible for my younger brother.
My mother didn’t tell me I was responsible, but as we walked
to school every day, just the two of us, I was responsible. Then
my brother got hurt and I was responsible and we didn’t get to
go on our regular family vacation because my mother had to work
extra because my brother needed care. We went to meet my
grandparents who I hadn’t met before. My mother left us with
them and I felt more responsible for my brother. If you have a
choice, don’t be the older sibling. Be the younger one. Even if
you have to listen to the older one boss you around. It’s just easier.
My children
Go missing
When it’s time to do chores
I thought they were here
Just the moment before
So my children get grounded
Sent to bed without supper
Never seeming to bother them
Especially the brother
It’s twins, you see
Runs in my family
First Adam
Then Emily
And they both look like me
They are usually so good
Why, they’re hardly around
More quiet than whispers
Clean rooms always found
They do keep me company
Without making a sound
I’m so glad they are there
Me only I can see
They live in my mind
And we love us
We three
“Books were safer than other people anyway”
-Neil Gaiman
I’ll take the hard corners
of a good book in my back
under my covers
over the fleshy resentments
of a worn out love affair
gnawing silently through my ribcage
any night … every night.
He drunktink tinked his sloshy glass against
liquor bottles on the front hall sideboard.
He called them “decanters in the fourier”
It was the entryway to his tract home
his rented tract home
his rented tract home… in Texas.
Pretentious Fuck.
Pretentious Fleshy Fuck.
He wrote a few selfie novels
many years ago…
thought they were open ended
festival seating all access passes.
Nothing like getting cock blocked
by Don Miguel Ruiz, William Hudson, James Frey… Oprah…
How was it for you?
Did you feel it
way down in your fourier?
No one in the fields,
Tiny rest in shield.
Technology change,
Every people are strange.
Seeds get the destroyed by pesticides,
No one to see when they have sight.
Alone house and hungry mouse,
Alone trees and pleasant breeze.
No one to enjoy except the keen,
They are nature’s queen.
I request not to destroy the nature,
and i our future.
I advise you too keep clean,
And to keep green.
if you knew what i know about loneliness
you would understand invisibility in the spaces between
privilege and righteousness
lives fully before disappearing into untethered expectations
of how we know how to live
in the pockets of longing to be recognized
for anything other than anything connected to
the toes of the boots of all those who came to take
what never belonged to them in the first place.
r.l.elke
when two became one
elsewhere, i lost myself there
where poetry keeps
books were safer than
other people anyway
Neil Gaiman knew
Hour 7 Prompt 7
Normal
No one wants to be normal as it relates to others.
Normal is boring, predictable, average or typical.
No one wants to be typical.
Everyone, or most everyone, wants to believe
that they live in an unusual or special kind of family.
I don’t want to explain my family or the routines
that we go through. I want to believe that having
peanut butter on popcorn on Tuesdays while we watch
Animal Banaminals makes us special,
but I don’t want to explain it to you.
“Puddles”
A little bit of rain could never stop us.
Ready or not, here we come!
Grabbing knee-high socks and rain boots as we run outside.
Jumping and splashing,
In any puddle we could find.
Don’t ever lose the child inside.