24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Take it on the road and reach for the stars.
Go and see everything life has to offer.
It could be anything from scaling mount Everest to hitting the game winning shot.
Learning a new language, fixing the world with the peace corps
or taking on a youthful ward
But whatever you decide, make sure it counts
or else, what’s the point?
Sweet little ones whose toes I long to kiss
Grandmama awaits your arrival, sweet babes.
I’ll rock you to sleep and sing soft lullabies,
and tell bedtime stories ‘till eyes open wide
fall fast shut asleep.
Sweet dreams darling babes, until you arrive.
Sweet blessings my loves, still a twinkling in the sky.
I can’t wait to be your Granny!
Can’t wait to make you pies
and see your eyes delight
when Christmas arrives.
Crescent Carving
I imagine you, a perfect planet
shadow rising upon the tide.
Pale yellow beam behind harvest wishes,
follow this crescent star.
Under sweet silent space
from deep, dark, broken night.
Transverse summer spirit
shine through light.
Serene morning here at home.
Everyone has a couch, a newspaper, a talking face in the television, friendly bottles, some crutch to take the edge off. Everything is catharsis. But the fires only come in moments we can't account for. Compulsive desires, Irrational attraction, fennel stalks concealing stolen pieces of the sun. I say play with them, be burned, let others burn. No one gets out alive. Burn. burn Dwindle to embers. Gradually combust.
Whenever he wants attention
He slides over
Garlic.
It isn’t his breath.
That is mint
Listerine.
Can garlic seep out of hair?
She slides a hand though it
Trying to solve the puzzle.
The hair is more an oil.
The clothes a musty fog.
Skin.
His skin smells like a clove.
She fakes a yawn.
Giant stretch
Slight moan
A snap of joints as she slips
Into bed.
For now it is all Gain
Like a sweetened bouquet
Sprayed with sugar.
And something else now.
What is that?
Onion?
No. Garlic.
Garlic sending fields of flowers.
Crystalline skies painting melodies
Intoxicate and infiltrate
Senses adjusted to bliss
Forgotten as it is
To so many folks
We reach for sky
Seize love and
Kiss the
Dome
kobade
arms linked in arms
around
arms around us all
link after link after link
forward and back
from home to home
to pieces of us in each other
like the eggs in th eggs in the eggs
of our great-grandmothers
in our great-grand daughters
concentrically linked to each other
“forward” and “back”
so that in our language
there are no separate words for
grandmother and grand daughter.
we’ve never been separated,
“forward” or “back”
only co-imagined pieces of each other
forced into spaces too small to contain us
“forward” or “back”-
even in the limits of our DNA:
the physical chain of kobade.
©r. l. elke June 26/21
kobade is an Anishinaabebowin (the language of the Anishinaabe people of Turtle Island) word meaning the connection of generations moving “forward and back” (ie – we do not have a different word for grand daughter or grandmother…they are the same)
Green pear and orange
Set in a fine golden platter
Delicious display
@Maritza – Hour Sixteen
Time has been flying
How can this be?
I don’t think the clock
Is playing fair
It’s definitely tricking me!
I stop for a minute
Just to do something quick
The alarm starts to buzz
It’s time to go again!
Whose got the stop watch?
This game’s been rigged!
Time himself
Is playing tricks on me!