24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I walk heavy with a cinder block shoe
I feed the hummingbirds with my Aunt Ruth
She gave me twenty dollars for my first lost-tooth
I didn’t believe in magic then, either
I met a horse and was told he’d be glue
I thought animals should live forever
People, not so much, we all die, too
My Aunt was buried, so was my youth
It was then, the hummingbird flew
(This is a Magic 9)
I call upon you
earth
The lady of
stability
I call upon you
water
The man of
agility
I call upon you
air
The lady of
invisibility
I call upon you
fire
The man of
nobility
Come forth and bring us peace
Send your wisdom, release
Come forth and give us lease
Send your hope never to cease
AFTER-SCHOOL REALITY TELEVISION
they’re out roving again
among the steel beam firs
seeking a real moss forest
or anywhere else without watchers
there’s nowhere silent left now
except headphones and screens
nowhere private and unseen
except for somebody’s blocked list
there’s nowhere free to be
maybe a beach or park
to loiter on or off a bus line
faux news facepalms and says these kids are plastic
only caricatures only cardboard only screen-mediated
only diffuse long-forgotten SNL characters and rude cartoons
reproducing duplicates in 3D printing through cultural osmosis
but as I watch them swapping Pokemon at the corner-store gym
lingering just long enough to live while the streetlight camera takes note
I wonder what necessary hardness is provided by falsity
what fictile smile would armor my own young teeth
Hour 6, Prompt 14, Year 2021
When I wake up in the morning I turn and look at you
Sleeping, head resting on left bent arm
With a smile on your face
A pure, sweet smile
Devoid of any worries of the day
The same smile I noticed when we first met
A welcoming smile when you introduced yourself
The same smile you have when we dance together
Me in your arms, no place either of us would rather be
The smile that cracks open quickly when there’s good news
And slowly when I need some cheering up
The same smile, a smile of comfort, of peace
We’ve had our share of ups and downs
But I know I can always count on that smile
The smile that never fails me when I need it
That warms my heart more than my morning coffee
And as my heart brims over with warmth and love
I imagine my future children
I know this is the smile I want them to have
Old Calendars
Do you ever have a hard time throwing
away old calendars, afraid of losing
the places you’ve been, the memories
made so you stash them away, hoarding
them like precious gems, coins in a treasure
chest, stack growing ‘til it reaches the sky?
The children of Sienna
Are each marked apart
From normal human children
With silver bands tattooed
Innocuous, wrapped around the toes.
The children of Sienna
Are taught in the finest schools
Alongside elites of the highest orders
Living lives of luxury while adding new bands
Year by year to mark their growth.
The children of Sienna
Have thicker bands for higher marks
In their high level courses
They’re kept secret from the masses
Once they graduate.
The children of Sienna
Are known to me because
I married one with 25 bands of silver
Going up his legs
And now our children are also
Children of Sienna
They run,
in and out of the water frolicking like wild things,
thier laughter echos amongst the waves,
a light tinkle,
Dancing hand in hand to the beach boxes
Two sweet faces devils from the empty house across the street,
Tires falls and falls on down through this beam opening doors closed togetherness, and moves rotational horizontally bits.
Tirers melts to the metals when magnets grasps its gravity pushing on one another tightly.
Tirers makes an explosion doing its final reset bolts tightening shifts about shaking early on tabletops.
Making each tirers to not fit steady on or off when used unproperly when rotating them completely on.
When tirers are fitted on they somtimes rub up against something to bolds its rubble.
These tirers are made to roll normal exiles straighter to fit right on without any ruptures or rubber torn.
Lessons to be learned freely.
Live to see it or be gladly to receive your gratitude laughter’s.
Last call for tirers sales to buy.
If you knew me-
the real unedited
version of me-
the one I don’t let others
see
you would walk away
I’ve done so much
with my life
mom and dad
would be so proud
though from the outside-
I’m so ordinary
There was a time
I traveled for sex
I was a whore
not too proud of that
There was a time-
I would hurt myself
cut
restrict
punch
temporary solutions
sometimes I want
to write nursery rhymes
to illustrate who and what I am
There once was a girl
that didn’t fit in-
so she stopped trying-
she died from lonliness
and no one seemed to care
But that’s not true-
is it?
I hope not
Or maybe a different one
like-
There once was a girl
that didn’t fit in-
she just didn’t care
and did her own thing
She lived a life well lived
There are so many moments
where I think no one would
care if I stopped living a life
well lived-
And instead
just existed
a mere shell of what
I used to be
was
could be
and Cloudy do not wake up all
at the same time.
Nor do they eat together or
play together.
They are all who Ron and I imagine
them to be in our future home world,
the one in which we have room
for Armour, the pug, Waylon, the cat
and Cloudy, the ferret.
After his first Gulf War service was shortened
by returning home to nurse his dying father,
Ron acquired a ferret he named Sonny.
There could never be another Sonny. But, there could, to reference
THE FRENCH CONNECTION, a Cloudy, one who would be as intuitive a pet
as his predecessor.
Waylon, a tough cat named for Waylon Jennings, would watch over us all
as we slept in with little Armour Henry, the pug we want to find to adopt.
That’s our small menagerie that resides in our imagination,
but, within the next months, will develop real form.