26/30 Young Pictures

30/30 Challenge - during April, which is National Poetry Month, poets challenge themselves to write a poem a day. This poem is a COLLABORATION with Yong Ae. Stanzas #2, 4 and 6 were written by her.

It is like a mirror
whose reflection I’ve lost control of.
A time stamp, even when
my memory clocks out.
Lenses and strangers
have seen my face more than I ever will.
In fact, I’ve never seen it
outside of pictures and mirrors.

A time when innocence was just a word.
Stranger in my growing skin.
Oblivious to the power I harnessed
with my infinite ignorance far from blissfulness.
Eyes that say “love me” innocently.
I see you.
Unfortunately I could not see me.

I stare at these photos,
wondering if there is a map
hidden below the custom smile.
I’d return to those eras of time.
Some I’d stay in, others would be missions
saving the one caught
in the camera.

Our memories captured on paper.
Wish I could remember them without the photos.
Remember because she is gone now.
Remember because he’s a stranger now.
Remember because I forget.
Happier times when times weren’t so happy
But dreams were big when my hands were small.
Words were my only protection, intervention, expressions
In those photos I visit her.
She doesn’t visit me too often,
When she does
We look at the frozen memory
And smile

These thin slabs of the past
make me feel like a butterfly
eye to eye with its cocoon.
Legs become wings
perspective rises
and imagination rots into responsibility.
These pictures remind me
someone once shielded me from the torrent winds
of change. Not for long,
just enough to snap an image of point zero.
A return home.

A journey back
Welcomed & unwelcomed
Fortunes from misfortunes
Reminiscing of time spent
freely
consequentially
not free at all
reading between the lines
in eyes
in mine
a picture speaks a thousand words
Sometimes there’s silence
in time
these old photographs
of mine
rewind
my mind
to find
my mind
home in time.

25/30 Resentment

30/30 Challenge - during April, which is National Poetry Month, poets challenge themselves to write a poem a day. This poem is a COLLABORATION with Nessa Va. Stanzas #2 and 4 were written by her.

Resentment sleeps like mortar in brick,
building walls we shouldn’t have to climb.
Nurturing that anger allows it to stick
creating distance between us and the vine.

Initially it comes disguised as the rebel
Feeling pride & power in aggression
But one cannot for very long revel
Before one’s own freedom begins to lessen

Revenge is not found out in the wild
Nor is it stirred by the season.
Grudges are taught to a child
Before they reach an age of reason.

Entitlement laughs along hartily
Enjoying spoiled fruits of a servants labor
Our hero proceeds carelessly
Unaware it is not justice she favors

Water sustains and gives rust
A gray line between value and burden
Our defense mechanism we should trust
Though fooled by an ego that is surging

24/30 Time

30/30 Challenge - during April, which is National Poetry Month, poets challenge themselves to write a poem a day.

Where does it go?
A short career
earning a long vacation,
how do I get that job?

Time.

Do the seconds, minutes and hours
all retire at the same resort?
Will the years allow months
to reside with them
and have the decades forgotten
they built their stature on days?

Can the info geeks
track the where abouts of century’s past
and where do new millennia come from?

Am I perspiring allusion,
Bludgeoning my perspective
With romantic analogies?
Does time die?

Is it buried in memories?
Urned into pictures?
May it attach itself to our genes
and be passed on
like the resurrection of the seasons?
When weeks pass, do they leave behind a soul?

Would I be wrong to say TIME
is just an imaginary friend?
No one has ever seen it, have they?
But how can we measure speed
if it doesn’t exist?
How will I know when I’m late for a date?
How do we know the sun isn’t a double agent
tricking us into this religion of time?!

Why do heart beats sound like grandfather clocks?
Why do grandmas bake cookies with smiles
like it’s the first and last time they’ll see us?
Why do graveyards feel like a timeless hell
but family remembrances hold like an infinite heaven?

How can we give misery wings to fly by
and teach good times to remain grounded,
slow down?

What is a picture worth?
Can you measure it with your watch as you stare?
Why do we say it’s the words
when it’s the tick tocks that make it valuable?

Has your sundial every felt threatened
and would you protect it like your cash?
Is it a line or circle,
and how does that affect the motto
about cutting corners?
Is geometry its ambassador?
Can age speak on Time’s behalf?
Wisdom, what do you know about it?
Rumor has it secrets have traversed it
but have you realized truth struggles over the journey?
Gossip can withstand all G-force
so how do we allow facts to struggle with turbulence?

Without a belief in Time,
could we still have gotten into space
and would I be able to retain an appreciation
for each moment we shared?

How much have I wasted?

23/30 Not Made For Me

30/30 Challenge - during April, which is National Poetry Month, poets challenge themselves to write a poem a day.

Born to create math
Mind for engineering
A body founded in athletics.

All he wanted to do,
was sing.

The gene for symphony
never made it to his auditorium.
Crowds of showers
shunned his sound.

He could build the orchestra seats
but didn’t have the speech
to lead them to thunder.

Giving everything
except what he desired.

People in other countries, states
towns, houses
cherished his gifts
while his eyes avoided contact with his hands.

Spoiled by nature, or a prisoner
of a treasure chest
that had an island built around it,
his long face
took no care in hiding
the mask behind the clown.

Empathy can’t be wasted on him,
he knows it
asks none of it.
Though the desire to sing
could not be quieted.

In a world of infinite possibilities
with so many missing the mark,
he questions the intelligent design.

A brain made
for something the heart is not.

22/30 Taboo Sex

30/30 Challenge - during April, which is National Poetry Month, poets challenge themselves to write a poem a day.

Oh the taboo,
How dare we do what the monkey’s do?
The lion’s at a zoo
The tigers, the bears and even the kangaroos

Are we animals
With sexual euphemisms as if we’re cannibals?
The drive is palpable
Though some say this is what makes us fallible.

Just Earth feelings
Or does it reach beyond the Universe’s ceilings?
Gossip is squealing
Though rumors note it contains a special healing.

Forget what pimps say
Have they ever truly been in love anyway?
Sometimes it’s play
Other times it’s an act that I can’t keep away.

I am human
Someone tell me what is wrong with the doing?
Possibly consuming
But I can’t imagine something so good is so ruining.