Tuesday, October 31, 2017

How to Starve Your Demons, or Why I Stopped Looking at Social Media After the 2016 Election (Day 286)

How to Starve Your Demons, or 
Why I Stopped Looking at 
Social Media After the 2016 Election


When I look at you,
peacefulness recedes.

The turquoise seas dry,
revealing their soft

underbellies, which
harden and crackle, 

a vast desert of 
shattered tempered glass. 

When I look at you,
fragile as I’ve grown,

something in my heart
stirs—awakening

a sense of dread—that
lives apart from me,

a burning creature
eternal and dark,

who crept in and stayed
after he arrived.

So I endeavor
to starve my demon

by never looking,
even askance, at 

you, summoning, and
ever beckoning

concealed in your blue 
like a false hero.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's 
"Descent into the Maelstrom" 
by Harry Clarke (1889–1931), 
published in 1919 (via Wikimedia)

Monday, October 30, 2017

By the Phone (Day 285)

Upstairs  
in the spare 
room   imagining
your face 
with a mixture 
of dread 
and longing
I hang up 
the phone   cord 
snaps back 
into place   
  phones 
    had 
     twisty 
 spiral
    cords 
  then   
and tiptoe down
the stairs 
because my mother 
forbade me to 
call boys   I was 
supposed to wait  
for them 
to phone me   
but    somehow
the threat of 
being alone always 
terrified me 
more 
than my mother’s 
quick temper.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Free image via MaxPixel

Sunday, October 29, 2017

First Cup (Day 284)



morning blue 
as twilight 

first sunbeams 
kiss my cup

ghostly steam 
pirouettes



(c) by Hannah Six

Image: bark via Flickr

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Lapsed Lovers, Part 2* (Day 283)


...but all frozen operas melt, 
the Earth loves heat, and 
sweeping shade trees
love the Earth, and there, 
caught in the middle, they 

recall their favorite scenes, 
rekindling cold memories 
in which the very pears 
hanging within reach, sing 
golden notes in dulcet tones

no lover worth his bruised
blue heart will admit 
his part in affairs gone wrong,
and even Cupid rolls his eyes 
at their sigh-soft gazes and 
insistance on playing 
that song again


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), Antoine Watteau 
(One of my all-time favorite paintings!)

*Continued from Lapsed Lovers, Part 1 Day 281

Friday, October 27, 2017

When the Magic Ends (Day 282)

When the magic 
ends
and the music 
winds down, find 
the one who’s still 
around,
helping you sweep up 
the fairy dust
and 
carrying dishes
to the sink. 
Choose him. 
You may not think 
so now, but he 
is the answer 
to those prayers 
and wishes—
the one 
who stays
after the party,
instead of leaving 
you
to clean up 
the mess
while he follows 
the rest of the crowd.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Wonderlane via Flickr

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Lapsed Lovers, Part 1 (Day 281)

balloons bloom into clouds,
splashing shadows on the shining 
heads of twelve lapsed lovers, who turn 
their dazed eyes inward, reveling in 
triumphs, recounting tales of yearning 
and rough-hewn wisdom 

not one remarks on the livid scars 
that mar their conquered hearts, 
evidence of arrow-wounds, proof of 
the ancient sorrows and false starts 
that brought them to this place, 
a garden of gods, where they muse 
and stroke the smooth red skin 
of apples with their busy mouths 


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: ateliersludosophiques

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Moderate Cruelty (Day 280)

Tepid, aglow with the cuprous 
sweat of self-loathing, you 
resort to moderate cruelty 
again and again
that was always your way
of containing the steady trickle
of commentary—expert at everything
you do—that accrues 
in the pit of your stomach
day by day and no matter where
you look you are insensate 
to the shards of beauty 
that slice and snag your skin
with every blundering step you take
unable to understand that there 
are miles of possibility
at your feet



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: White House dot gov

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Sea-swept (Day 279)

they danced at midnight
on a sea-swept isle  all coral 
haze and lagging rhythms
less than one day’s sail beyond
the bounds of measurable time

into the early morning 
hours like embers glow 
their rolling hues diffused against 
the crumbled walls of a secret 

beach embraced by headlands 
and a jealous sky   they unwrapped 
the gifts they carried  unfolding 
tales half by half  attentive 
to the rushing surf  

each listening  awestruck  to the sea
hushed and tender  whispering 
from deep inside the chambered shell
of the other’s upturned heart


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Free image via Pexels

Monday, October 23, 2017

Gate (Day 278)

Metal on metal
Sagging gate peals when opened
Coming  or  going


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Momentmal

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Dark-eyed boys (Day 277)

two dark-eyed boys
their father 
at the window parting 
red curtains  kick a ball 

where the greenest grass 
grows  watered by tears 
she cried when she kissed them 
goodbye  there  then

all she could hope for was 
a warm day  lamenting that  
during the rain  they had 
not been able to play outdoors


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image:sasint

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Against a Buttery Sky (Day 276)


Above the orchard, tall 
trees against a buttery
sky, sating my spirit’s
deep hunger, portending 
umber flanks 
of gourd-round hills,
a pasture dotted 
Heaven, northern dusk 
fog-sheltered need, 
won as we cried for more, 
but by dawn, still and
you should see 
where, small and fragile, 
it lives on in me.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: racorvese

Friday, October 20, 2017

Solace of Trees (Day 275)

We long to open 
doors, and breathe 
a freshening breeze, 
to leave 
our gates unlocked, 
accept the solace
of trees whose 
constellation of greens 
shimmer overhead, 
to step into the middle, 
soft as sleep, 
and forage among 
the refuse of our day, 
to sigh, to laugh, 
to weep outright 
for what we had 
to leave along the road, 
with so little time to choose, 
voices raised in protest: 
Let us stay! And yet, 
both sides refuse, 
both sides refuse

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Toward Los Angeles, CA 1937, by Dorothea Lange 
via US Library of Congress

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Jump high the stairs (Day 274)


jump high the bleached and splintered stairs

today was so many no’s and don’ts

and now the children are poison darts

and now she come here and just give me a hug

no really that’s what she said

the parents know that water’s good

and beating on the window 

set the crickets down with heavy sun

squeaks and whistles rattling every tree

i won’t back up ‘til the battle’s won 

and here I sit

come on let’s go out front ‘cause she’s only five 

or ten minutes away



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: KRiemer



Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Decadent Elders (Day 273)

decadent elders tucked 
  away 
in black cashmere 
     ghostly 
clouds of smoke 
and silken shame 
       swirl  
excuses ugly 
in their chests none but 
the youngest 
meet the eye 
          glimmer 
of voices cherished 
      proclaim 
sparkling raised 
   to block 
the noonday sun 
     without 
that special something fun  
   you just can’t live 
so generously 



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: The End of Dinner, 1913, Jules-Alexandre GrĂ¼n

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Half the Battle (Day 272)

When prepared     You’ve fought half the battle
Don’t you             Worry about me, while you’re away
Make your own    Luck, fate, or invention, they’re your’s, this
Day                       Break, these good intentions, the shiny gold trophy.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image of Puerto Rico: The Brandsmen

Monday, October 16, 2017

Five-thirty (Day 271)

The curtain of five-thirty 
in the morning is 
dark as pitch 
and quite opaque  though 
persistent dawn slips 
through at the edges 
now and then  drawn 
shawl-like against a curious 
draft  wool tickling and 
warming your shoulders  
at the window  other people’s 
dreams buffet the glass  
seductive  cold as snowmelt.


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: US National Park Service