Act 2 (Day 498)

Outside the harbor: 

   Rising waves

On deck: Scoured 

   by wind and spray

Old vessel creaks

Unnamed man speaks

Squall carries his voice 

    away

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

Act 1 (Day 497)

Afternoon, cloudy, damp,
   and close
Depression forming
   off the coast
One man, unnamed
One woman, same
Aboard an aging ferryboat

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Photo: StockSnap/Pixabay

Secret (Day 496)

Water glass, some left.

Coral half-kiss on the rim.

Not his mother’s shade.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Julie Lewis/Flickr

Jane (Day 495)

History whispers.

Intimate unknowable.

She speaks in shadows.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Your Own Stories (Day 494)

just become 

quiet   a butterfly’s unfurling 

wings   your own stories

flutter within

listen   still as a snake 

about to shed her outgrown skin

do you hear the rustling

inside your walls   small

secrets   guests  some welcome 

some uninvited   nestling 

and settling in 

well-protected corners   notice

your narrator   is she trustworthy

how do you know

if what you hear is true

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image via MaxPixel

Were they inconvenient? (Day 493)

Were they inconvenient 

for you   those first violets’ 

     expressive faces peering 

at sun’s sharpening 

edge  a blade of steel 

     custom-made to sear 

          summer’s shuddering grass 

So easy to miss   grass   

when friendly gazes 

     beam from loamy grottoes 

among the newly green-grown 

     blades   prone to being tread upon 

So easy to miss them    singing 

     evanescent spring into being 

          while crackling July droughts 

gloat   thirst   to crush 

all this   ridiculous tenderness

to crush it like a snake 

     beneath a desert sky 

to crush it like an early violet 

     inconvenient as the truth   

          beneath unheeding hurry

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Monkey With Violets (1880s), Gabriel von Max, 

oil on canvas, via WikimediaCommons

Warrior Queens at 1:05 a.m. (Day 492)

black sky at 1:05 a.m.  billions of stars 
stretching inconceivably beyond sight 

wondering: does life pulse or throb or ooze 

somewhere out in that vast dark desert   

or do we live and love and sleep alone

owners of endlessness we seek to end

past speaks to present whispering secrets 

future stargazers may wish to know   

how small we tend to feel  how unimportant 

our concerns in immensity’s shadow 

worries become clouds of flitting gnats    

responsibilities float like dandelion seeds

   

at the escarpment’s edge  facing outward 

tragedies and triumphs seem to blur and blend

did boadicea laugh in triumph as romans fled  

or weep for those whose blood she spilled

does midnight’s bending of right and wrong 
excuse the cruel from blame  condemn the kind

did zenobia’s golden chains belie her end

or did she take a stand and starve herself

at 2:00 a.m. the heart leans toward truth

even if courage soars toward its own death 

yet darkness still cools our burning world 

and all those beautiful planets spin around

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Comet Lovejoy, NASA.gov

Assessing (Day 491)

Is it a flame so blue, 

you almost can’t see it?

Or a bruise you want 

to press, just to feel  

the ache? White hot 

or slow-burning gold, 

spiked or smooth? 

So many styles of rage, 

so many ways to feel 

angry—or not, as girls 

were taight. Watching  

the richtus of his mouth 

tightening around his 

ugly words, the feral 

gleam in his eyes, and 

the erratic nature of his 

usually-infrequent 

gestures, while, there 

you are, on the other side 

of the glass. Assessing, 

examining him, as if he 

were a scientific specimin, 

subject of some mysterious

laboratory experiment.  

What a fine example of 

rage, you might think. 

Or perhaps: Could that be 

the rare white-rimmed lip 

compression I’ve heard of? 

I wonder... I wonder...

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Montrealais/WikimediaCommons

Never After Eight (Day 490)

treat men nicely

and 

they will

be nice (to you)

be ladylike

be a good girl

never tease them

or 

they’ll call you 

a slut/whore 

a girl with

a reputation

(yes   italicized)

or after eight

never 

ever call them

I was taught 

and 

I see time

wrought little 

change

before   and   after

me  

those     days     these   

it amounts 

to nothing    

for zero    

add par 

dont you wonder 

why old (wo)men lie

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

What I Am Not (Day 489)

I am not a Japanese Tea Garden.

I am a radiant beam of light.

I am not a tortilla chip.

I am a cup of coffee, black.

I am not an endless pity-party.

I am a reading light by a comfortable 

   chair on an early-winter evening.

I am not wandering down 

    the lane and far away.

I am looking at the moon. 

I am not a new pair of shoes that 

   make you run faster, jump higher.

I am a knitted sweater starting 

   to unravel under the left arm.

I am not Brussels’ Musée du cacao et 

   du chocolat.

I am an open bottle of coriander-scented 

   lotion from the Georgetown Kiehl’s.

I am not your favorite YA book ever.

I am a sleepless, sweaty August night

   without air conditioning.

I am not anyone’s president, elected 

   or otherwise.

I am someone who would have done 

   a much better job.

I am not a writer of stories and poems.

I am the language they speak.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: David Ohmer/Flickr

Stardust, lyrics: Mitchell Parish  

I’ll Be Seeing You, lyrics: Irving Kahal 

Senryu for Day 488

never suddenly 

meeting the turn in the road

never knowing how

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Turn in the Road (~1881) by Paul Cezanne,

oil on canvas, via Wikimedia Commons

Mammoth (Day 487)

Imagined transparent 

against eons of ice  awakened 

without a by-your-leave

awakened without a choice

bold conqueror 

of the frozen old   a foreigner 

in this subtler new New World

Mammoth whispered   

a trace of sadness 

tuned his ancient voice

Sundry seasons entranced 

ere darkness rose   

Sundry sunsets danced 

across virgin skies

where only flying creatures

had yet flown

No pitiless fears will come again 

to tired spirits below  

But pitiless mornings will rise

above considering all you know

Eyes closed   he melted 

into the blue crevasse

what would come 

to pass still echoed 

on frozen air 

a trace of sadness 

tuned his ancient voice   

we have a choice   for now   

we have a choice

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Simon Migaj/Pexels

All Transpires, Dream-like (Day 486)

All transpires   dream-like   

beneath the land   sleeping 

spirits   seeds planted 

by tired hands   or thrust 

into the dark cocooning soil 

by cold machines   and weeds   

perhaps plucked by beaks 

or bills   transported 

through tumbling clouds 

and rushing winds   dropped 

into luminous air   falling   finding 

purchase there on willing earth   

waiting   artlessly scattered 

on hand-turned beds   arranged 

in mile-long rows and warmed 

by an incubating sun   fed by rain 

and thick inspiring fog   

never knowing under what skies 

they grow or wither   but sleeping 

silently now beneath the land   

where all dream-like transpires  

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

Remnant (Day 485)

one silver bead

at the bottom 

of a shining sidewalk

mirror  sky-blue 

penant on buff 

concrete remnant 

of receding storms  

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: LenaLindell20/Pixabay

Angry Enough (Day 484)

Like an itch 

makes you   angry

enough to scratch

until tiny gems of blood 

emerge  shining 

on your tender skin

this tingling   cramping 

in your hands   

your lips tighten  

and your fists 

long for contact with

the magnificent world

to reverse wrongs

to elide injustices

to make an indentation

of your own

an irritable anxiety rises 

in your throat   wont go 

tomorrow   or the next

day   go to bed

your dreams nag 

nag nag at the back 

of your mind   there is no 

escape  it will still be there 

when you wake

choking   teeth clenched 

against stupidity 

and ignorance that

swirl like smoke   now

secondhand in your lungs

vicarious vertigo  narrowing 

around your neck   

nooselike   under watery

streetlights   helplessness—

thats the real problem 

isn’t it   you  

enraged   you 

small   and alone

what can you do? 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: US Dept of Agriculture

Sidewalk Cafe, Hot (Day 483)

sun-baked   muted   air   

inert  voices

trickling

water   coleus   treble static

on speakers   heat echoes

off pavement   train

whistle blows

someone is coming

warm   soft   easy

to adjust   as well

depending on

sea breezes or

cool summer evenings

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere