Thursday, May 31, 2018

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

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

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

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

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

Monday, May 28, 2018

Jane (Day 495)

History whispers.
Intimate unknowable.
She speaks in shadows.


(c) 2018, by Hannah Six


Sunday, May 27, 2018

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

Saturday, May 26, 2018

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

Friday, May 25, 2018

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

Thursday, May 24, 2018

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


Wednesday, May 23, 2018

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

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

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 

Monday, May 21, 2018

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

Sunday, May 20, 2018

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



Saturday, May 19, 2018

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

Friday, May 18, 2018

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

Thursday, May 17, 2018

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

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

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