I can’t (Day 924)

is it a little warm 

or is it just me   he moved 

   and I can’t

he was right   here 

next to me   burning

   and I can’t

look away   

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Muse (Day 923)

sparkling   she dwells

multi-faceted

in a sapphire sky

miraculously changeable

infuriatingly desirable

beckon  and she will

disappear

ignore her at your risk

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Context (Day 922)

out there

   context matters

deciding whether or not 

   we are going to remain 

free 

investigating how we can 

   get there 

      from here

imagining our roles 

   going forward 

as one 

   concerned   we envision 

hope 

going quietly

   into that good night

      having lost her voice

         (and her choice)

he told us

   who exactly 

      directed the election 

but who cares right?  

they say 

a democracy should 

   feel conflicted 

      about contesting results

the impact   devastation

so we stand 

   down   and look away 

      instead

of floating the idea 

   of integrity   right now

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

The man in the painting (Day 921)

The man in the painting 

has no name. 

I don’t much care for him.

Still, he turns 

toward you, inviting

with flaccid lips. 

Imagine, if you will,

his sudden sideways shifts, 

crab-like snapping 

at whatever he can maim 

with serrated claws.

Fortunately, he does not 

exist, surrounded 

as he is by family, 

whose mild, close-lipped 

smiles give nothing away.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Yuzo Saeki, Crab (1926), 

oil on canvas, Wikimedia Commons

Homecoming (Day 920)

Orion’s Belt traces the immeasurable

arc   begins its weightless descent

into her veins   vast   the ocean spills

Earth’s surging lifeblood   easing

caressing   coldness little more

than a distant ache   a faint memory

belonging to these currents   engulfed

in a dream of primordial homecoming

(c) 2019, by Hannah

Image: Tony Guyton (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Dear Narcissist (Day 919)

We are not your mirror, 

not here to reflect the inverse 

of your insecurities, 

to consume your leftovers, 

to love you as you love yourself, 

as you say you love us, but, see? 

You do not see us. 

We do not inhabit the space that 

draws your eyes like magnet 

to steel. When you turn 

to us, you are looking for yourself, 

and when we fail to reveal 

those images you crave, 

you turn away again. 

We are not cold as glass, our surface 

is far from flawless, but it is true, 

and we cannot offer the lies you seek 

when you look at us and you

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: krzysiek/Pixabay

Never sorry (Day 918)

In that silence

you lost   

I am never sorry 

tomorrow   you will be

barefoot   I fled

your whisper 

hammering my ears   

you are

an open letter   in cinders   

and dared 

to name the moon 

the stars   cruel and jealous   

you lost

I am never sorry

everything

(c) 2019 by Hannah Six

Image: yookiwon80/Pixabay

No news (Day 917)

Music flutters on 

bright wings from 

another room   there 

is no news 

today  

Behind a foliage fan

the forest holds 

her secrets   there 

is no news

today

Soon   shadows 

slide   deep as fog 

into the hall   there 

is no news 

today

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: AdinaVoicu/Pixabay

Another way (Day 916)

Grandmother sits back and considers 

the lemon with the palm of her hand.

Now is a heavenly time, under a tree, 

in the cool dust mysteriously missing 

since May.

She squeezes a waterfall of warm juice, 

slippers sucking at the linoleum, pulps 

it into a mug.

Rain drips from the eucalyptus trees’ 

dagger-shaped leaves, smelling of 

secret closets. 

This morning, we are hunting wool 

socks and heavy blankets.

After adding honey, she settles.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: PxHere

Ghosts (Day 915)

From under the eaves, we watch 

the streaming rain, tufts of steam 

rising from hot pavement, lingering 

like ghosts, mingling with the day’s

last breath of chiffon-yellow light.

Billowing dusk descends.

Like memories, fireflies glimmer.

In a blink, a lifetime.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Vinod C B/ Pexels

But not yet (Day 914)

Restless afternoon oven-hot 

wind lashing at dry leaves

soon it will begin to sound 

like autumn rustling stirring 

in treetops at the edges colors 

will fade and burn but not yet 

How different we are you say 

you are surprised but I have 

known this secret all along we 

are promised to our lavender 

goodbye one day you’ll wake to

find yourself alone but not yet

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Some are sparrows (Day 913)

Not every poem can be 

a salamander   brilliant   tender   

touching lightly on the salient

delphinium strident    resonant

above the clamoring crowds   

heartbound arrow flying 

in formation   fearless 

toward the preordained 

Some are sparrow meek   

brown and gray   subsisting on 

the crumbs of long-departed

silent as paper   beneficent

yet ineffective   meandering

in drifts of thorny vines

shoulders stooped beneath 

a burden    self-assumed 

of steadily-falling rain

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

Ice Cream Hours (Day 912)

ice cream hours 

trickle and swirl  

one flavor melting 

into the next   

mingling in a pool 

at the bottom  

of your bowl

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

A new man (Day 911)

Tomorrow, he will wake up 

in a new world, a peaceful world, 

a world of red-gingham oilcloth 

on picnic tables, of fields of daisies 

scattered across crisp cotton dresses. 

Tomorrow, the TV will remain off,

the telephone will not ring, and 

the car? Well, he may take a drive, 

the way folks used to do on Sunday 

afternoons, when dinner was still

a few hours away and the katydids

buzzed out where the grass grew

long and dry and golden, so that

it crunched like gravel underfoot.

Tomorrow, he will wake up 

a new man, eyes adjusting to the light 

in her smile, inspired by the shape 

of a cup or a chair, listening, hearing, 

perhaps even understanding his 

favorite song, or the startling slowness 

of galaxies rising, crossing, slowly 

tumbling off the edge of a three a.m. sky.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: pamjpat/Pixabay

Heat (Day 910)

Does the heat take you 

to forever on a diminishing 

westward drive?

Set you on fire 

to point your car toward 

a strip of molten highway?

Between midnight 

and the first hopeful slick 

of dawn   do you tussle 

with desire?

Or do you spin 

eagerly  willingly down 

long-forgotten grassy slopes?

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Inkknife_2000 (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Avarice (Day 909)

the avarice  when I spoke

of it  glittered  feral

unexpected  from within  

insatiable  frightening me 

into a silence you never heard

as I backed  slowly  away

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Mixed and Mingled (Day 908)

Hearts of artichokes offer subtle resistance

then subside against the angled blade. 

Dusky as a day-old bruise, olives submerge, 

grateful, into their vinaigrette whirlpool, 

joined by a roisterous crowd of rotini, fêted 

with bell-pepper confetti and a flurry of feta. 

And so—having mixed and mingled—to bed, 

in the dark sanctuary of a well-covered bowl.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Max Pixel

In a white shade (Day 907)

Sultry   the day

dark in the underbelly

ancient   paved with

shards of colored tiles

in a white shade   you

plum-taut and pale

one arm outstretched

always   will you wait

there   I but a step away

later   no matter 

how slow we drove

lavender hills rose and 

fell beneath us   dozens 

of butterflies dove into 

our grille   committed

like you   to a swift 

and sovereign demise

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Samuel (CC BY 2.0)

via Wikimedia Commons

If you listen (Day 906)

Listen   listen   short story 

to tell    about Sartre 

and Miles and the day I fell 

beneath a Cartagena taxi 

(woke up two or three months 

later   in Chicago   they say)

About old cafés   Lear jets  

sleeping in snow   and   

listen   that hospital   

they saved me (I learned 

how to live there   

from a young soldier

with no legs)

About Jerusalem  Damascus

Antietam   and I’ll let you 

know which candidate 

I voted for (and will again—

I’ll explain why   if you listen)

But mostly   I will tell you   

no shit   how a stubborn

90-year-old woman can 

save you   when you lay   

alone and broken 

4,000 miles from home

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: George Hodan/PublicDomainPictures

Midday (905)

Deep between

buildings   wind

zigzags   chases

hectic light

reflections erupt

flaring   subsiding

jagged cacophony

color bleached

midday thin

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

You, where you are (Day 904)

Dragonfly questions ride 

water-weighted air.

No answers blossoming on 

the trees today, none undulating 

in the crystal run, 

where minnows nibble your toes, 

nor hidden, semi-precious, 

among rounded stones 

rattling, tumbling toward freedom 

on the river’s tousled bed. 

And so you wait—an eddy, collecting 

broken artifacts, while others 

rush past, borne along by 

the same current that deposited 

you where you are.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Picryl

Haiku for Day 903

Softly, sparrows dream.

Grasses recline on low dunes.

Waves whisper and sigh.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

White after Labor Day (Day 902)

He drove red   pony bottle 

sweating between his thighs

dire straits in the deck   they were 

his friends   she pretended 

to like them   who later refused 

to talk to her    this was not 

her first   but her first with him   

slot symphony   off season 

boardwalk   dark early and cold   

bare shoulders   shoes too tight   

white after labor day   maybe 

that was why   he told her 

too late   she was already gone

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: Rhys Asplundi (CC BY 2.0)

Unwilling (901)

Their voices are low, that couple 

in the corner. Hushed, reverential. 

Their quiet laughter far too intimate 

for such close quarters. Squirming, 

childlike, the chair’s sharp edges 

digging into her hips, she angles 

herself away from the interlopers, 

but cannot unhear their secrets—

secrets among girls, blossoming, 

pale in the hummingbird flourescence.

Her lips compress, twisting into a tilde 

of disdain, as she draws herself up, 

spine rigid as a flagpole, signaling 

the impatience of an unwilling heart.

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Surf (Day 900)

Loose waves unspool   spilling 

across a sheen of coral sand

in succession   dawning edges 

frothing and fizzing   deepening 

into midnight translucence   

pausing   retreating   measuring 

unknowable distances 

between one breath and another

(c) 2019, by Hannah Six

Image: bootsbowsandbeaches/Pixabay