The waiting
& the slowing down
The sudden rush
of comings & goings
The bustle of planning
pushing darkness
for a while to the corner
The sound of doors
opening & closing
& opening just a little
& again the waiting
perpetual
& the slowing down
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
And those volumes thousands
of words better left unsaid
they burst open one night
covers ajar pages abandoned
leaving a sea of clues
and just the thought
of missing you showed
the corner we had turned
on that new street life was odd
at first wasn’t it the soft ringing
of trust being chipped and
chipped away the razing of walls
that took no time at all to build
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Eleven p.m. Someone hammering on that saggy roof over there. Nocturnal urban woodpecker. Neighbors ignore the racket. What’re you gonna say? See that 7-11 a few houses down? Guy robbed it last year. With a machete. I ask you, who the hell wakes up and thinks: I’m broke. Where’s my 30-inch, undergrowth-clearing curved blade? After, dumbass hid in a shed across the street. Even our crappy cops were able to find him. Now this man here — he should not be sitting on that porch every day when school lets out, if you know what I mean. Likes the girls. Lady up the street looked him up. Someone oughta call 9-1-1. But they never come. Look at that old lady over there with the bucket: 98 years old. Never eats anything but fruit and vegetables. Gives her cat cooking oil. The old guy’s her son, lives with her. Smokes five packs a day. Won’t buy them at the 7-11, though. Says “Whaddya think, I got a death wish?”
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Light me a sunset
peaks aflame
with coral & gold
only because I asked
bring me tomorrow
bright as childhood
& sweet dressed up
as someday soon
leave it at my door
& ring my bell
then run away & run
away & run
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Jumbled words compete—
each more tempting than the last
—for space on the page.
Some poems arrive in full bloom.
Others, tight green buds, must be coaxed.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Again green spears pierce
a tangle of leaves in the corner
Been away
birds sing in the dark
just before sunrise & I count the days
Haven’t seen you in a while
there was a boy years ago
long dark ride eyes like night
rain painting the fogged windows
There ain’t no good guys
but of course that
went the way of all things fourteen
There ain’t no bad guys
& now I wonder
at our casual innocence enthralled
by warm hands urgent whispers
There’s only you and me, and
at how easily We
just disagree
succumb to the anesthesia of ennui
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Italicized lines are from
“We just disagree” (1977)
Recorded by Dave Mason
Songwriter Jim Krueger
morning air alive and birds
circling the sun a delicous
feeling of waiting
I can hardly bear to look
away come out
we will meet— follow
their trail to the end
of the road and beyond
the way we did before
our days grew so
relentlessly pleasant that we
simply drifted off to sleep
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
apple pie landscape flat as a month
of joy greener than heaven if less
persuasive from folding chairs
old men grunt time the three o’clock
crawling toward the junction slack
lines drift like poetry on the current
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Without speaking she asks
and the table dark as black coffee
so much five lemons
in a blue and white bowl
imperfectly balanced on the edge
of their own patient reflection
how can I say no
(c) 2020, by Hannah Six
In that one the sun always shines,
silver planes glinting like sequins
in a sky blue as the Pacific.
In that one you and I are golden,
baby oil all the protection we need
in our endless poolside hours.
In that one you turn toward me,
as that man saunters by. We hear
he’s a dream, and laugh till we cry.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
opening a shred
of light drifts
stark vulnerable
to the unswept floor
briefly soundlessly
and closing
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
rippling black lace
on pale blue silk
tall oaks sing amid
rivers of winter
all the colors of lilies
flow through my hands
knitting watery light
in a rapture of warmth
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Charles Courtney Curran, Lotus Lilies (1888),
oil on canvas, via Wikimedia Commons
nothing can stand between
our persistent past
and our fading future
climbing above the clouds
for the first time we admire
our own names
the artifacts we reach for
when we need to make sense
grabbing at low hanging fruit
and holding on
until our arms glisten with juice
we find ourselves alone tumbling
like the sky back to our beginning
flawed and unable unwilling
to repair the years of damage
we want we want we want
what is essential a map
an infallible compass a wild vision
of our own magic imperfect
we are broken vessels
stronger for being shattered and
painstakingly mended once more
© 2020, by Hannah Six
The thing about spring is:
She’s fickle.
Arriving late. Leaving early.
Warming up, and suddenly
cool.
A blithe spirit, she is easy
to love, hard to know, and
somehow, always in style.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Tom Thomson, Early Spring (1917),
oil on wood panel, via Wikimedia Commons
The sun a murder
of crows icebound watching
a play & truth
fanned out golden along
the garden path watching
what they said of course
across the table vast
blue skies whispered a murder
of crows astonished clouds
of culpability & snow where
once relentless heat
transformed fanned out
like cards like wings coal black
against the sky frozen branches
snap & they wonder how
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Qian Xuan, Early Autumn (13th Century),
Ink and colors on paper scroll, via Wikimedia
So familiar the falling
into Saturday feeling
the end of another
perilous journey from
phase to phase precise
as the rhythmic plink plink
of a stringed instrument
close as Sunday morning
in that precious between
songs flow like streams
one by one a comforting
fire melts the hours
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
When you come desperate
for answers for comfort
is it gold you want or tea
or beautiful words
artfully arranged
in columns against
a backdrop of new-fallen snow
is it a performance lavishly
staged tragic and wise
when you come do you mean
to go sheltering in the nighttime
scents of a moss-hung forest or
diving below foam-crested waves
far beyond the point desperate
for answers do you seek
truth or some pale version
masquerading as the morning mist
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Brocken Inaglory (CC BY-SA 3.0)
via Wikimedia Commons
How impatiently you now attend
where your name used to open doors
can you bear life without
your diamond necklaces and rings
fingers drooping with their weight
those were brilliant days it’s true
precious and unremarkable
you see the razor’s edge is colder
than you think but step outside
where white winds slice
your barren trees and you a blossom
struggling to bloom might find
strength tracing the fine silk strands
in newly mended webs may even
dance to some faint music filtering
through your fractured window panes
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: PxHere
The sun is shining on our table
outside, in the corner of the patio.
Are you there, looking for me?
Shade slides across pavement
as afternoon fades into evening,
heat melting into a softness
that quiets the city’s heartbeat.
Are you still waiting for me?
Nearby, in a brick-walled shop,
shelves lean under the weight
of aging books, tended by an old
gray cat and a cantankerous man.
Maybe I will find you here?
Perhaps you page through a slim
volume of poetry, or admire faded
watercolors of the California coast.
Have you found what you sought?
As I approach, your eyes focus more
slowly than they used to, then
sparkle in sudden recognition.
How will we find each other now?
You browse slowly, so I wander
with you, companionably, until
we succumb to the cafe’s siren call.
Could we visit it, just once more?
Someday, for you, for me, there
will be no more waiting. We will
take, forever, our own sweet time.
© 2020, by Hannah Six
Slowly spring seeps
out of the day
already turning silver
around its edges
fading to rain and mist
after one brief taste
of warmth—a promise
of blooming flowers
gentle evenings
hovering briefly on
the cooling air
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Image: Suzuki Harunobu, Snow (1769),
woodblock print, via Wikimedia Commons
you will never be alone
in this world
even when lost dwelling alone
in the work
drafting the facts of a life
even when once again
inhabiting the vivid dream
of childhood or listening
to leaves of poetry whispering
among the knotted roots
of prose and never
when you sense approaching
mystery the beloved
who finds you in a sheltered
corner of the palest cove
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Public domain image
that’s not the point
sighing she folded
an unmentionable letter
having swum up
and out from under
all those lilies roses
—nothing personal
never regretting
the promises
or the friends
who confused her
with a proper lady
taking measured steps
ever imprisoned
by massive dreams
no offers of help
no hope of renewal
resting on deep
green currents
trusting they would
take her wherever
she needed to be
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
(Public domain image)
