Outside, the eaves shed fat drops of water
which landed below with a metallic clink
that brought caves to mind. A candle
flickered on the mantel, where seven photos
were arranged in tiny frames. She chose one
and studied it briefly, as if looking for answers,
then replaced it and gazed out the window.
two blossoms, then one
wind tugs at rain-slicked branches
one blossom, then none
Glancing side to side
the fan describes perfect arcs
with unobserved grace.
How often we fail to see
such beauty in the mundane.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Attachment leads to suffering,
they say. And so, I will suffer.
Because how could I not
hold you—closely, tenderly—
a secret treasure
in the heart of my heart?
After a jagged rain, when
every dispirited cloud slips away,
revealing a forget-me-not sky,
it is not the sun, but you
enveloping me in a glow
of pure contentment.
And the handful of stars
that shine fiercest before dawn
pale in comparison
to the white-hot joy
of reaching out in the darkness
to find you there,
where you always are.
I cherish you because I must.
And, when, one day, we part,
I will suffer less, knowing
that breathless, clenching pain is
love, longing for a place to land,
and that everything
has always been as it should.
How could it have been otherwise?
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Suddenly, the shadows —
four o’clock shade where
there had been none at seven
And the winged things singing
in the trees are no longer
birds but crickets cicadas
and katydids whose chirps
and hums and whirs fill the air
long into the lengthening nights
Summer is slipping away
but not yet autumn
is nudging at the mornings
but there is time still to walk
barefoot in dew-cooled grass
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Lipstick dotted her front teeth, and on each eyelid hovered
a dash of electric blue, somewhere in the vicinity of her lashes.
She said: Isn’t it droll, how things seem to go from bad to worse?
She said: A friend in need is a pain in the ass!
She said: Pour me another one, would you sweetie?
She was seldom refused.
And now, suitcase in tow, she smiled at the cloudy sky,
and walked away without a single backward glance.
She said: Any old goat can manage a grand entrance, but
it takes real sophistication to make a memorable departure.
© 2020, by Hannah Six
Somewhere, fishing boats
sway on a placid harbor
a column of vultures
wheels in a glassy sky
fed by glaciers, a creek
bisects a wild meadow
and the world is
about to burst
into bloom
doubling back on itself
again and again
a gravel road climbs
the air is soft
the ocean warm
and time itself
is patient
all this, somewhere,
but — today —
not here.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Goodbye is a blank page
waiting for stories
of the past
and of the future.
It is an empty chair,
placed just so before
a garden-facing window,
a parking space
where no car is,
a pillow
on which a beloved
head once rested,
and now will not.
Goodbye is the lyrics
without the melody,
a poem,
without language or form,
an empty space
in the inverted V
of a flock of geese,
flying southward in September.
Goodbye is unresolved,
a question
without answer,
a dream
without a dreamer,
a map, continuously unfolding,
urging us toward
the unbearable treasure
that is our birthright.
For Pat Schneider, remarkable artist, cherished friend
© 2020 by Hannah Six
...for he is a cobra,
& will forever be
fork-tongued
and fanged.
Only the naive
believe they can
lead him.
Only the foolish
trust him
to lead.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
smoke and the past
and flames a full moon setting
what is there to do
but pause retreat measure
our words tiny blue frogs
delicate lethal alert to
stirrings in the air
we hide on distant shores
behind silences wide as the ocean
knowing beyond knowing
if we whisper about this choking cloud
of fire and ash it is possible that
no one will hear
© 2020 by Hannah Six
you are
a disturbance
in the air
obstructing
my view
of forever
please
step to
your right
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Where once blue shade pools
beckoned, promising respite,
frantic wasps swarm
Ghostlike, I linger, drawing
neither notice nor contempt.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
As my day began
yours concluded.
I heard you, but
you did not sound
like I expected.
Here I am, I said,
I am here. Silence.
An unfamiliar feeling,
but I know an ending
when I hear it.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Fear is like that sometimes
expectant ready
to set the world on fire but
more often it is like waking
from a deep sleep shivering
yet unwilling to go
in seach of another blanket
© 2020 by Hannah Six
eight-thirty nine o’clock
cool as gingerbread
on a cold countertop
we face each other over
the mail-scattered table
mugs brimming with
reheated coffee no cream
out of sugar
it’s not the words
but the achingly polite
tone itchy
as a cheap wool sweater
when all you long for
is the sympathetic embrace
of worn flannel sheets
© 2020 by Hannah Six
the year was a shallow night
seeping like ink
from an empty bottle
cruel as a breeze that cools
the cooling air red as wine
slightly stale with dreams
unfolded carefully
as letters pink with promise
and eggshell excuses
draw close whispered
the lonesome thief of sleep
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Once she’d opened it, she knew,
there would be no going back.
So she let it wilt like a wildflower
in her hand, and took another sip,
gazing at a world stained blue
and green by delicate bottles, carefully
arranged along the windowsills.
She looked at them with loathing.
What she’d imagined: Freedom.
No connections to anchor her to history,
except a lingering sense of beforeness
rippling and reflecting off the water.
Most days, she ventured north or south
along the shore, the sand a blank page
embossed with a single set of footprints.
From far off in the distance,
a ringing, insistent, intrusive as
a late-night motorist seeking directions.
At last, the curtain was about to rise
on the well-rehearsed performance
in which they would burst into flames
— a long distance crash and burn —
and days would pass before
there was news of any survivors.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
This shadowless world
Deflating into darkness
Sky white as the moon
© 2020 by Hannah Six
4. C__
Not a witch but, if you had ever been,
you would have forgotten by then
how to cast a spell. Still, you have to agree
that your snaking strands of silvery hair
and walnut shell face might lead some
to believe what was untrue,
and isnt that a spell of its own, somehow?
Two towels, one hand towel and a washcloth.
Surrounded by familiars —
you had them by the dozens, didn’t you,
though you would have called them your children,
or your family or your friends,
if you had called them anything at all,
which never did.
Two towels, one hand towel and a washcloth.
In exchange, a toothless grin, your eyes glittering
from deep within an impenetrable forest,
What was it your silence whispered in my ear?
wakening in me an earnest tenderness, curiosity,
and that unique brand of pity reserved
by the young for the fallen aged.
Two towels, one hand towel and a washcloth,
until the day your familiars were removed,
and you, and nothing else was required.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
At the end of the day,
I can think of only one place
I’d rather be.
But those plums have already
ripened and fallen.
Pillows softly settling
underhead, I slip into the deep
blue water of remembrance
and swim, unencumbered.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
The bark was oozing
snow the color of pigeons,
drops of water falling
one by one
into the only book she kept.
That was the last straw.
Later, after much sobbing
(& many kisses),
she solaced herself,
determined to be witty
as a doomed countess
in the shadow of a storm.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
3. T__
eyes closed I summon you golden
child sitting cross legged in your door
every time when I look in the mirror
guitar cradled in your lap
following notes and chords
down a mossy path into a sunlit corner
only you could see
all these lines on my face getting clearer
and you I wonder where have you gone
since you bestowed your talisman on us?
always a lucky nut you said with a smile
like the full moon setting
the past is gone
and though I wish you only peacocks
hummingbirds and cranes
with my eyes closed I still see
you forever innocent of the crimes
perched like ravens in your future
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Fine as silt today’s news
settles between the reflections
painting these dusky walls
(c) by Hannah Six
I thought you would be,
but you’re not.
It seems that I was wrong.
Instead of waiting
to find out,
I judged you all along.
We don’t need to share
beliefs — let’s agree
to disagree —
but I’ll stand up for
your right to yours.
You’d do the same for me.
Opinions make such
boring friends,
and so do hate and blame.
Inviting everyone
makes for
a more exciting game.
© 2020 by Hannah Six
2. K__
Once a confidante you have become
over the years an enigma a flash
of sun on stucco in the other room
Bo became oft-abducted Hope’s
unlikely hero what color
was your hair the scent of cigarettes
smoke hanging in blue waves
on cool dark air some lines never blur
you were there and then I was gone
where did you go a mountain
of white towels hot from the dryer
the ache of a fractured bone
© 2020 by Hannah Six
pale yellow walls
scattered with a
collection of memories
violet blue sky
trees and mist
moonlight. my heart
stayed there and
I find myself
searching for breath.
it all began
with the first
glimmer of snow
like moths under
the streetlights. but
spring always arrives
sunlight falling through
the clouds like
silk scarves. now
there is little
else to give
or I would.
so we dance
and what dances
blooms again tomorrow.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
He was always so good
at telling her what was
wrong.
And she excelled
at listening
to him.
He told her
how he had been
persecuted
(My ex claimed
I had anger issues
but she’s crazy),
and she listened
to him.
He told her
that most of the world
was inferior
(Every one of them are
lazy cowards),
and she listened
to him.
He told her
about every little thing
that was wrong
with her,
and she listened
to her grandmother,
who always told her:
“When someone complains
about others,
you’d best believe he is
talking about himself.”
© 2020 by Hannah Six
Feverish sea of rippling
quicksilver yearning
for the just-set sun rose-gold
breathes into a blue horizon
another day pauses —
this breathless interlude
— before embracing all
the mysteries of twilight
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
surging river of glass
shards of blue slice silken clouds
transparent as time
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
Carefully, he cleans.
Revealing siren belly fur.
Pristine, touchable.
I bear the scars of folly.
Caress it at your peril.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
1. M__
You always called during dinner.
(This was before we took to eating in our rooms).
Bowls would be passed from hand to hand,
my sister and I making faces at
the slurping noises coming
from across the table, where the boys,
to whom eating was serious business, shoveled
and swallowed impassively.
When the phone rang, mid-meal, everyone knew.
In an irritating sing-song voice,
someone would announce, unnecessarily:
Daaad, M__’s calling again!
ShiTT, he’d mutter, emphasizing the T as if annoyed,
though we knew he wasn’t.
We always knew it was you on the other end of the line,
because we could hear you wailing in distress from the other room.
(Hysterical, we children of the patriarchy called it
— a word derived from the Greek hystera, meaning ‘uterus,’
pertaining to female symptoms
formerly believed to be caused by a defect in the womb.)
Having known you better ten years later,
and having lived many tens of years after that, I wish we had
understood your deep well of desperation,
understood that it was more than another evening’s entertainment,
understood that most things are not as they appear at first glance
— a friendly smile, a joke, a marriage —
understood how, out of all human feelings, helplessness
is, perhaps, the most devastating.
No, we could not have known, being children, and thus cruel.
But, maybe, our lack of understanding was for the best.
Because how could we, having once witnessed
how much one person could lose,
how very far it was possible to fall, and keep falling,
have taken even one confident step forward?
As for you, M__, you were a kind soul, and would not
have wished that upon us. Neither would you have known that,
on the nights you called, Dr. __’s dinner was always eaten cold.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
back then they replaced
that deep blue jazz
with bland white skies
such a downer
someone said too much
reverb alight with grace
everyone knew this
would never be
an inferno of creation but
merely a fey marble beauty
cool with occasional flares
of brilliance a pleasant day
& now all they do is adore
the history of that which
they sent soaring on its own
flaming wings
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six