“...and lemon peels.” (Day 587)

“...and lemon peels.”

in a small notebook   written 

neatly   in my own hand:

words of such significance  

I devoted an entire page  

(otherwise untouched)  

to remembering them

and now   I cannot 

remember why

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

Different Perspective (Day 460)

listen 
to a different 

      perspective

barking

   ghetto voices

swearing 

   git th’ fuck inside

      at their children

no leashes  

      this is how they talk

few restraints

      to their children

   I SAID th’ FUCK 

   in th’ HOUSE

lunging 

   on a whim

plunging 

   their fangs

into your wrist 

   or the skin

delicate as a finch 

   wrapped 

or a sweet pea

   around your throat 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Imperfect (Day 445)

look                      over there

see                       where 

we once were       it seems     

like                        always  

the                        sun               

moon                    and stars were

blazing                  red 

raging                   with anger        

in the west            don’t tell me 

their                      God’s in             

charge                  my spirit

still                        bears the 

prophesied           scars

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sorbyphoto/Pixabay

Just a glimpse (Day 407)

Once a smooth 

emerald-velvet breast

—where silver lights 

played and twigs rattled, 

concrete crackled, 
and sometimes,
sweetness sang
—deserts now splinter 

into angry glass, newly 

mown sand transformed 

by a blast of blazing 

heat such as the world 

has seldom known.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sand dunes in Rub' al Khali, Arabia's "empty quarter". 
Acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission 
and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, aboard 
NASA's Terra Earth-orbiting satellite.

The Beast (Day 405)

The beast is stirring. Do you hear her? 

Roaring like war in the middle distance?

Ouroboros consuming her own tail, we 

saw her curled and assumed she dreamed, 

spanning the globe with her iron grip, 

squeezing ever tighter as she slept, 

mistook her eternal cycle for a promise, 

assumed the promises she made she kept,

missed seeing the signs of life simply suspended.

The beast is waking. Do you hear her? 

Hissing and steaming from on high, 

Pele’s rapturous rest was interrupted, and 

with a great volcanic sigh she stretched and rose, 

forked tail unfurling slowly, blotting out the sun,

casting an insidious shadow we didn’t know 

would burn rather than freeze, would bring us 

to our knees, not to our senses, after all.

The beast is rearing. Do you hear her? 

Readying for battle on a field of fire we 

refused to quench, a nightmare no one believed 

would form again. Friends grow chill and soon 

their hatred blossoms into enmity. Enemies’ poison 

grows more deadly still. And we, the unprepared, 

freeze in her gaze’s glare, we helpless prey, 

assuredly the fierce predator’s intended kill.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Fantasy Dimentions

Just Looking (Day 396)

Just looking

at the peeling paint

and thinking: Something 

is different. 

You see, I needed 

those dreams 

about my hands 

falling apart

to remember—How 

fortunate I was

to have not

locked the door.

Then I realized: 

You had already left 

the room.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: toufik Lerari via Wikimedia Commons