This Desert (Day 512)

We have seen this

desert where 

you would send

the innocent.

We have seen this

desert where

their lives will grow

hard and barren.

We have seen this

desert where 

you will nurture

their nightmares.

It is empty.

Nearly as empty

as your hearts. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

A story worth telling (Day 346)

This woman is reading 

aloud 

to her children,

after working a 10-hour day.

This woman is a warrior.

She is on a mission of

wisdom, knowing deep in her 

battered and dazzling soul,

that there’s no better way 

to teach them 

about the world, about

how to stand up and

how speak out, 

how to engage 

how to help and

how to fight for 

what they know 

is right, and 

how to know 

what is right. 

“Imagine,” she says to them, 

without saying the words.

“Imagine how all of our 

voices coming together 

could lift us up, and 

break us out. Now 

that will be a story

worth telling.”

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: “In the end...” by Doug Youvan

Exurban Christmas (Day 312)

The aisles are all full 

to bursting, floor to ceiling, 

side to side, the walkways, 

like arteries, narrowed 

by excess, and yet 

just a few bags in hand.

A whole lot of something, or 

a whole lot of nothing—

it barely matters in this 

tumbledown, blue-collar town, 

where the aisles are all full 

to bursting, but there’s little 
worth buying these days.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

His Rendezvous (Day 310)

In the end he was quickly granted his 

rendezvous   saying little   connecting among 

the ghosts of school-room conversations after 

his charade of rochambo crushed the bodies 

of those children with their knowing eyes.

Little by little we begin to break ranks   

mothers unable to restrain us with the old 

dreams we left behind in their wombs   

fingering our superstitious thoughts like prayer 

beads and furrowing our brows when we realize 

none of our messages have been opened   

none received. 

And yet many linger in the hard winter sun

waiting to see   knowing that men such as 

these always do themselves in by 

murdering what they have already won 

during a time when they believe they haven’t.

Note: This poem was inspired by a few random lines

of The Complete Essays, by Michel de Montaigne, 

which I chopped, scrambled, and tinkered with for

an enjoyable hour or two.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image based on a photo by Gage Skidmore

Dark-eyed boys (Day 277)

two dark-eyed boys

their father 

at the window parting 

red curtains  kick a ball 

where the greenest grass 

grows  watered by tears 

she cried when she kissed them 

goodbye  there  then

all she could hope for was 

a warm day  lamenting that  

during the rain  they had 

not been able to play outdoors

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image:sasint

Jump high the stairs (Day 274)

jump high the bleached and splintered stairs

today was so many no’s and don’ts

and now the children are poison darts

and now she come here and just give me a hug

no really that’s what she said

the parents know that water’s good

and beating on the window 

set the crickets down with heavy sun

squeaks and whistles rattling every tree

i won’t back up ‘til the battle’s won 

and here I sit

come on let’s go out front ‘cause she’s only five 

or ten minutes away

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: KRiemer