Idle Fumes (Day 121)

Photo: B137 via Wikimedia Commons

cars idle fumes rise 

like steam 

parking lot black with sun 

hazy overhead   

cashier said we're due 

for storms when it gets this warm 

and wind circles like a half-blind 

shark in shallow water 

waves of exhaust_ion swell

building underfoot 

like melting tar 

but no 

that's the slow freight 

graffitied cars oily 

reverberating through 

the kudzu

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Hopeful Tanka (Day 119)

Feathered choristers pray.

Short notes whirl above the flutes.

The shining wings beat.

A temple of new leaves swings.

Hope gathers on the horizon.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Sweet photo by Frank Schulenburg, "House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) with an Oregon Junco in Strawberry, California"

Words Fail (Day 118)

Some days the words fail
You refusing to come home
Leaving the Muse alone
With silence
Like a barren page



(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Let Me (Day 69)

Let me
            help
                    hold
sing to             cry for
you
     know
    that the water I offer
will be soft
        cool
             quenching
     that the fire in my heart
will burn
    blue as lightning
                               as tears
music             bruises
will heal
      your heart
           when you lose
what         holds you      up
will
will not
       soften
            in unbreakable time
which will
      continue to pass
without
      feeling
            like a dream
you        will
                    outlast
this

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

***No human being is illegal.***

Image: Ojibwa village at Sault Ste. Marie in 1846, Paul Kane (1810-71)

Lonely From The Inside (Day 49)

The body knows 

lonely from the inside, 

bone deep:

ice-cold toes in the midst

of summer, 

or that odd gnawing 

hunger that comes on a few 

hours after Thanksgiving 

dinner. In the morning,

the body knows

it as a hollowness,

an echoing empty house

in which someone was 

supposed to have been 

living. On the outer rim

of sleep, the body knows

lonely so deep and all

consuming that, instead 

of reeling away in fright,

the two embrace, 

the feeling pulled up

and around like 

a comforter 

on a winter night. 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Instead (Day 43)

Just now, I thought
There's not a lot
Going on inside
My head.

This realized,
I recognized
The fog within
And said:

I just can't write
A poem tonight,
So I wrote this
Instead.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six


For information about ME/CFS, visit:
http://solvecfs.org/what-is-mecfs/
#MECFS #MillionsMissing

Late-Winter Storm (Day 42)

 

Late-Winter Storm

Clouds, flat as irons, and just as grey,

Topped with swirls of mist, smooth the pale sky,

Leaving behind the impression of a warm spring day.

Tomorrow's snow is palpable as a sigh,

Encouraging sap to stir and songbirds to nest.

I, listening in delight, deplore late winter's lie,

It's ineffable allure never fails to test

Those fragile hearts, who through resilience win—

In the end, when winter dies, they're summer-blessed.

(c) 2017 by Hannah Six

The Lost and The Conquered (Day 38)

 

Photo: Votesmall via WikiMedia

The Lost and The Conquered

Downy sunshine 

reflects the white horizon 

mounds of prairie, green 

   as my people 

   as my old Chevy pickup

A war rages inside me

the lost and the conquered

   cleaning their guns

   claiming their ground

   watering their horses

Maybe this is the pale 

fish skimming the depths 

of my blood 

where I was conceived by 

the dry kiss of a reader 

who returned to his beloved

When the windows are dark 

I sense The Hills 

staining the horizon 

the well-packed bed 

   of my truck straining 

   toward the highway  

luring me, a willing virgin

at home in neither 

East nor West 

but in the middle states 

at ease

in the way 

the undulating wind 

becomes story 

    again and again

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

The Clock (Day 26)

The Clock
By Hannah Six

What they
did not know then:
Unplugged, the clock still ticked
Silenced, the alarm was always
ringing


(c) 2017, by Hannah Six




Note: This poem is a cinquain—a poem or stanza of five lines. I based today's poem on a specific cinquain form used by Adelaide Crapsey. For more information, visit this Academy of American Poets web page.