How We Talk Now (Day 115)

(Travel Journal Page, Laura Mandelbaum)

How we talk now 

text now thoughts through 

hands thumbs screen 

like pen on paper 

no midnight scent of ink

or glide of gold nib soft 

as caramel on a slick  

old-fashioned journal page

we can write in bed 

or on the train or in the car or 

simply speak 

our stories lives letters

poetry on the page 

in our own voices 

different voices careless 

boisterous silly strong   

tongue fingers thumbs 

an accent different from 

the gentle rolling 

hybrid print and cursive

that I used to write 

my father's mother like 

notes dashed off to mine 

now love dispatched 

post haste with 

a few taps of my thumbs

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Tempest (Day 103)

Photo: Craig Lindsay

Thunderheads

piling high over the Appalachians, 

shades of 

old bruises: gunmetal, lavender,   

restless air quivers, 

birds swirl, like 

autumn leaves falling skyward,

suddenly: stillness

poised before the tempest's bittersweet 

atonement, 

absolving the world of its sins

(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

Creation (Day 39)

 

Creation

ablaze, falling leaves

sparked by sunlight, 

thoughts drift like mist, 

collecting in corners

like ancient stories, 

heaped in jute baskets 

and banked 

against my windows 

dreams, rising from

the depths of time,

sharp sapphire wishes, 

swirl—a spiraling 

cyclone of indigo 

droplets spattering 

across my paper, each 

one a prayer 

and its answer

crystalline wrists turned 

skyward, vulnerable

miracles collecting 

in my palms like 

small red birds— 

breathing lilacs, I am 

awash in creation's 

grace

(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

Their Unfortunate Crime (Day 32)

 

Photo: Jacob Riis

Their Unfortunate Crime

Those people  there, 

not we   not us   not me     they 

are the problem   See them  

leaning on that wall 

Sitting cross-legged in the dirt 

that collects like unpanned gold 

beneath their nails

The rusted old cars in their 

sere yards choked with weeds

The flies   the mud   the guarded 

bloodshot eyes of their 

sweating bloated babies

Lord   We should adopt them all 

what kind of parents would

soldiers could   kids delirious 

in hooded jackets   pants down 

to there   Thank God   

they are not    here   we are not 

there    not them   they are 

not us   and that 

in our westernized opinion 

is their most unfortunate crime

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

From the Outside (Day 31)

 

From the outside, looking in 

the mullioned window down 

a small slope from the sidewalk

where she pauses, leash in hand,

through shades and curtains wide 

open to the evening, which comes 

early now that September is sailing 

out on a cool northern breeze:

A candle burns, unthreatened 

by three small lamps, arranged so

their dull glow softens the edges

of encroaching gloom—soft-white

bulbs recently planted, in preparation 

for December's chill, 

when their rosy bloom will fill 

even the dimmest corners 

of the low-ceilinged room.  

This house, this home—all 

eighteenth-century doors and 

deep stone sills—tumbles and spills 

into a deep, wide garden, where

—come summer—fireflies will hover, 

and the family she imagines 

as characters in an Austen novel,

endure their mild dramas 

amidst towering oaks and buckled 

sidewalks, living and loving 

and drinking tea—all the while

unaware of the melancholy 

woman whose dog pauses,
thoughtfully, just here,
each evening so she may commit
their lives to memory.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Tell Me How (Day 30)

Photo: Atchoo, via WikiMedia 

Tell Me How

Tell me about the dandelion 

weightlessness of fine blonde hair 

in a deep tub of warm water

Tell me about the hushed 

porcine grunts and whimpers 

made by a litter of nursing pups, 

aquiver with urgency, while 

their mother, eyes half open,

rests patiently on her side

Tell me how, when the fog 

rolls in from the darkness,

an echoing silence descends 

on the harbor, muffling 

the thunder of waves 

against the jetty, while 

magnifying the commonplace,

rendering each overheard voice 

an unexpected intimacy

And tell me how—when you 

last saw her, and took her 

in your arms to wrench 

a final goodbye from the aching

 knot in your chest, 

you suddenly realized 

that, for a moment, she knew 

who you were 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Willing Captive (Day 29)

Willing Captive

Siren song, 

the luxuriant purr

—a silken cord,

it binds my wrist

—and I, powerless 

to resist, reach out 

my willing captive 

hand, to pet 

the pet 

whose pet I am.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

How Will You Be Remembered? (Day 28)

How Will You Be Remembered?

Your legacy

is too 

small

to receive

our obligation.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

(Went a little crazy with my marker, and blacked out one of my words!)

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.