after

after all this month has brought me
you would think I could summon up
more than four lines
for a final moment before the curtain falls


but after all this month has done to me
you're lucky
to get this.



I am a
jumbled, mangled
sunburned and sleepy
pile of words

used too often;
I need all the ones I have left.



--see you next year.

absent

another day where the time
slips through my fingers,
falls out of holes created
in the pockets of my
genes--something about this
must be hereditary,
for it lingers, invasive,
festering
like a disease.


but really,
it isn't the time that's the problem:
it's my perception.

today I took a test,
finished a final project,
and put myself on the internet
for an assignment--
more than enough to comprise
a day started at 4 pm.

what bothers is the time I stole from myself
yesterday,
the missing hours swiped and spent
avoiding all my goals;

7 hours that should have been mine,
but instead belonged
to no one at all.

--
Title is prompt, and the fact that I stayed up 'til 7 am this morning, then got very little sleep, then did all my Computer Essential homework (almost done with that class!). And I have to get up at 6 tomorrow, and then I'm volunteering at a Japan Festival all day tomorrow. Ugh. Not looking forward to it.

waiting

I expected fanfare
fireworks,
sunsets and springtime.

I waited all fall, all winter
knowing it would come.


I never expected
to just stumble across it

lying in the dirt
like a crumpled candy wrapper.


--
Title and this picture are prompt. Short because it's been a busy day, and I'm dead tired.

because

just because it floats on air
is no reason
to let it float away


we might as well fill our water balloons
with witches.




--
Title and all the astronomy studying I've been doing are prompts. Really, people, it's hard to get that helium back out of the atmosphere. Maybe you could give it a little respect? It's only been around since the beginning of the universe. :)

climb

a place to hold on,
to watch, wait,
and wonder
for stars make shaky handgrips
as the night becomes the day,

and shadow surrenders
its courtyard eclipse
to let water play
in the sparkles of sun--
and leave afternoon plans,
for the moment,
undone

as the bustle fades to benches
and places to rest
in the lazy summer light,
and buzzing conversation
slips a breeze
through the circuit of these stones.

for these private public places,
sitting with no one to see
but tall terraced buildings
with mirrorless eyes
and a distracted sun
pacing slowly through the sky,


none but this handle to hold onto
and let the hours pass,
to watch the ways of a weary world
when it feels itself unwatched.

--
Title and this picture are prompt.

surrounded (bonus poem)

surrounded by the pitter patter
of rain and rustling grass
as summer storm
binds loose leaves into books:

the memories come,
swirling a maze of whispers--
midnight and full dawn.
peeling back the sky
to see what lies beyond


and if these words together can form
the time we all dreamed of,
chasing a thought through four minds
that find each note without question,
as the tone of the air
leads fingers and throat to where
they will best strike the world.

--
Why do I write the most poems on days when I'm clearly incapable of cohesive thought? I feel like I should be inspired, but I'm not. Oh well; maybe more will come of sleeping on it.

alone enough (bonus poem)

alone enough to find the words
that fell in the cracks as it rained,
things like rust and dust--
rhymes I never would conceive
to end my lines,
jumble into a steady syllabic mess.

though there's a beat to the patter,
even as it slips out of making sense.
a rubble of letters turned upright
into tangled languages,
weaving enough ideas to wear
backwards
like eyes on the nape of your neck.

--
Yeah, I started this, and didn't really finish it. Definitely got lost in that second stanza; I don't like where it went.