

The streets
Hush!
Not a word!
Silence is all around
Only to be heard!
A life under a life
Shadows emerge
To live another life
The urge with a verge
As Doe begins to sleep
Hancock awakes
Steals from you a bit
Of what life makes
Makes Doe the fool
For not having lived a life
Concoct calm with cruel
And makes sweet from strife
The early hours show
The balm of the streets
As if night never happened
So life never mistreats
But in the streets they lie
Thieves of the night
Yes, they cheat and yes they lie
At sunrise, out of sight
Rumble
It’s all quiet and peace
And boring
Up above an eagle is calling
while soaring
It seems when things
Rumble
Feathers are ruffled
Earth will gently tumble
If it’s all quiet, it doesn’t mean
All is peace
It means an empty volcano
Missing a piece
When a stomach claims calm
Something’s wrong
But when it loses its charm
It belongs.
There’s something in the rumble
That makes sense
There can’t be something to defend
Without an offence
Most days we like to rumble
From afar a thunder
It’s a little bit of everything
Just enough wonder
Nowhere
Usher in 1984
Conform with their tag
No face to look for
Move their legs. They lag
Screeching of the board
Nothing to screen the sound
Eternal and infernal, a horde
All are here; no one’s around
Question. Why are they here?
Was it a grimace, or an underhand?
Then celebrated victory with a cheer
Pain in process, no need to understand
There’s an entrance and there’s an exit
But the park is an asphalt vacant lot
It’s everywhere and nowhere, that’s it!
Yes, it is. No, it isn’t. Yes. No, it is NOT!
Welcome them to the rest of their lives
When they had one and they had a choice
And the chose the comfort of their lives
Let them sing now what they’ve sung before: smog; no voice.
Somewhere not here
The ivory staircase of the Titanic
A sailing airship that no sea can drown
The hues that hover are white and pink
And the noise is well matched to the sound
A realm of no realms with paper clouds floating
Transporting celestials wherever they desire
Where everyone one chooses their skin coating
Far better than what they one day aspired
Then a portfolio of faces appear
A promise that was made a long time ago
Who welcome every newcomer with a cheer
Letting them in from where a world that always said no
The all around sound is in an envelope in a bottle
In a place in a space with only grace
No memory of a farewelled world whose boggle
Is why people did what they did never saving face
Hello to this new era of wooed wonders
Unseen by gaze, unheard of by any man,
Only uncaged hearts have capacity for such conundrums
Further, better: eyes can see what has never been a plan.
Windows
When I opened up the windows
I opened up sunlight
And let it through my veins shine
So much I doubted there’s any night
I abandoned the curtains
Too much between me and a view
Windows sectioned, each giving me
Something wild, beautiful and new
It seems there’s a reverse process
So many curtains now, less windows
Am I outside seeing them shut?
Or am I inside watching them close?
Which window is the first to go?
They seem parallel and simultaneous
Am I to decide to let it be decided
Either way, I’m on the tenuous
They say you return a child
but never tell that you lack that attention
As windows close, maybe sunlight
Is just in another dimension
Old
Is there a bridge to it?
That twilight that appears in the night?
It seems be to that one minute
That changes everything in hindsight
Sure the years add the numbers
But the math doesn’t always calculate
Some sleepers beat all the slumbers
All awake suddenly shake and hesitate
And a question remains: what’s the next day
Like jumps between fevers, suddenly alert
And expecting train trips to be fresh like the first day
But both horn’s green and the sprite expert
“Can’t have your cake and eat it too”
Eyes you meet that tell you this testimony
Some looks just condemn ‘it’s through’
And some looks say it’s time’s harmony
Is it a day to celebrate or to mourn?
Tomorrow’ number is a day the calendar
It might be a reminder I was born
Then an X in its place to mark I’m fallible
Should I look forward to it? So may come and gone
Some were cheerful till something took over
And paced silence till the night became the dawn
Then a new day came all dressed in clover
We’re in it together
As if I knew we’d go together
Born of her womb, am I her gift or her curse?
Some people just like to live forever.
Some people, like me, fear far worse.
I wish someone had told me the full story.
The devilish details and the intricate plot
Instead I’m left with a mystery without glory
The past’s ribboned box I daren’t untie the knot
But I’m left to guess through present’s guests
And past’s giant relics as they fade to salt soon
What was the worst part of my family or the best?
That flew my wings to the sun and left me in the shadow of the moon?
What got my mother to have me, will or spite?
Love, I guess, was probably already a well run dry
Two boys on hand, large and loose, no end in sight
And a desolate man, a woman’s situation: do or die
And do she did and planned the deed. Or so I was told.
And sowed my father’s seed and let him know the news
I was told he ran off the rails knowing he was just too old
To tolerate a third and see how much worse he’d become from the prior two
And so my mother gave me love, some version of it
I never understood what exactly was missing
Like every blessed child I felt there was a world and I was in it
Till I lost my father, and she and I were counting our blessing
And a countdown it was as I move away but it seems
That invisible umbilical cord is still there pulling me back
I feel as if we are intertwined in real life and dreams
What happens to her happens to me but as an attack
And now there’s a light in sight, one of us will pass through
I suspect if it’s her, I’ll be soon to follow, I was never left behind
I wish I had a theory to this that would even hold true
But I think I’ll die when someday she’d have made up her mind.
The last take
Congratulations to @dianetex for winning the challenge. Congratulations to the runner-ups so close behind. Thanks to everyone for their support of the challenge.
I actually had a very different take on this when I started this challenge that I thought everyone would share with me. I was wrong. It depends on which part of the world you're from and that's way you'll define those two months. I still hold my view but it is nice to see so many varying viewpoints and so many people sharing a common life experience.
This is my last take. Alas, August hasn't been my friend. September just brings fond memories to mind.
It’s clear August has its fans
Wishing its sun’ll never set
And Sept. is lonely and abandoned
Few fans like its too early of a sunset
August depends on where you are
Where the backyards send favored fumes mid-air
When the sun sets, there’s a wishing star
That the same time spread everywhere
And September won’t come for its timely theft
And open air just drabs into concrete walls
And many minds just stay bereft
Of the time they had control and call
But not so my take, August my enemy
You foul foe that remains my life till now
When people are skidding their jet-ski
I was in an office telling people what and how
The smell of sweat reminds me of August
No other summer month does
June and July just get you to shake winter’s rust
And August takes prisoner some unlucky ones
But September unlocks a breeze
The sun from its heat is inevitably defeated
And a shorter day just make everything feel at ease
It seems when things slow down everyone is better treated
In new year’s one ends and one begins
And the best thing is they have names
But as Summer’s August signs off its timely sins
September cleans the slate; clears the blame.
To the ones with hope (or those who think they are without)
To @DrSemicolon; @ChrisSadhill; @Raynstar; @dianetex; @H1; @Klemaster1964; @Switch_Hazel; @CindyCalder; @EldonRiver; @AnnaFan14; @OfficeAndSand; @Plexiglassfruit; @r_raven; @Spacetimer; @aflalo22; @7v7; @AJJ; @brkbillst42; @Lees345; @SharondaBriggs
Congratulations to DrSemicolon on winning. Thank you all for contributing your special and unique take on this topic. It is sure is an elusive one.
Here is my modest tribute to you, and may all those who thrive on little hope, get filled with more of it. Certainly, your writing inspires and gives many others hope.
My modest piece
The tank runs empty
There’s a station up the road: hope.
There’s a despondent thought: it will never work
Then the baby smiles for no reason: hope.
Effort was put all out and nothing happened
Then the nine-year-old put his hand on your arm soothing: hope.
Fresh out of roses in the garden of love
Then a familiar face forgotten in the fields meets you with fired up eyes: hope.
One day the powers that be sold you out, you’re not the in-crowd
Then on another plane, others meet and greet you, respect and renown you: hope.
The author’s famed book when it was thrown in the dumpster; the movie no one saw but everyone did late at night and was sold without a sell; the artist who died with the last brush in a painting; the people who thrived even one overpowered them all without defeating him.
It maybe a vacuum and a void, a long tunnel with light afar, a spring in the air without a net, a lighthouse isolated on the shore, an expectation of the unexpected
But, at every turn, whoever you are, wherever you are, it lingers at the tip of fingers, and has taste on the tip of lips. It whispers only to you.
You may not call it hope then but when reality is what you want, you may recall it was always there.
The job
Wouldn’t you know it?
That’s the job of a poet
People just can’t show it
That’s the job of a poet
The young part that you never outgrow it
That’s the job of the poet
Who can take time and slow it?
That’s the job of a poet
Who has a soul to sew it?
That’s the job of a poet
Who grows love to mow it?
That’s the job of a poet.
They wonder. You think. You know it. A poet.
You read. You change. You show it. A poet.
Alone. Forlorn. Words adorn like fresh from a new born. Sworn to sow it. A poet.