We shouted and looked
For hidden treasure filled eggs
While lost to ourselves

Mama, I thought you were sharing with me.
Oh thanks, thank you for sharing.
Eats while humming.
I take a bite
Brother comes in: Hey whatchyou doin’ big girl!
me: Are you coming to Easter tomorrow?
Yeah
Swallows bite, stops humming
Yells brother’s name 5 times in a row until he laughs and answers what?
I got a splinter in my finger
Outside – Yesterday!
Mama
Mama
Mama
Yes
I got a splinter outside (repeats 2 more times)
Yes?
I got the splinter outside
Yesterday
Yes, I know
Was it yesterday or the day before?
Continues audibly munching waffles while singing the word “hi” at different pitches, descending gradually into lower range.
Continues contently humming.

in response to Glo/NaPoWriMo Day Twenty prompt to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken.

Always bubbling
Childhood dreams emerge
Floating gently
Heavenward.
Iridescent jewel-knitted
Luminous memories now offer
Prayerful quiet repose
Subtly tingling
Under vernally woven xyloid yearnings.

*Ziphozonke is sometimes used as a Zulu name. It literally means “all the gifts”. I also like this definition of the term from the Urban Dictionary.

In response to Glo/NaPoWriMo Day Nineteen prompt to write an abecedarian poem – a poem using words in alphabetical order.

I have 5 “Ziphozonke” in my life who are truly the fulfillment of my vernally woven xyloid yearnings. The youngest, pictured above, commands her presence as vibrantly in my photo stream as she does in the real world. The other four, now grown, command a deep hidden presence in my heart. I’ll have to dig a little further back to find some pictures that capture those luminous memories of childhood for these 4. They are all the gifts!!

I rode home in an airplane next to death one night.
I sat on the window seat and he on the aisle – an empty seat between us
I was flying from Tampa, from a hospital room where my cousin lay dying,
cancer cells eating her.
his hair was dark and greasy and I can’t remember his face.
I think he ordered a
drink. I try to forget.
All I recall is how cold
I felt, how, bent drawn
spine so cold
(I try to forget – I practice forgetting daily)

In response to Na/GloPoWriMo Day Eighteen prompt, which gave examples of poems that “take elusive, overwhelming feelings, and place them into the physical world, in part through their focus on things we can see and hear and touch.” and challenged us to “write an elegy of your own, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail. ”  This song from Rising Appalachia is so worth listening through – the words of the poetic elegy in the middle of the track are haunting and hit my core.

There are 2 invisible antennae that are somewhere on my forehead,
Perhaps at my temples and their hidden sensitivity may be the cause of my propensity towards migraines.
I have developed these appendages as a defensive adaptation for they are skilled at sensing the unsaid.
They perk up and sharpen seeking those unspoken resentments, daggers to be guarded against.
Necessary as a child, it was a matter of survival, sensing, turning, feeling the space in between, their acuity has developed with years of use

I have two other, complimentary appendages which I might call bubble hands –
Not really hands as they are most often activated through spoken word.
But also their work is accomplished through what is left unspoken
The bubble hands are activated in response to the antennae
Their job is is to insulate from emotional daggers
They work equally on both the sender and the target of those sharp arrows
They reach out, patting down, here, there, all around
Bubble wrapping all the sharp edges

And while these have served me in times of need,
And though quite invisible to the undiscerning eye,
I look quite ridiculous to myself walking round with these appendages sticking out of my forehead and sides.
So I cut them off – respectfully I declare that I am cutting them off.

#NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem presenting a scene from from an unusual angle or point of view. In looking for an image of antennae to accompany today’s poem I came across pictures of the Antennae Galaxies – two colliding galaxies. The images are stunning! Not only did I find them on google but here they are in a book in my living room!

Hail bleach bottle,
Full of sodium hypochlorite and water,
The byproducts of chloroform and carbon tetrachloride are with thee.
Blessed are ye among cleaners,
And blessed are the garments, of thy washing machine, White.
Holy Clorox,
Humble base
Eradicate 99.9% of our common household germs
Now, and in the season of the flu.

Our cellphones
Which art in our hands,
Worldly be thy name.
Thy landfills ye fill. Thy chargers be lost on earth, but not in heaven.
Give us this day our hourly forecast.
And may we forward, share, like, reply and send to others as we receive those who have messaged us.
And help us use thee not in temptation, but block for us the trolls:  For thine is the Google, Facebook and Twitter now, but not forever. 👍

2B1

None was so holy as this
Peering through the pane of the Parish house
He prayed for men many hours
seeking
to be one
with the Lord

———————-

None was so holey as this,
Pain piercing through as he perished. How
he was the prey of man, many, ours
“Did you see – King?
to be won…
withered, Oh, Lord!”