Five-Minute Poetry – Set 1
–Clouds (#1)–
When it rains,
the clouds commit mass suicide.
They become their tears,
wasting themselves on the earth
and leaving their wet juices all over it.
When they’re gone, the air is fresh and clear
and everyone is happy…
but the sky is still blue.
–Matches (#2)–
Our love is like a book of matches.
Look, it catches! Watch it burn!
But no match that’s based on matches
can resist Time’s cold, wet snatches.
–The Exhaler (#3)–
I heard of an oxygen panic
and took it upon myself
to maintain the balance of the atmosphere.
After I carefully exhale, I shout
“Ah, Breath! I have freed you!”
and admire my own fantastic resourcefulness!
–Being in Love (#4)–
Being with you feels like being alone,
only never so lonely.
When I am with you,
I am you,
you are me,
and we are not “we” at all.
–a list of things my father gave to me (#5)–
a cold name
half of a face
grab-bag genes
a simplified old tree
right-brained eyes
hand-eye coordination
nightmares
a handful of childhood
and a phoenix sore
–dust (#6)–
stay still too long,
and it will gather on you.
tiny weights, little pressures,
light at first, but slowly heavy
heavier
heaviest
splintering your knees like wood
busting your back like cardboard
until you crumple in a cloud
and can move no more.
–The Blame (#7)–
When the summer gets old
and the weather gets cold
and the leaves start to fall,
Blame the sun! we are told.
But there’s no sense at all
in that scientist’s call,
for the sun is not cold;
how could it cause the fall?
–Some Roads Not Taken (#8)–
While making a choice concerning two roads and a yellow wood,
I tripped on you and fell in love.
We left both roads and hiked into the trees to make out,
and that’s what really made all the difference.
–Adults (#9)–
Adults complain a lot
about headaches and heartaches,
mortgages and marriages,
and they think they’ve got it bad.
What they forget
is that they sleep the same sleep
and breathe the same breath
as another human being
with the same heart,
the same mind,
and the same spirit.
And still they act like
spoiled children
who can’t make up their minds.
–pointless (#10)–
you think
just because
you’ve left no clues,
you’re being clever.
just because
you’ve got us stumped,
you’re being subtle.
just because
you have created,
you’re being creative.
just because
you’ve made a mess,
you’ve got it made.
a poem
without a point
might be a poem,
but it’s still pointless.
Two Girls
I.
With sticky shoes and white-fire hair,
she briskly claps down the tileway.
She’s got somewhere to be,
but takes her time to stoke the flame
and rattle the poker jewels,
which sparkle like trickling acid rain.
Her mystery bag,
all leather and paisley,
holds chaos and memories,
secret worlds she’s devoured
in shady afternoon hours
such as these.
Dressed to kill,
she parades on.
II.
Her sticky heels were wet with juice
once, perhaps yesterday;
she’s been tired,
too busy to bother with the leftover marks
of midwife in world birth.
She sips nectar as she goes
and sweeps the floor with her comfortably spacious cargos,
a dozen pockets filled with strings and stardust,
nectaries and wild-honey jars.
She exhales as she floats casually
to the next birth.
Sonnet 14
A fire needs three elements to start:
a heated place, a thing to burn, and air.
If this is so, the heat within my heart
I stoke for you might foster fires there.
And though a wintry mind I aim to keep,
my thoughts are quite combustible in truth;
I’m weakest when I lack a proper sleep
or thirst to waste this chaos we call youth.
And as for air, my blood flows through my lungs
as well as heart and head. The final touch
is any spark: a word flipped off a tongue
too carelessly or when I know too much
of things that I should not. It’s then I light
and, all too often, smolder through the night.
Sonnet 8
A winter breath and frozen lips have I;
while empty conversation glows bright-hot,
I stand away and watch with glinting eyes.
That flame’s a melting place; I’d rather not.
As in the dark I stood, I saw you near,
with burns – a mark for desperate company.
But I felt chilly snowflakes in your air;
I was surprised that you loved low like me.
I whispered once. You, ever list’ning, heard.
I wiped the melted ice from off your cheek,
and we spoke easily in loving words,
soft-frozen breath that kissed and made complete.
Your warmer wounds were frosted cold with love,
and comfort’s coolness eases through our blood.
