The Poetry Challenge has now become a weekly. And so here goes. The first theme for the group is “Water.”

WATER

by Yuri Kageyama

You’re instructed to do less

Be invisible

Although no one is watching

You’re a threat just by being you

So be quiet and be still  

Pretend you don’t exist

Don’t even breathe too hard

People can tell you can play

By just hearing a note

People can tell you can write

By just reading one line

And who needs that from you

When you aren’t even there

James McBride wrote “The Color of Water”

But you are neither white nor black

So you just aren’t there; OK?

And already totally forgotten     

Midnight

by Yuri Kageyama

A sliver

Of a crack

Dividing

Tomorrow

From

Today

Slip through

A free fall

The other Side

Invisible

What Death

Feels like

Long lost lovers

Wait for you

That’s why

Midnight

Has that eerie feel

The moment

When eternity

Hits

A whisper

A breath

A nothing

BIRD SONG

by Yuri Kageyama

Plum blossoms warble

A flutter of green

Nightingales tell us spring is here

Gliding reflections

Elegance of white

Swans remind us of Tchaikovsky     

Caught in a cage

Silent fluff of yellow

The Canary who’s forgotten to sing   

SHAPE I’M IN

by Yuri Kageyama

Being not white  

You get racism

Being a woman

You get sexism

You’d think with time   

Race, gender maybe

Will matter less

Well well well

No no no

Being old

You get agism

And that’s together

With all you got before

LIES

by Yuri Kageyama

You are beautiful

People call them lies

I’m so in love with you

Those promises for forever

You are the only one

But some lies are allowed

In sickness or in health

They become truth in love  

Till death doth us part