The Poetry Marathon

Home is where you drop your mask, forge your armored disguise

Doesn’t mean they’re always wrong

Sometimes you’ve got to be strong

Even when it feels like the world’s falling down,

You can still come around

Different times and different places

sometimes familiar, sometimes strangers

Even when you’ve run so far

you can come home, the one place people know who you are

It wasn’t always like this

I used to feel alone, especially when they surrounded me, told me I was too different

asked me how I could think the way I do

Preaching the truth, my thoughts were impossible and stupid

At least when I was alone I could lose myself in books

Magic never ending, a place to run away to, at least for a while

Then I saw you smile

I had to look again, and tho’ I needed a frien’

I was scared to let you in

I’ve never trusted anyone, my mother gave me concrete proof that I was right

in at least that decision, but it was a lonely place

never show my real face, without feeling deep disgrace

How did I get this one time chance

when you asked me to dance,

we heard the same song

please don’t prove me wrong.

We’ve both had our faults, made our apologies

made our promises to keep,

us sane and safe and secure

This has to be for sure

I’m too old to start over, too jaded to think I could

It’s you and me forever, that’s what’s understood

If we fall apart tomorrow or sometime down the road

please remember sweetheart, my souls been bought and sold

You are my tomorrow, You’re my end of days

my life would surely be over if we ever parted ways

we moved, we’ve changed, but my love has stayed the same

Hometown doesn’t exist for me

You’re the end of the game.

Take this song into your heart, feel it in your soul

Our lives are but a soundtrack,

our Home Sweet Home,

built by Rock and Roll.

1)

Born under the sun of the blazing Arizona sky

So young was my mom, I never asked why.

My grandpa made jewelry of coral and turquois

I modeled them without a care, I hadn’t noticed boys!

2)

Then to Colorado,

the place that I call home

I’ve lived there and left there

but always returned from wherever we’d roam.

3)

On to Oklahoma for bible school they said

Sisters, work, and twisters

and a boyfriend,

Graduation in my head

4)

It seems I’ve skipped some pieces

of my childhood so fast

The wonder years and innocence,

they just never last.

5)

Legos and Barbie’s, and Tonka trucks, it’s true,

were some of my favorite playthings,

Books ranked high up there too

but my child, the poem is over

those toys, now belong to you!

From window pots to garden plots

forgo the cemetery, for if you’re wise you’ll make your choice

trees, flowers, fern and berry

We have recomposition and Capsula Mundi

because we are more civilized

We choose rebirth straight from the earth

over metals that won’t soon die

Our concrete jungles weren’t friendly, our carbon footprint we be-moan

now some of us have found a way to give back the life we have on loan

You’ve seen it in the alleys, in the broken bottle mess

You’ve seen it in the subways, and everywhere’s else, I guess

Our streets are much too crowded

Buildings codes eschew

We dreamed there was a better way,

I’ll bet that you did too!

Nature finds a way, you see the flowers poking through

the cement of the broken sidewalk,

That flower could be you!

Upon a new horizon your future will not waste

decay is not a fail-safe that complies post-haste

With a promise of release

from rust and ranker in the cold

You’ll rest with perfect peace

in gardens made of light

when you choose

our sweet respite,

a field of kindly eldritch delight !

We do not live in a vacuum, which is good because I would be afraid all the time

I hate the vacuum, as you know, but I am also brave

at least when it comes to you, my family

Furever Family is what we’ve found

You and I together, on our playground

I saved you from being lonely

also from being afraid

I know you have some ghosts that haunt you in your sleep,

but I’ve learned not to hide from you when you call out in the night

instead I snuggle in closer and put my wet nose in your palm

Then you know it’s me and you don’t have to be a fright,

You saved me from the shelter and the human merry go round I was on

You saw a was a big boy, but your love was just as big

with your help my love grew too

and also, I am brave, from any spider

there ever was, you my friend, I will save!

Welcome you are to my life and my home.

find some comfort in my company

find our fun and misadventure

maybe sail across the sea of ecstasy

Forsake the norms of genteel reproach and gather here on my mushrooms head

of power and persuasion and an aching in my head

do not be discouraged if this love is too profound

it’s called the little death because it’s the finest show around

around and ’round I’ll love you and chase you as we play

remember dear, when your heart grows cold, there is no other way

to shower you with pestilence and cover you in love

hold you now my hat as I slapped you with my glove

tis not in anger, nor in rage that my glove does strike

but only love with my kid glove can show my present state

a whippoorwill and dervish may go spinning through your head

but we are the enlightened ones Heavens joys are in our bed

I may not be nimble as of yore but fat I have not gotten

run from me, I’ll enjoy the flee and lose myself composure

I’ll pull you down and strip my crown, doth it to you in clover

as we alight I’m sure you’ll find my hospitality is marveled

the world over, it must ring true for I’m telling you,

unless the words are garveled

your courage mustered and relish the day

for recompense becomes me, love

Her beauty is ethereal

gossamer smiles softly serene, yet teasing

Her eyes are moons eclipsed and dark

magical in appearance

Her hair shines softly in the light

and glows and scents the evening scenes

Words cannot describe in justice the kindness and compassion she freely gives

to all creatures, indeed all beings, her charity is celestial bound

soft are the caresses of her lips on your ear, gentle is her speech

a bright and timely manner is always evident

She never falters in her grace

her countenance is stable anyone would love to love

this girl if they are able

There’s never been a worse time than too late

Ever after nothing matters the past has passed and will not retreat

no matter how you entreat

implore beseech beg
supplicate

on knees, clenched fists

the tears of salt and blood

I failed to be your savior

even now I admit you would despise the sentiment

strong willed, brilliant mind and a heart of pure..

I can’t say the word.

Its just a stupid word.

I have been a gore-mand and yet I’m so afraid, so keenly afraid and so morbidly attuned that I fear

I am a hypocrite, for all the detestable scenes that I’ve attuned myself to

and yet a word runs like a ice through my spine and drips like acid from my core

fire

the gift of life and the element of my insanity

it took you away from me and I cannot reconcile that

my princess, my love, my pride and my joy and many things that words can only cheapen

yet I’ve tried to write it all down for you I ran out of time I never got to say Goodbye

and even if I had, it would never be enough

You were destined for greatness and still kept an open heart

If ever was created a being near perfection it was you my dear

I never was quite good enough, I could never measure up

I failed at giving and loving and especially protecting

I ran out of time to say all the things I needed to tell you,

how proud and satisfied and mesmerized of you I truly was

I’ve sat down to write you this letter many dozen times now and I can never get through it

either the tears or some strange belief that admitting it would make it true,

even though it’s been years since I’ve seen you

Bound to you, I cannot see the future.

Where am I going, where have I been-

those are questions you answer willingly,

quickly doling out responses, no hesitation in your voice.

What do you see? A body bound by you.

Kept close, tied tight, like a gift ready to be opened,

but only by you.

You keep me this way, easy and so calm,

a t-shirt and jeans, so casual and benign.

Not a worry, we’re just playing.

Is this practiced nonchalance?

I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore.

The trust has been eroded, because I was the one bound-

and blinded by my love.

So easily you slipped the ropes around my arms,

the blindfold over my eyes-

because I trusted you.

Then I found you lied.

Yet, I’m bound to you.

The refrain is sickening, it’s a chorus of poisoned sparrows,

poisoned arrows, poisoned darts.

Oh my heart-

the decadence it craved,

a crazed soliloquy,

tempered variety.

I gave

it all 

to you.

Roadblocks and detours and ever winding roads

weary feet, disheveled mess

where it ends, I hope to know

cognizant boycott of roots going down

never in life was a I tied to the ground

mad nomad wandering this place

swirling gypsy feels no disgrace

the allure of the road, adventures untold

new strangers make friends to meet sometime again

down this road

train tracks, and horse tracks, many rivers have flowed over these feet

treasures untold, maybe gold maybe goldfish or just pyrite shine

the lakes and the valleys, the mountains divine

I saw a bovine

on the grass supine, I tasted

clementine in the tart summer wine

seasons they pass, none of ’em last

home is where I roam, outside the walls of Rome

I saw there a roan sitting upon a throne

do my rhymes make you groan?

or can you hold a smile and walk another mile through this

purgatory of deprivation, sleep annihilation

verging on desperation

walk with me until I crawl again

Cement, plaster, iron and glass

man’s permanent structures sure faded fast

So glad we’re together, so glad we know

that a garden well tended will eventually grow

it may take a while, even long years

expect a few tangent’s, a few well paced tears

but we know some deep magic, between you and I

there are seed banks and aquafers under this sky

conserve what we can, that much we’ve learned

take care of the land, before it’s all burned

out and empty. No more delay

They said it would happen, some counted the day

Others they laughed and dove deeper into the void

Mother Earth was annoyed

she spewed and she spat, but she wasn’t destroyed

the pumpers and frackers, the excess of want

detritus now, the fats cats grown gaunt

service economy, dichotomy revolt

Kudza eats the houses, the ground swallows whole

all things not necessary, created below

the sky and the sun, the breast of the snow

through the cracks in cement the flowers still grow