The Poetry Marathon

Recipe ingredients 

 Distance 

Time 

Complacency 

Inertia 

Frustration 

Ingredient 1. Is mixed in with everything else,  

Ingredient 2 seasons. 

3 and 4 are tossed into the recipe, both compliment each other perfectly 

But it is 5 that gives it its punch  

Method

It was distance of so far for so long

that our love just lost all its heat 

It was time that spoke most, the day after day, more like friends than lovers 

I had somehow grown to enjoy the solitude, lived both lives single and in love 

Certain it was not forever, that time would bring us back again 

Stronger for having made it through 

I didn’t realise her heart had already risen 

Not for us as lovers now but for us as almost so 

Frustration is the prime ingredient of a broken heart 

the what if, the questions 

That sprinkle throughout the whole stack of emotions 

That the glaze of tears that are dried out by grief 

But what hurts most, is knowing 

I did not take enough care, thinking it all so simple 

So straightforward, the recipe of love 

Being maths, measures and doses 

The recipe of love, requires a devoted hand 

It was distance for far too long, that love lost its heat 

More friends now, than lovers 

Two hearts, no longer stirred 

I knew of Shirley after she knew me.

The first time she heard me read. 

A poet with great beauty in her words 

and agape in her heart 

she works more jobs in one week 

than I have in a year. 

She told me, much later, 

that she would always hold an open mic slot open 

for me every month. Just in case. 

Shirley is a stirrer of emotions, 

among the kids she coaches. 

Young Identity 

Not so much her baby, 

as a collective of her equals 

no high piety 

no talking down.

Only raising up. 

A phenomenal woman 

among so many others. 

Writes her heart across the page, 

Sparks fire in the hearts of youth, 

gives light to the stage 

Hiya