The Poetry Marathon

I live in the past years trodden down to memory,
images scattered amongst feelings 
that left off somewhere I never got to finish.
In the rain on the cars
and the shoes on the pavement, 
In music that spells out my bones 
like a familiar expletive. 

Where the church bells hang silent, 
suspended in their lonely towers,
lost beacons of reverence, 
casting down their ancient shadows. 

I live where the people shuffle like insects
scampering to higher ground, 
fleeing the flooding waterways 
that cut through our valley. 

I live In the old springs,
I lived when the paint was new, 
when people still talked out on the sidewalks
and the ginkgo trees reeked of cat urine 
when you passed directly under them, 
and the soup kitchen stayed open 
until after sunset. 

I live in the trampled white blossoms 
and cigarette butts. 
In the movie rental store, 
and the back alley that connected 
to the Irish bar. 
The grease of the fryers 
and the stench of open sewer grates flushed with rainwater. 

City blood is high in iron, 
the metals we inherit by breath and step
Cast anchors of the past that hold heavy to the heart.

A hand reaches to feel the solidity of life beneath it. 
The granite anchor of presence, promise, 
dependable occupancy. 
the awakening flower unfurls, 
a body breathes deep as the dress falls, 
to embrace warmth, widow and widower, 
touching a song inside one another, 
to feel cells thriving beneath our lips, 
a swelling river pouring forth, 
an appreciation of deep energy, 
the romantic corpse of our paralysis, garlanded, 
in a circle of candles, 
on the altar of guilty survivors. 

How sweet is breath!
How lovely the warmth of skin!
How bitter the only offering we can give.
But the heart remembers
The mind pulls through the center
Petals falling
Surrendering to life again.

Everyone has a couch, 
a newspaper, a talking face 
in the television, friendly bottles, 
some crutch to take the edge off.
Everything is catharsis.

But the fires only come 
in moments we can't account for. 
Compulsive desires, 
Irrational attraction, 
fennel stalks concealing 
stolen pieces of the sun.

I say play with them, 
be burned, let others burn.
No one gets out alive. 
Burn. 
burn
Dwindle to embers.
Gradually combust.

Quieter enjoyments promised in a simple friendship, 
softer dangers that might leave you hungry, 
too afraid to not be on that imagined stage, 
for fear of missing something that might never return.

To yield from the fiery starblast, 
thousand-armed thunderclouds, 
booming fierceness, 
a fight that holds my curious, dreamer-eyes awake.

I should have said yes to your extended hand. 
Played at life from round dining room tables,
behind locked doors, 
with security at a phone call distance.

Should have stayed safe from darkened streets, 
stripping eyes that never saw me, 
but saw only movements living in the lamplight alley.

Should have said yes to a hidden tomorrow,
gifted, preserved, outlasting the hormonal rush to die all at once, 
rather than slowly losing myself in the years that came.

The book is closed, 
time is an old window that only stares out over the ocean. 
waves ripple where memory blurs, 
not many changes back then, 
I can only say yes to how I see it now.

Laughing mountains, sunset walkers, ocean singers.
Chasing firefly memories, birds of the moon, 
Poets, warriors, philosopher kings.

Children of the earth, always at home 
Wherever their feet may touch. Minds that question,
Seek patterns, connect purpose and beauty,
Reason and enchantment.

Caterpillars in the desert, caverns that traverse galaxies,
Captains of sailing vessels that rise into the sky
Horizon-touchers, new heroes of unfolding mythology.

All the blessings of the cosmos in their throats, star-drinkers, 
With palaces on their fingers,
Dream writers, thought bleeders, crazed lovers
Of ancient horse language, children of instinct and words beyond death.

In death she remains perfect, 
untouched
Like the dreams we never tried, 
never ruined with our breath.

She will always hold the goddess seat
A memory of adoration 
that cures as it ages
And you lovers of the living 
will have to make the best 
of all your faults.

There are secrets in the trees only 
told through the rain. Stories in the 
leaf wet with fallen water.
The mind is its own vice, 
shelter, asylum,
to burrow, and 
listen to 
the storm’s
end.

Empty shells scattered along the beach,
Insect skins stepping down from the trees,
Walking in the streets, looking in shop windows.

Houses constructed from perfectly processed elements, 
modified, manipulated, artificial dwellings, happy homesteads. 

The populace infestation, 
droves of workers falling in line, 
moving along asphalt canals 
filing the progress into channeled surges.

Advertisement mindsets, 
Fearful of strange polarity. 

Hollow enclosures of skin, 
thin as a dry leaf, 

colors disbanded from their boundaries, 
bleeding stains on the world.

Such a maddening pain.
Incessant, pulsating pressure in the mouth
What is vanity next to agony?
Decay behind the lips, failing speech.

Incessant, pulsating pressure in the mouth
Tongue lingering upon the opened wound 
Decay behind the lips, failing speech
What insanity will find truth in this voice?

Tongue lingering upon the opened wound,
What is vanity next to agony?
What insanity will find truth in this voice?
Such a maddening pain.

Every morning begins with eyes upon a dark ceiling, 
mind shrugging away from the slumbering fog, 
searching for clarity, What time is it? Where am I? 

Instantly immersed in the accumulated web, 
mirrors, and books, carpets, cushions, 
windows that contain a controlled perspective. 
What is true about the running water in the sink? 
And the sigh of metal ventilation passing air into the room? 
Or the fading sirens swiftly passing down the streets beyond this house.

And in my own car, 
a mechanical construction, 
glass framed movie screen to capture 
The rolling cityscape Sparkling in the sun,
grid lined electrical wires crackle, 
grinding engines of cars on all sides. 

Billboard signs selling an image of society, 
Bumper stickers, radio station chatter, 
swarming noise of human-built unreality, 
yet sold to me every day. 
Provided for me to consume, 
to take part in, to carve into, shape, 
contribute to the illusion, to feed the farce society.

None of it is real. But it is real.  
This is my American life. My world. 
Our collective offering of the functioning economy, 
spellwork on a mass scale, artificial, counterfeit life, 
a system of fuel burning, production, profiteering. 

A veil so thick I measure myself by it every day.  
seek to find my purpose within, 
deluded as any other, 
satiated by motor oil, 
imaginary numbers on electronic screens 
tied to the idea of my worth, 
increasing, decreasing without ever 
holding a monetary note 
that proves it is tangible, 
just an agreed upon representation 
of the force that continues to consume us as we consume it. 

Unattainable beauty, sugar, sodium, 
Virility that doesn’t age, triglycerides, 
children breathing carcinogens, caffeine,
cancer, anxiety. 
Pointless noise.