The Poetry Marathon

I’ve got my coffee brewing and my computer booted up and ready to write! Super excited to get the 2019 Poetry Marathon underway! Hope all of the other participants are as stoked as I am about this challenge. Good luck to everyone and thank you to the people who made this marathon possible. I really appreciate the opportunity to challenge myself as a writer and poet. Now, let’s do this!

The G.N.I.N.N.I.G.E.B.

bh

Like a log I will fall
Into my Yucatan bed
Like a cosmic fireball
Throwing up behind me
the thin veil
of atmospheric sheets,
I will climb
mountain ranges of pillows
And swim
In seas of warmness
And blankets
And silent sleep will find me
Like I found this bedly planet
And the doodle bug will find a nook
In the warm leg cranny of a meteoric crook
And she will generate heat
Keeping the stone warm
Until the great stone hatches
And I emerge reborn, rejuvenated, refreshed

Cui mens inest tenebris
Nusquam perdo

I am poison, I am pain
A self-created, explosive device
Hell bent and furious
With no regard for anything
Or anyone else
I am a monster
I am evil
A blood-thirsty animal
Hungry and deceptive
Without a conscience to detain me
I am torture, I am carnage
A serpent in the shadows
Loathesome and filthy
With malice in my blackened heart
I am unworthy, I am stained
An airborne plague on humanity
Wretched and venomous
With nothing left to lose
I am vengeance, I am fear
A frail shadow of a man
Weak and sinful
With no means of escape
I am incapable, I am hatred
A mere whisper of happier times
Overloaded and vulnerable
With emptiness at my core
I am defeat, I am regret
A shallow puddle on the ground
Selfish and bitter
With your blood on my hands
I am alone, I am broken
A failed attempt at something worthwhile
Ignorant and foolish
Without you by my side

In English it’s, “I love you.”
“Ana behibak,” in Arabic.
Tunisia says, “Ha eh bak.”
And in Hungary it’s, “Szeretlek.”

Each language says it differently
Yet one thing remains unchanged
No matter what the symbols be
Or in which order they’re arranged

One common language of unity
One uniquely human dialect
That we speak without impunity
And by which we impulsively connect

An innately human characteristic
Is this intimately social code
Which by complexly simplistic heuristics
Spans the entirety of our globe

So when you hear, “S’agapo,”
You don’t have to brush up on your Greek
To know also that, “Je t’aime,” is I love you
In both French and in Belgique.

So many ways to say, “I love you.”
Each might sound to the other strange
But imagine one day if in Belarus you hear, “Ja ciabi liubliu”
Spoken by a good friend who lives in Ukraine
And then that friend tells another friend, “Ya tebe kahayu”
And their friends to their friends and their friends again
Well I figure it wouldn’t take but maybe a year or two
Until eventually, at least conceivably,
The whole world would see
That no matter which continent or country
Or which nationality one may claim
One thing that has proven the test of time
That we all speak love the same.

At no point does her music adhere to one specific genre or mode
And her lyrics seem to dance around in western wear
Careful not to step on the raw, bluesy pace of the bassline
The steely whine of the electric guitar penetrates the song
Her sound, as she describes it, is “Urban Cowgirl,”
But none of the urban cowgirls that I have heard
Who can get down on dirty blues riffs quite like Angie does.
If you were to close your eyes and imagine the neon lights of a bar sign,
That is Angie Atkinson’s music.

The lyrics and her vocal range elevate the sound out of the bar
And reintroduce it to the mainstream in a way that suggests
That it was never really all that far away to begin with.
Her words create not only an emotional landscape
but a physical landscape, as well
Complete with sounds, sights, and smells.
Wordplay streams from her lips like ewers overflowing
With expressions of self-doubt and vulnerability,
Which by their very admission only reinforce
The strength and the resilience of their author

Attempts to direct the listener, she taunts you with her success
And her ability to focus on astounding poetry and a powerful voice
Presented in such a passionate and progressive dialect,
That is both familiar and foreign at the same time
Her prose is rampant with subtext and backstory
Adding that extra dimension.

She creates a shadow box through which her music shines.
The shadows cast on the walls of the listener’s mind
And stir deeply in their hearts.
At no point does Angie miss a beat
Or an opportunity to make an emotional connection
With you, me, we, the audience, at Large.
Her edgy, provocative words seem carefully selected
As perhaps only the daughter of a Reverend could,
There is no other gem to have ever inspired me
To create and let my passion go free
Because she is a perfect example
Of strength, and vulnerability, and talent

I hear the chirping of feeble arguments
Backed by social intimidation and lies
Turning the tables, so quick to cry offense
Anecdotal evidence, that is all they offer
Poor frightened warrior, who can’t take the heat
But won’t go in the kitchen, not even for herself
Because she is disadvantaged, underprivileged,
Oppressed, a carrion on the hunt for flesh
Just like not every XX wants to be a CEO
But would rather raise their children instead,
XY cannot be lump summed and attacked
When most of us are not your enemy
Yet we are objectified and subjugated
By the same oppressive banner you raise
The flag which you claim makes you victim
The flag which you stake your claim over us
It seems to me, quite honestly,
that from your loins, our children spring
Yet you speak of the oppressive patriarchy
But only up until quite recently
Have men been present from work to be there,
physically, emotionally, paternally, influentially
So the kids have learned what, from who, specifically?
The pyramid is built from your maternal base
Physically, emotionally, maternally, influentially
Instead of pointing at the XY and blaming their absence
I can hear the outcry now, because I dared
To attack the ivory tower from which you draw power
And feed the fruits of patriarchal society
The seeds are sown against your own ends
Thus are the thorned roots of the feminist tree.

Daphne must sit on all of the clothes
Daphne must eat on all of the clothes
Daphne must do Daphne things
On top of all of our things
Daphne sits like a toad
She’s a round dog.

He who stands on toilet

Is said to be High on Pot

And water, when you heat it,

Won’t boil if it’s watched

They say April showers

Bring Bushes and flowers

In the merry merry month of May

If an apple can keep the doctor away

And there comes a day when pigs fly

And you’ll find both a will and way

To sit back and let sleeping dogs lie

Kettle wants to get revenge

On that bigot, the pot

A stitch in time may save you nine

But it’s only a crime if you get caught.