The Poetry Marathon

Fragile pill-bug,
rolly poly round.
Loosened carapace
crumbling under
rotting log. Black
soil vibrates with
grubs. Settlers in
a settled plot.
Hungry chomps,
gushy squirms,
chitinous chitinous
chitinous. Pill-bug.
Rolly poly friend.

Failure isn’t the Worst Thing.
There are plenty of things
I wouldn’t rather be. More still
I wouldn’t rather do. Failure
isn’t the end. This isn’t
Self Help. It is an End.
It bites like a horsefly
as you drift off to sleep.
But you can sleep again,
even before the bite heals.
Let it heal. Rest easy. Sleep again.

A yellow jacket swarm swimming
in the birch-beech copse, corpulent
corpse clears us all from its mind.
A feebly fumbling fellow fawns
over such luck, lacking decorum,
lackadaisical, limber and lithe
and lonesome. Loathesome fellow he
in that yellow jacket feral
and frightening and fit for the feast.
Beastly brethren on stolen
stingers strive for less than each
could earn. Earth eats the rest,
restless and resilient and ripe.

CHS to CLT. CLT to STL.
Baby steps aided by flexeril
and hydrocodone, backpack
weighted for counter balance.
I wait in line to pass through
security, guzzle the remnants
of my Nalgene water lest they
make me “dispose of it.” As if that small
amount of water could bring down
a plane. As if they could stop
it. Remove your shoes, laptops
in separate bins. Empty your pockets.
We all have it memorized since 9/11.
Boarding passes come on phones
now. I’ll bet no one predicted that.
Baby steps to the lectern. Baby
steps through the line. Slowly,
slowly. Baby steps to Terminal B, to
the gate. Courtesy check for my
rolling luggage? Yes Ma’am. Solid
tip. Cool of flexeril rolls down.
CHS to CLT. CLT to STL.
There and back again.

I hear Ginsberg in whispers,
“Don’t hide the madness.”
Okay, Al. Shall I let it
yoke me so I can pull it
around the square, flies sticking
to my cheeks, vertebrae wailing
for reprieve? Shall I let it
choke me until my eyes bulge
to get The Greatest Distance
when the madness finally dislodges
and launches skyward for all
to see? Shall I make of it
a joke to tell the masses
from a brightly lit stage, crooned
into a microphone so no one
sees it for what it is? Shall I
relinquish control so you may
poke me with it in an angry gash
until my cries turn to snarls
and my eyes glow red?

We don’t take ourselves too
seriously around here.

After driving 362 miles
down Highway 1 in a rented
Camero, we stopped in the suburbs
of some coastal California town.
We followed hand written
signs on white poster board
that read Yard Sale
to a newer development, cookie
cutter houses with white vinyl
siding on cookie cutter lawns.
Arid. One lone table on
folding legs, also white, standing
on the white concrete driveway.
Women’s shoes of all types,
size 7, lined up underneath, the only
shade to be found. Sun in late
February is soothing. A Hispanic
woman smiled at me from the porch,
walked over. I smiled back
and searched the table for anything
I could want. “How much?” I held
a pink woven bracelet with
a metal plate. “50 cents,”
her accented reply. I gave her
two quarters and turn. Back
to the car. Buckle up. Bracelet
cool in my hand, cool
on my wrist. Metal plate read
Peace. We stayed on the back roads.

SR 153 somewhere between
Mullins and Savannah
is dotted with stone white
oaks, dead as hands clawing
from swampy graves.
Devil’s Dining Room Rd
doesn’t lead where you think
it will. There are three foot tall
flowers with orange heads
and orange lips foretelling war
on the uncut shoulder of a newly
paved road. They cry into
the ditch and feed the crayfish.
They fear a moving blade.
They should.

Beady eyed girl in linen skirt,
oh saint!
Your father will beat you
for using the bicycle.
I’ll never tell. Tins
of ribbon candy are your
salvation. An orange for
your kingdom. An orange for you
to release those frogs
and give me the rubber bands.
Another orange if you promise
to steer clear of cats
and pine cones and turpentine.
Oh, young saint, Mexican saint,
saintly skin thin and tough,
saintly beads for saintly eyes
that plot. Oh, Ann Marie,
saint of clean laundry
and skinned knees.
Oh Ann.

I have nervously awaited the POP
and sharp pain— ice pick
through my temple?— the shrieking,
shrieking, shrieking of a something
that cannot be said, the dizziness,
the euphoria of weightlessness,
the wild and the wild and the wild
of my curls grasping at latex
gloved fingers and claiming,
the squeaky wheels (less squeaky now),
the no-time-for-anesthesia, the ethereal
confusion and cloudy, the shine
of fluorescents and glint off the tray
of surgical tools, the surgical knife
and first incision— but wait!—
the shaving of my scalp, the vulnerability
of psoriasis barking back and biting
the razor, the— okay, now— the first incision
along my hairline vacated, the screams (mine?)
and the screams (someone else,
maybe through glass)
and the screams (mine again), the knife
opening as my forehead blooms, the blooms,
the incision precise as India ink swung
on a twig, the sweat collecting on
a hovering brow, the sweat dabbed away,
the sweat absent from my face, the life
absent from my face, the CRACK and saw
and another bloom, the smell of disinfectant,
the smell of another woman scrubbing in,
the smell of toffee, the lights (oh! the lights!)
in my unblinking eyes, the blood suctioned
off my brain, the grey matter that isn’t grey,
the pinch and the screams, the screams again!
the clamp carefully placed,
the anesthesiologist’s apology, the drip
of the IV (finally!) blessed IV,
the warmth in my groin, the morphine,
the stainless needle stitching in an arc,
the morphine, the vomit, the morphine,
the morphine, the morphine, and
the sleep.

What does it take to hold
hot air, to carry the weight
of people and perhaps one dog?
Could I stitch together
silken scarves (hundreds!) by hand
and still float away like
dandelion seed, round and
pregnant question?
There is a shortage of helium,
you see, and these things must
be learned. Would dental floss
be a stronger thread; it’s strong
enough for teeth if pulled
correctly. I would pull it
correctly. I would try.
I would fill bags with sand
to weight, heavy as nursing breasts,
cold as the bottle of Sprite
that burst in the freezer forgotten.
Make of it what you will— there is
work to be done.