The Poetry Marathon

Emperor Huang di

Immortal mountains

jutting granite peaks

the poet Li Bai

walked the sea of clouds

looking down jade screen

twisted pine, moon, and

sixty thousand steps

Sweet tincture, amber hued, with forgetfulness imbued,

Cure me.

Make insensible my tongue, as the woe from me is wrung,

Endure me.

If I languish all forlorn, with guttate spell quoth, nevermore–

Adjure me.

I’ll misremember at first light, oblivion is mine tonight,

Reassure me.

Sweet tincture, amber hued, with forgetfulness imbued,

Nepenthe

Timmy fell

He’s in the well

I can tell

By the smell

Must save Timmy

Must save Timmy

Must get help

Must get help

WOOF

Sobek he of pointed teeth, voracious lust, protects the weak

Rules the land of Lake Moeris, Son of murdered god Osiris

Warder of the evil eye, will rise with Horus in the sky

Swimming waters of the Nile, protect us, mighty crocodile!

Steam rises from summer sidewalk, fat droplets fall from humid air

evening rumbles with heat lightning and frogs rumble with mating calls.

August won’t ask for a raincoat, and July won’t keep still in a jar.

There once was a day when the sun stood still,
I remember that day and I always will.

When Helios gave his tired horses a rest,
the sun set in the East and then rose in the West.

As Atlas stood up the sky splintered and cracked,
And earth rolled down off the divine turtle’s back.

The Pleiades scattered and Orion fell,
The seabed broke open and flooded out hell.

The rivers flowed backwards and waterfalls rose,
And everyone danced in the air on their toes.

But all of the things the world never could see,
Happened that day when you said you loved me.

All we knew at the beginning was the preciousness
of our combined strength, of the iron at our core.

Oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen mingled together
with intense heat, with unquenchable fire.

Two points of light, each caught in the gravity
of the mutual attraction, of the heavenly dance:

A pirouette, circling to a pas de deux, adagio–
Swirling like glittering tulle in the blackness of space.

Suns beget sons when this threshold is overstepped
The Chandrasekhar limit seals their fate.

The heaviness of being, the pressure of the heart
finally expose the true nature of this sacrifice.

When we burst into a supernova, there will be gold.

When we explode into pieces, there can be life.

Across the sea you call to me;
call to me from home.

Across the sea I cannot be;
I cannot follow you home.

Someday I’ll travel o’er the sea;
Over the swells I’ll fly.

When I see you again what joy will be;
And ne’er more will I cry.

And so she looks a little pale
her snow white robe is torn.
Each one of us will try and fail
and all of us will mourn.

Her alabaster angel wings
from stony plaster cast
spread wide above my everything
the one I thought would last.

In the West the ivory
is worn when we are wed;
but in the East the milky pearl
is color for the dead

All ships on the horizon slowly fade from sight–
all colors of the rainbow slowly fade to white.

The amygdala fires primitive, an untaught call to flight.
Spiders spark reptilian brains, urging us to fight.

The cortex fires a rational, well thought out disgust.
A spider simply cannot love, so killing it is just.

My brother coaxed me to replace my enmity with care
he taught me, a reluctant child, a spider’s life to spare.

Today my brother called me, and he is very ill
Now all I ask is mercy and I cannot bear to kill

A spider on a floating leaf fell in my pool today
I scooped her up and rescued her and let her walk away.