The Poetry Marathon

5 years and 60 poems!
What an accomplishment!
Thanks Caitlin and Jacob for hosting, organizing, cheering us on. You’re the best 😍

Congrats to the halfers just finished and good luck to the second shift coming on.
To those courageous full marathoners, keep on writing on!

Hugs,

Anne

Hour Twelve !!!!!

What Garbage is; and isn’t

Garbage is litter, deadwood, rubbish, and trash.
It’s stinky, rotten, mushy, and junk.
Garbage is scraps of debris, refuse, and waste.

It isn’t pleasant, aromatic or useful.
It can’t be recycled, reused, or fixed up.
It’s messy, dusty, gross, and just plain yucky.

Garbage is leftovers, someones scraps, leavings, and slop.
Made up of compost, odds and ends, bits and pieces, of this and that.
Garbage is scummy residue, remnants of spoiled cheese, poop, and remnants.

It’s definitely not recyclable, an asset, nor valuable.
Garbage isn’t a ‘catch’, a ‘prize’ or fine possession.
Not considered as wealth, clean, or pure.

Garbage is garbage is garbage and nothing more.
It isn’t worth keeping, won’t increase in value, become rare, or priceless.
Garbage is just junk, offensive, substandard, and insufficient.

But.

Rotten garbage can be useful, provide nutrients to plants and lawns.
Salvageable bits and bobs turned into artwork, a motley collection of this and that.

And yet.

Garbage is unacceptable, inadequate, shoddy, and wanting.
Unusable, unsuitable, a mishmash of rabble and riffraff.
Garbage is waste, unwanted stuff we throw away; nonsense, hogwash and drivel.

Hour Eleven

Fields and fields, of grass, weeds, and dandelions.
Trees and trees, of needles, leaves, and boughs.
Flowers and flowers, of purple, blue, and pink.
Grass and grass, of shade, sun, and crabs.
Shrubs and shrugs, of boxwood, japonica, and holly.
Birds and birds, of starlings, titmouse, and robins.
Bees and bees, of bumble, wasp, and hornets.

Fruits and fruits, of berries, citrus, and tropical.
Veggies and veggies, of vines, root, and stalk.
Rows and rows, of canes, orchards, and bushes.
Farms and farms, of poultry, beef, and dairy.
Bales and bales, of straw, wheat, and cotton.
Barns and barns, of equine, bovine, and ovine.
Coups and coups, of fowl, mammals, and rodents.

Nature in all its variety, large and tall, colourful and soft, bushy and prickly, harmonious and chipper, whizzing and stinging, cuddly and cute. A planet of plenty, a world of wonder, a life worth living.

Hour Ten

The fans are all gone, the game is over, the silence rings throughout.
Seagulls and crows pick through the overflowing garbage from cans insufficient to their cause.
Peanut shells and popcorn bags, drink cups and wrappers, remnants of a family outing to the ballpark.
Janitors brooms, litter picks doing their jobs. Containment and disposal the goal. A full house is loud. A full house is busy. A full house leaves debris in its wake.

Sticky wads of gum under seats and on floors, handrails and seatbacks. Club sections, luxuries suites and press boxes, littered with beer cans and pop bottles. The odd jacket left behind.

A beat up shoe cast aside. High top Nikes left to whomever finds it. White and black the home team’s colours, making it easy to spot.

The final game of a winning season a play off berth cinched. Yankees over Red Sox, in the eleventh inning, winning 15 to 14.

Playoffs bound, in it for another round.

Hour Nine

I’m lost nowhere to be found.
The old me not around.
I’m not the me of yesterday,
Not of the past, the future, nor even today.
As life often does, it shifted and turned,
Forged a new trail through the wood.

My friends are all gone,
Left me standing alone,
To find a new life myself.
Reduced to pills on a shelf,
My life has no meaning is going nowhere,
Not sure where I’ve been and how I got here.

I’m hurting,
And in pain,
Running away,
From life again.

Lord help me please,
I’m begging on my knees,
Seeking some release,
From this my disease.

Of seizures and epilepsy,
And no more surgeries.
Rid me of the pnes,
Allowing me rest.

I’ve lost myself and no one can see me.
No longer her from long ago,
I’m missing and forgotten you see.
Memories faded from long ago,
Lost and not found,
Buried deep in the ground.
Where no one can find me.

Hour Eight

Freshly baked bread, a warm towel from the dyer, stew bubbling in a pot, brewed coffee, the sweet aroma of a flower shop, a candy store.
A schnozz in heaven.

Cut grass, cracked pepper, dust bunnies and pollen, second hand smoke, cigarette or otherwise, perfume baths,
tickles and bothers tiny hairs, a sneezers disdain.

Bacon and onions frying, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in a hot oven, burgers and franks on the BBQ, spaghetti sauce and chilli, simmering in pots.
Mouth watering flavours, hunger pains in the belly, overloaded senses.

Dirty diapers, overflowing toilets and sinks, tarring of rooftops, rotten eggs and gasoline.
Putrid smells of the unthinkable and nasty.

A sensitive spot suffering agony and pleasure, pinched, itchy, pierced, and sometimes bloody and broken.

What the eye sees the nose knows moments before whether by scent, smell, odour, fragrance, perfume, incense, waft, funk, stench, vapor, and sweat.
The nose knows it all.

Hour Seven

Your silence is calming, serene, and devoted. Your meaning to many speaks of energy and community. Elegant and gracious you stand amongst the crowds presiding over time and space. A fragrance fragile yet strong. A herbal scent reminiscent of evergreens and forests. Your warmth is inspiring a blanket keeping loved ones safe from harm.
Soothing effects chases nightmares away allowing a restful sleep.
A shade of blue mixed with red, lightened by daylight. Delicate petals placed upon towers of spikes, , your aroma drifts in spring breeze.
Regale as the deepest purple, isolated, and alone. A representative of a community of lost souls.
Lavender is your name. A flower of many meanings. A shade of purple the international flower of epilepsy.

Hour Six

Who are you, I know not who.
You’re not the person I once knew.
Funny compassionate, witty, and loving,
No longer the same you’re just somebody.
I believed in you and you in me or so I thought,
Together forever, until death we do part.

But something changed when I go sick,
You could not manage and we split.
The loving nature I thought was there,
Had disappeared as if you’d never cared.

Left alone to myself and scared to death,
You never looked back you couldn’t care less.
Eight years now gone, time has passed,
Don’t miss you now it’s like we didn’t exist.

The trials and tribulations I’ve endured,
Survived traumas, dramas, beyond your belief.
Become stronger, wiser, humbled by experience,
And outgrown your pettiness and ignorance.

Despite the challenges I have faced,
My life is calmer a happier place.
Looking back now on your selfishness,
I’m glad to have left your life of disgrace.

Farewell and goodbye, this is now and forever,
You’re the past, not present, not to be my future.
I’ll carry on without you, leaving you far behind,
I’m happier and freer without your kind.

Hour Five

an inkling of forced into retirement the choice not my making.
known at 41 left to raise my son fend for myself.
had known, my future, the moments of fear, frustration, and anger.
had a clue of the anxiety and depression, of the pills, hospitals, ambulance rides.
all the money spent commuting.
knew I’d move to somewhere unfamiliar.
of isolation and a global pandemic no access to family.
had known now what I’ve seen, and done.
made a difference?
be different?
achieved the same result?
made other choices?
left my hometown?
had only known?
only knew I had an inkling.
if I knew knowing now.

Hour Four

A child’s breath,
A pain of glass,
Foggy inside and out.
Crystallized water droplets outline wooden casements, a spider’s web of shiny white.
A wintry day stuck indoors the outside world a flurry.

Warm air meets cold,
A film of dew,
Fingerprints dotting.
Funny faces and curlicues drawn upon a clear page, patterns running into each other.
The treetops covered drooping by the weight.

A chilled breeze,
Obscuring the sight,
Pellets of ice bouncing.
Outside, the world is quiet, muffled by a blanket draped, covering all it touches.
Icy roads unsafe to cross.

The image of a child,
Pouting and sad,
Only wanting to play.

Dreams of snow forts, angels, sleds, throwing snowballs, skating on frozen ponds.
Playing with friends.

Long winter days,
Hot chocolate and marshmallows,
Videos and games.

The first day of winter has arrived, the promise of snow and days growing shorter.
Indoor days no fun for little ones.

A child at the window,
Sad eyes looking out,
Almost wishing for grass.