The Poetry Marathon

The pump lets out a diesel roar
An industrial lion, trumpet of civilization’s return
The surface shudders as sublayers are drawn
and spilled on a distant patch of grass scrub.

Frogs squirm, algae drifts, turtles surface nervously
as 3 years of pollen, leaves, and life is exiled from the bottom up.
Somewhere below a mechanical Carybdis strikes fight or flight fear
into the tiny world of muck and water, dirt and larvae.

Power washers fire up, unleashing tight spiral sprays
Eager puppies joining their voices to the great howl of the pump.
Inch by inch they wash away the years of neglect:
Algae green turns to scale white turns to unreal blue.

Thousands of gallons make a one-day-only stream
As a bottom unseen since diaper-days turned to preschool
Becomes visible once more, with four turtles, countless leaves,
and a lonely, long-forgotten, torpedo-toy resolving; images from wet static.

A few hours (thousands of gallons), and the pump goes silent.
The power washers hiss at the exposed floor, loosening scale;
It flows deep, clean and bright as beach sand on a fast current.
A shop vac captures the last of it, along with pollywog holdouts.

A pair of hoses refill the artificial pond, no longer a habitat,
As we drive with a carload of shelled refugees.
One by one, my children set down the four pool turtles
And wave as they vanish into the reassuring muck.

A faint mist of vaporous emotion wettens the eyes

As he tells me about a Fernando Garcia.

Hadn’t seen him in years

Had him listed as an emergency contact.

An awful, random tragedy

That he’ll never mention again

That probably never existed.

Yet he speaks with an enthusiasm, a force

Charisma that makes me want to believe..

But the words don’t match the facts

Don’t even match the other, earlier words.

His actions never hear the promises he makes.

And if I call him on it?

A fresh, angrier lie.

But the intent is always the same,

Sob stories, rants, and mea culpae

all hide one wish behind them:

“Give me a pass.”

Can’t meet his eyes as he tells me

he’s going to see Fernando’s mother.

Slowly, sadly, I shake my head,

Grieving truth and trust.

But not Fernando.

I can’t drown out that rhythm of venom, that cadence of wrath,
and the accretion of thriving muck at the bottom hungers, always.

A long breath hisses inward between teeth clenched without volition:

All life is sacred, and none is more sacred than our own,
the audience must needs think of me as pure and merciful;
A simple, clear song.

Outside of an asteroid or pyroclasm,
nature will bury this field of joys

But know I’m filled with wonder,
when shove comes to push.

In eyes deep as the well of souls,
the beauty of it is, you can be whatever you want!

The beauty of it is, you can be whatever you want!
For a few hours, you can become a valiant knight
Named Sir Seymour Buttz.
For an evening, you can be a lisping, half-giant wizard.
For a little while, you can play a deadly sniper from a murdered world,
surrounded by a crew of complete screwballs.
For as long as we’re at that table,
You can daydream of magic and adventure and power.

And we’ll all daydream with you.

The glory of it is, I can steal from anywhere!
Anne Rice’s vampires can fight Le Guin’s Earthsea wizards,
The Greek Gods can be slain by Aztec invaders,
Medieval Vader can team up with ersatz Voldemort,
I can blend magic, and eras, and races, and big fucking ideas, into a heady melange.
And Tolkien’s influence? Well, that’s just inevitable.

And for a while, I can tell you those stories, and let you tell them back.
I can turn my imagination into a playground we share,
A stomping ground for your sparkling heroes, your shady mercs,
and, sure, your straight-up murderhobos.
I can guide you, and point you on the path to heroic adventure,
give you hateful adversaries, unforgettable vistas, lofty goals, and memorable battles.
Perhaps I can make you wail at the fall of beloved allies.
Or I can just turn you loose and let my world react to your character’s antics.

We can be each other’s audiences, and advisors, and escapes.
And together, we can make something.
Trust me; it’ll be really, really fun.

It’s so easy to hide it,
behind screens, or hands, or walls.
To tuck your pain away where it can’t
make things worse.  Or better.

I’ve heard voices break and connections go dead,
I’ve witnessed messages composed, deleted, and composed again,
Then still left unsent.
Or reduced to a single word.

I’ve had doors slammed and locked in my face,
backs turned to me, faces twisted away.
I’ve conversed through bathroom doors,
shields of hair and pulled up knees, comforters that failed to comfort.

I’ve watched faces seal the sorrow in,
seen it bitten it off with tightened lips,
beheld it smothered out by defenses I can’t image,
In eyes deep as the well of souls.

And I have hidden behind layers of my own.
Veils woven of dark humor, over walls built of analysis,
Around pain and fear and need I would burden no one else with.
Yet I expected trust.

Tears and trust are only easy for children.
For us they must be earned, and shared.
They cannot be taken, or stolen, or forced,
And they can be so easily lost.

I’d rather hold clenched hands and shaking shoulders,
hear sobbed imprecations and wailed confessions,
I’d rather let sorrow soak my shirt and pain pierce my heart.
I’d rather suffer together than hide separately, and suffer still.

Nature didn’t make’em pretty,
with mottled fur and sneering snouts.
Nature didn’t give’em lovely noises,
all snarls, and squeals, and grunts.
But she knows her job and so,
She made them tough as nuts.

With beady eyes and floppy ears,
they lurk in sounders in the brush.
When hunger overtakes them,
They move on my chickens in a rush.
But this is our farm, and in Texas,
when shove comes to push.
So of course we have a shotgun,
with such insolence to crush.

My wife strode out with robe and gun,
Because she’s a better shot.
Leveled her barrel, pulled the trigger,
And down the biggest boar was brought.
It thrashed and stilled and out of it spilled
A heaping pile of hog-snot.

Now my youngest child pleads and grabs my hand
Daddy don’t let hogs get me, please.
No, baby, never fear hogs on mommy’s land.

No one sends you cards
wishing you a swift recovery.
No one praises you as a survivor,
as someone who “beat” it,
this demon you wrestle with every day.

Because no victory is decisive,
no all clear, no all better, no cure.
The enemy persists, insurgent,
invisible, intractable, inside you.

And I’m out here, watching you fight
this war I can be no part of,
carrying a burden I can’t shoulder.
Feeling you struggle against limits,
imposed by no one for no reason,
that you have to live with and within.

I won’t tell you to get better;
That prayer has been denied.
There are a thousand useless things
We’ve said, and done, and tried.
But know this much, my love:
I watch your fight with pride.

Every day is a chance to quit,
to lose, or fade.  To die.
Every time, you choose the other way,
Stare demons screaming in the eye.
I can’t know how much it costs you,
To give each day a valiant try.
But know I’m filled with wonder,
As you let your battle-banner fly.

A verdant meadow flush with bluebonnets
rushes by under their tiny feet.
The smaller one points and cries joyously,
and the elder squeals with delight,
and both run toward a fluttering gem.
A black and yellow glory
chased by two giggling pixies
in the warm Texas Spring.

I know that in days or weeks,
Nature will bury this field of joys
with a carpet of spikes and stings.
In weeks or months, the butterfly,
the insect they chase will die,
perhaps mating first, perhaps not.
In years, my children will grow,
and their smiles will sadden,
under weight of wisdom and years.

But this day, Texas is green and kind.
This hour, the butterfly swoops and bounces
like a fairy child at play.
This minute, my daughters know only laughter.
This moment, time loses.

Leaves fall, as do Empires, in the fullness of time.

They say she wasn’t built in a day,
but Rome took generations to fall.

Will we?

In the fading dusk of democracy,
we are driven to panic by demagogues.
An empire, a lifestyle, built on finite resources,
policies built on deferral of consequence.
Fractured consensus, identities of animosity,
A groggy center holding, barely.

A revolution sounds dandy,
but a civil war is no place for innocent,
and if you think the other side will cede
without blood in the streets,
history has hard lessons for you.

Leaves fall, like lives spent in the service of empire or idealism.

But leaves grow back.

Luxuries our ancestors would have named magic,
envenoming landfills and clogging the oceans.
Desertification, rising floodwaters, resurgent diseases
spread on winds far warmer than nature provides
outside of an asteroid or pyroclasm.

We are an extinction level event
on par with the end of the Cretaceous.
We are witnessing the birth of a world
that cannot hope to sustain us.
A millennia-long harvest of dust
after a century of sewing the skies with poison.

Leaves fall, but it grows no cooler.

It has a rhythm.
Like a heartbeat.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.
A simple, clear song.
Muscle, tool, and wood.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.

It doesn’t just cut
It’s not a saw.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.
Wood is crushed
Pinned aside.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.
The gaps deepen
With each new strike.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.

The tree grows weak,
The arms grow sore,
The shadows stretch.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.
But each new stroke
Stays steady and strong
Will, tough as oak.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.
Twilight creeps in
Like moss, like age.
A tree trembles.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.

One more, last swing,
Felt soles to skull.
A fond farewell.
Pull, lift, swing, CRACK.