The Poetry Marathon

1. Amy Winehouse
Dead before I ever heard
your name, that voice.
Did you die in vain?

2. Tracy Chapman
I want you to sit down,
have tea, sing some poetry.

3. Ronnie Gilbert
You can’t be gone.
Not now, not ever.
Even if I forget my own name
I’ll close my eyes and hear “Goodnight Irene.”

4. Joan Armatrading
Ma Me O Beach, lucky enough
to walk under ladders, I’m taking
my baby uptown, leaving the
empty highway behind.
Thanks to you, I know
when I get it right.

5. Hildegarde
A 93-year-old woman in
Hospice care, speaking mostly French,
remembers you singing in a cabaret,
circa 1952, the big war over, the cold
war just begun. You charmed the men
and inspired the women. First to sing
“I’ll Be Seeing You,” how is it possible
you never recorded it for posterity?
We can only listen to others sing it
and pretend it’s you.

To what and to whom
does one say Yes?
To purple and to sweet talk,
old cars and Donovan,
walks along fence rows
in the snow, and Yellowstone.

I have always imagined it to be
like walking on water, all the way
to Spain. Or Nova Scotia.
I’ve never been to Halifax.
There might be shipwrecks there
from that exploded boat
and I’ll be the one to find
the missing brooch,
a letter written in washable blue,
my favorite ink, when dry.
When wet it cannot be relied upon
to deliver the message as to why I went,
like Spaulding Gray, into the drink.
What is left to say?
No stones in my pockets, I rely on
the force of history to pull me down.
As to the reason, be it self-inflicted
or that killer who stalks for years
and finally strikes, holding me under
until I gurgle, like a full water bucket –
it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters
except these fish around me, friendly.
See how they flash in the water:
one last rainbow, rainbow, rainbow.

Hour One:  The Warm-Up

Check the vim and vigor,

hotel lobby at 6 am, CNN.

Morning breaks with panic

in Dallas.  Who shot the sheriff,

or tried to?  Bullet holes in the

window, in the windshield.

But all is well in Nebraska –

a place called Alliance.

Just a little morning fog,

some classics roll by for a car show –

no racist or homophobic terrorists in the tent,

as far as we know.

Say hallelujah – now we vent.