The Poetry Marathon

Lightning
(Hour 4 – Half Marathon 2021)

By David Hirsh

However you conclude
We will applaud
Some will stand
Others will stay sitting
The sound of your voice
Carries across the hall
Built for acoustic marvels
I, myself, am in awe
This is the third time
I’ve seen you recite
And each time
My mind dwells
In the words
I know so well
I wander around
With you
On your journey
Through the cities
And the places where people dwell
And the forests
Where trees, animals and forces of nature dwell
You show photographs
For those who need
Visual assistance
I prefer the words
That dwell between the silence
That live because you know how to hesitate
You talk about how you were almost hit by lightning
As a metaphor
And how you took long walks
To avoid playing cards all night
You were an avid loser at poker
Although you could read the other players
You felt bad for them
You weren’t that kind of killer
You would take a camera with you
And write about the pictures you took
And show those pictures as a slide
But I would rather hear the silence
Between the words
Than see what happened
To the tree you hid under
To avoid the rain
After it was hit by lightning
And continued to smoke in the fog.

For the Last Decade
(Third Hour of Half Marathon 2021)

For the last decade
We have shared our thoughts and prayers
For the last 18 months
We have shared our thoughts and prayers
For the last few days
We have shared our thoughts and prayers
As we search for signs of life
Amid the rubble
Amid the fire
Amid the water
Amid the storm
We hope to wake up to good news
As the bad news we last heard
As we drifted to sleep lightly
Haunted our sleep
We have no time
For REM or deep sleep
Coffee barely prepares us
As we stare into the tv void
The preachers, priests, rabbis, imams
Are speechless beneath the glare
They stutter to the rhythm of multi rhythmic
Gun blasts in the distance getting closer
Each standing at a corner
Offering prayers to ward off danger
We conjure thoughts of miracles
As we search for signs of life
Hoping our thoughts and prayers will lead to recovery
Rather than acceptance of retrieval
Our thoughts run rampant
And crash over their prayers
Among the sounds of thunderous steel and concrete crashing
Among the sounds of multi rhythmic gunfire
I was thinking and praying for fireworks
I think I was misunderstood
By the powers that grant wishes
Or answer to those who think and pray
For something different or something better
Not just a better result
For the last five millennia
We have been haunted
By the thoughts of prayers
Of others
I think as we wake up to a disturbed sleep
That we have been deeply misunderstood.
Our ancestors traded tranquility
For the ability
To think and pray.
We search for signs of life
Among concrete and steel ruins
With trained dogs
Who couldn’t be happier
We use robots
To search for the sniper
Hiding behind the wall
We offer a solution
An emulsion of thoughts and prayers
We find ourselves humming to a multi rhythmic beat
Of gunfire and buildings falling
A modern song recorded by satellites
And played back on the 24 hour cycle of news
Until the conductor adds a new chorus

Tripping Along to the Museum
(Hour 2 2021 Half Marathon)

We walked along the metal pier
To the museum
That looked like a crashed space ship
The sky was caramel
A perfect day for fishing
At sunrise
This pier had a metal fence topped with barbed wire
With signs that said no fishing
I didn’t have my rod with me
So it didn’t really matter
My grandfather
Used to take us out fishing
To the wooden pier near his house
My brothers, cousins and me
He taught us how to hold the rod
How to spin the reel
And not feel depressed
If we didn’t catch anything
He was teaching us the process
Of patience
I feel those muscles
Exercised
As I walk along this pier
Taking my own kids
To the museum
Where they can see
Pictures of fish
And sea mammals
But I am consumed
By the caramel sky
With streaks of blue
And colors beyond definition
Thinking of how my grandfather
Would perfectly place my hands on the rod
So it would feel comfortable
For long hours of catching nothing
Getting there before the sun would rise
Watching the sun cross the sky
And finally disappear
Beyond the horizon
When my grandfather
Would finally call it a day

Her smile
No longer
Lit up
The room
I don’t know if
I no longer
Saw it
Or she hid it from me.

Whatever made us happy
No longer
Made us happy together
We began arguing
Over the trivial
No longer
Making up with laughter
No longer thinking
How stupid we were being
Blaming the other
For being too blind to see

She accused me of not caring
I do care
I just don’t care enough.
No longer
Feeling overwhelmed
By a smile that could light up a room

It was not that she thought
It would be better
If we led separate lives
And it was not that she said
The love we thought would last forever
No longer lasted
It was the smile
She used when she said it

This is the first year I am participating in the poetry marathon.  I’ve been writing poetry, or at least what I call poetry, since I was in elementary school.  I post poetry on youtube and facebook, sometimes with music.  I enjoy reading poetry aloud, and reading poetry and listening to other poets recite their own work and the work of others.   Writing poetry for me is a process.  I think about a few lines for a few days until I am comfortable with those lines and then I write them down and write around those lines.  Once I have a first draft,  I edit until I feel comfortable that the effect is what I wanted.   Because the marathon compresses my usual timeline, not giving me the opportunity to edit,  I am a little nervous about the output.   I hope I have internalized enough about what I am attempting to achieve in a poem to write at least a few worthy poem.  Thank you for the opportunity.    I look forward to June 26, 2021.