The Poetry Marathon

“Have you lost anyone?” my student asks. “Has anyone you loved died – like your parents or your grandparents? Family close to you?”
I respond honestly, “No.”
“Huh,” she huffs, then turns first her eyes then her head then her body away from me.
We were done talking.
And now I understand why.
Having lost more than I can count on two hands.
Having lost track of the losing, lost track of exactly who was third or fourth, fifth or sixth.
If I could see her now, repeat that conversation, I know she would turn herself to me and lean in and nod, “Uh-huh.”

[Prompt 8: emoji poetry – adapted from the prompt]

In Greek the word means
unveiling or unfolding
to reveal something
we had not seen before
perhaps cannot even
begin to recognize
because we have
no frame of reference
for it to find a home
in our thought
So it’s true
we will need an apocalypse
to find our way
to anything new
A massive storm
of incomprehensible change
A complete freeze
of our past
and a blinding
sunrise of warmth
to thaw new pathways
we have never
walked before

[Prompt 7: Write a poem titled Season of the (fill in the blank).]

Five o’clock
beer time
on the side porch
crisp, piney, hazy IPA
first cold sip passes my lips
I exhale “I love you.”
“I love you too,”
my husband responds.

[Prompt 6: Write about your ideal day using only imagery and sensory details. It is fine if it is fragmentary.]

hit pause
look upward
feet grounded on earth
sky sifted through leaves
down to my eyes
fractals finding a home
in my mind
I inhale
I exhale
I lose balance
and smile

[Prompt 5: photo of sky through trees]

The final song at your funeral was, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” And I choked on my own tears and could not give those words flight to meet you. “You should sing at the top of your lungs at least once a day,” you advised your children, singing as you washed dishes, mowed the lawn, stood beside us in the pews on Sundays, as you tucked us in at night. I want you to know not a day went by that I didn’t sing out loud, usually in the shower, both loudly and badly. I sang parody lyrics to match events in the world around me, usually from cheesy 80s songs. When Covid struck, I could not sing for weeks. I felt too heavy to lift the words from my lungs, too fearful in uncertainties to belt out loud sound. This past week, I began to sing again, loudly and badly. I can hear your funeral song in my head, and I now have two answers to the question, “How Can I Keep From Singing?”

[Prompt 4: Write an epistolary poem that is a letter from you to someone who has passed and/or someone you have not seen in a long time.]

They begin days ahead
of the holiday
snap crackling pops and booms
One rattles the windows
“How is that legal?” we ask
but no one is arrested

The difference, an FBI sound expert says, is gunshots are all the same volume,
but firecrackers get louder and then softer and then louder again.

Our dog shivers behind the sofa
won’t even go out to pee
RayRay stays locked in his room
earbuds in all night and day
Both have been
on the receiving end
of the guns men held
in their hands

The difference, an FBI sound expert says, is gunshots are all the same volume,
but firecrackers get louder and then softer and then louder again.

“Fire in the hole!” the neighbor yells
before the sonic boom
I shove another pill in cheese
to feed the dog
throw out another bag
filled with RayRay’s empties

The difference, an FBI sound expert says, is gunshots are all the same volume,
but firecrackers get louder and then softer and then louder again.

[Prompt 3: Bop poem]

Appreciate each eye opening, each breath in, each breath out.
Focus on what is most meaningful, most kind, most joyful.
Accept that it won’t all be.
Resist that which could derail, distract, discourage.
Remain determined to make it and not just accept it as it is.

[Prompt 2: Recipe Poem]

She breaks into tears
broad shoulders shuddering
under the weight
she must bear
every waking day.

I wrap my arms
around her broad form.
She is so soft
to be so hardened
against the world
of walls she batters against.

Walls I cannot break down
alone. Walls I and others
like me helped build
through our complacency
our acceptance.

The shame I feel
as I hold her to me
is all this moment can do.
We take deep breaths
step back
each seeing now
the color of our skin.

We smile. We nod.
We say
I’m okay for now.
But there is so much more
work to do.

[Prompt 1: Write a poem about a famous woman or an influential woman you know personally.]

What would I need to do
to make you stay?
Make a commitment
to another twelve…
I look back upon
our experiences together.
They say time makes you forget
the bad, remember
only the good.
I say – it’s still all too fresh.
I’ll finish us now.
Downsize. Compartmentalize.
Reconsider a year from now
whether or not
it was worth it.
Whether or not
I want to give it another go.
We made it through twice
so chances are pretty good
the theory is correct.
I will remember
what will make me
do it again next year.
With you.

The Swallowtail Jig
brings tears to my eyes.
My Irish roots
grounded in the family name
Ellis.
My father’s people came
from the great isle of Éire
the fire red in our hair
testament to the fact
we were the ‘true Irish.’
My father’s father
was a fiddler who wore
a single gold hoop in his ear.
Played the fiddle and
stomped his worn dirt encrusted boot
on the wooden porch where
we kids bounced around until
the fireflies came to light.
The Swallowtail Jig
just a quaint country song to some
digs deep into the furrows
of my family
of my love.

[Prompt 11]