The Poetry Marathon

Artwork Haiku

Looking for her beau
She completely fails to see
He is watching her

Step Up!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

It isn’t really that first step that’s the problem
We all take a few steps now and then
But with 5, 279, 998 more feet to go
You are looking at over three and a half million steps
If you take 6 thousand steps per day
Like the average American
You’ll be walking for 587 days
Or just over a year and a half
Then where will you be?
If you started in New York City
You might get as far as Jasper, Alabama
And what is there? Not much.
Remind me why we are doing this again?

On a Wire

Before the telegraph
Strung wires on poles
From coast to coast
Where did birds gather
In gossipy groups
Sharing the news of the day?
They cannot bask in the sun
On branches heavy with leaves
Nor gather in such groups
Where sprigs and twigs
Interrupt the flow
And nothing on the prairie
Proffered such a perch
As we advance with satellites
And wireless technology
Will the birds be sad
To see the neighborhood go?

A Posting from Io

Dear Friends,

Well, I’ve settled into my little pod, finally
the surface of Io being what it is
Finding a place to set up housekeeping
was difficult, given all the volcanic activity

It is, as expected, freakishly cold here
Sulfur-dioxide frost coats everything
One dares not explore too far
for fear of freezing to death

Fire and Ice, ha! A land of contrasts
It is hard to know which to fear most
But I don’t fear, not really, only
the loneliness that seeps in around the door

My work keeps me busy
charts and graphs and data collection
the recycling of water, the cooking of meals
I try not to think too much of home

I will send you a photo of the sunset
over the mountains, which are painted
various subtle shades of yellow, red, and green
Only the distant sun seems colorless, and cold

I best sign off now, and try to sleep
It will be many months before you read this
So, I will ask you the favor, dear friends,
of replying with all the speed you can

With all my affection,

Your distant Friend

Pulling Up the Little Trees

Among the regular lawn weeds
The little trees are easy to spot
Three to five inch woody stems
With an umbrella of familiar-looking leaves

When I pull them from the damp soil
They release more easily than I expect
I note the long tap roots
Each had planned to stay put

But they were born in the wrong spot
Around the AC unit, in the gravel beds
That encircle the house, rooting
Between the boarder planks

It is needful work, to protect the foundation
Of the very house in which I dwell
And yet, how sad to kill something
So young, so full of life and hope

And though these trees are now dead
If we were to pack our bags and go
How soon before the forest returned?
To erase the evidence of our existence?

I find this to be a promising thought

I Did Nothing
In the style of Martin Niemöller

First a hole opened in the ozone
But I did nothing
For I could not see the ozone
Then the polar bears began to die of starvation
But I did nothing
For they were very far away
Then some places began to have 100-year storm events
But I did nothing
For those places were not where I was
Then the seas rose on the coastal cities
But I did nothing
For I did not live on the coast
Then winter changed to summer, crops failed,
and famine swept the land
But I did nothing
For by then, there was nothing left to do

Pumpkin Wife

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well

You may think it isn’t very nice
Living in a pumpkin shell
But once you shellac the inside,
Getting rid of the basic sliminess,
It isn’t that bad
The walls are wholly carvable
I’ve made all sorts of brackets
and shelves and windows
It’s a sweet little home now
Quite cozy in fact
The thick rind keeps out the cold
Yet is quite cool on the hottest days

Some balk at the idea that I am a prisoner here
Not true!
I can come and go as I please
It just pleases me to stay,
now that we have a comfortable home

You should’ve seen the potato we were living in before!

The Fairies’ Origin Story

God created Lucifer to be an angel bright
To stand at his right hand and serve him day and night
But Lucifer sought power; glory, worship, fame
To be a god himself was this fiend’s only aim
He gathered angels to himself to worship him alone
And, for a time, it worked; seeds of dissent were sown
But God called on Michael, Archangel of renown
To battle Lucifer and bring the scoundrel down
They fought for seven days and seven undying nights
But Michael, he was able to put things all to rights
He dragged Lucifer to the gates and threw him out the door
And Lucifer was never seen in heaven anymore
But Michael, he neglected to shut and bolt the gate
By the time he noticed his mistake, for some it was too late
For the angels turned by Lucifer, began to follow him
Angels by the thousands, even tiny cherubim
Tumbled through the pearly gates, to earth were falling fast
Michael had to shut the gates before all were lost at last
And when the big gates clanged the echoes did resound
All angels falling were halted midflight on their way down
They could not return to heaven, for God they had rejected
Had followed evil Lucifer and heaven had defected
So each stayed where each had ended up on his descent to hell
In the sky or on the earth, or under it to dwell
Those beneath the surface became the goblins and trolls
And elves and gnomes and brownies were in forests and on knolls
Dryads were the ones in trees, Naiads in the pools
Mermaids were beneath the waves, in oceans dark and cool
And in the air, both here and there, flitted spirits bright
The nixies and the pixies, the fairies in their flight
Thus the world was filled with the entire wee folk kingdom
And now you know, my darling child, from whence the fairies come

Froggy Mystery

The children ponder the mystery
Tomatoes canned in jars
Appearing along the streambank
When evening reveals its stars

They slip into their raincoats
Tiptoe across the lawn
Then sneak down to the water’s edge
Just at the break of dawn

They elbow each other silently
Oh! what a sight to see!
Frogs in numerous squadrons
Working feverously

Harvesting from the garden
Tomatoes ripe and plump
Cooked in giant kettles
On many a rotted stump

Frogs that can tomatoes?
The mystery only deepens
My keen and percolating brain
Cannot grasp the reasons

The stream it flows; the frogs, they can
I’ve seen it from afar
We sit and ponder the mystery
Tomatoes canned in jars

Magic

I stretch out my fingers
The magic starts to flow
I levitate this stack of books
Inside it starts to snow
I strew fireworks across the sky
And flowers about the land
And for every empty heart
I find a willing hand
No more sickness or famine
No more wars or strife
Until my power empties out
And thus concludes my life
With no more magic in the world
What will the people do?
Bring back war and suffering?
Try to muddle through?
There are different kinds of magic, friends
We should attempt a few.