The Poetry Marathon

Astonishing Animals

Astonishing animals all around
Breathtaking baby birds bewail
Curious chimps chatter and chase
Distant deer dash indiscriminately
Electrifying eels elongate edgewise
Fabulous flamingos flit fretfully
Glorious gorillas galumph gaily
Heartwarming hamsters hide hereabouts
Impressive ibises intone intensely
Junior jaguars jump jauntily
Kindly kakapo kiss kinder
Lovable lemurs leap lazily
Magical moose make music
Nervous nightingales neaten nests
Overwhelmed ostriches orbit in ovals
Peculiar penguins peck peevishly
Quaint quail quack and quake
Rare reindeer race rainbows
Startling starfish see sunshine
Thrilling toucans touch toes
Unprecedented urchins undulate underwater
Voltaic vipers visit volcanoes
Wicked wasps watch through windows
Extraordinary Xenopoecilus excel in exams
Young yaks yell yearlong
Zealous zebu zip zestfully
Astonishing animals all around

A Poem from the Inside Out

When looking in
Are we not looking out?
How to tell the two apart?
The outside, oh, so fragile
The inside naught but heart

A poem is the thing inside
That tears the outside down
Outside is where the poem exists
Parading into town

(from a prompt from earlier today)

Rainbow Lorikeet

I love the bright red cardinal
And his dun-colored mate
The bold blue jay that visits me
And the robin on the gate
I sometimes see the goldfinch
And the purple martin too
The other birds who visit
Are of a duller hue
But down in wild Australia
Lives a bird that’s quite unique
Wearing every color
Is the rainbow lorikeet
His head is of a brilliant blue
His wings are shades of green
His chest is red and yellow
And every color in between
His beak is painted orange
But do not be confused
His feet are just simply gray
It was the one color left unused

(picture from https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/rainbow-lorikeet.html)

Big Enough

On Gilligan’s Island
and in the Harry Potter series
spiders appear that are enormous
bigger than you or me
They carry their heavy bodies
on stick-thin legs
Towering creatures
of improbability

But how big must a spider be
to be scary?
A spider as big as a watermelon
would be terrifying enough
Even one as large as a Frisbee
or a teacup

In Ecuador
a spider lived in my kitchen
It was as big as my open hand
and occupied the corner of the ceiling
above the door

Every morning I entered my kitchen
through that door
then turned to look
to see if the spider was still there
It always was.

The spider sat in that corner
all day, every day
At night it would come down
and feast on the cockroaches
that were endemic in that country

The scary bit, it turns out,
was going through that door
not knowing
Once I spotted her
saw her securely in her corner
content
it was fine
We both went on with our days

And in the end
I realized
I dislike cockroaches
much more than spiders

A Carol (from Carroll)

If it were up to me, I think that I
Would sit with you by the fire and sing
And spend this life doing nothing but this
Making each day an eternal, melodious song
Always in your presence, always together, for,
To me, you make this world a wonder, just by your
Being here, laughing, embracing, loving, an endless delight

Line: “I sing this song for your delight” from Humpty Dumpty’s Song by Lewis Carroll

Was the Jabberwock
Looking for a great battle?
Or . . . “wrong place, wrong time?”

Octopus

We watch the skies for aliens
But we should watch the seas
For among us swims the octopus
An alien, if you please

He can change is size and color
And texture at his will
And disguise himself like anything
A clever sort of skill

You know he has prehensile arms
When startled, he shoots ink
More incredibly, scientists are learning
Just how this creature thinks

He has half a billion neurons
He keeps outside his head
They lay all along his arms, which means
His arms can think instead!

Those arms can find hidden items
Take a lid off of a jar
Make tools from natural objects
And even more bizarre

Those arms may even be conscious!
Now there’s a thought to shock
Eight creepy aware tentacles
You know, Let’s get off this dock!

The Hayloft

We entered the barn
though grandpa’s workroom
smelling strongly of engine oil
Then past the old milking stanchions
empty from before I could remember
Finally, ultimately, up the ladder
Made of wide boards and
attached to the end of a feedbox
Difficult to maneuver and scary
Sometimes I couldn’t make it
Especially the awkward step at the top
a right angle from ladder to loft

Once there
the wide expanse of the loft was freeing
the roof arching high above our heads
with only small amounts of hay
and a lingering smell of dust
impeding our play
When my mother was young
she and her brothers and sisters
played basketball in the echoing space
But now the floor
was a minefield of warped boards,
missing planks, and holes
to watch for and carefully ease around
a fear of heights growing in me

At the end of the hayloft
the space was open
to trucks and equipment stored below
Above hung a rope
with one large knot
If you weren’t a scaredy-cat
you grabbed the rope
and swung out over the open space
trusting the brothers and cousins
to catch you upon your return
I did this
but not often
I preferred to watch
the braver kids
who whooped and yelled
and swung with abandoned
confidently

The barn still stands
but the grandparents are gone
And who knows how many
holes have widened
in the wide plank floor
Or if the rope
still dangles over
a vast empty space

One Long Leg

The podiatrist looked at me
Standing in my bare feet
But otherwise dressed, and said
“You’ve one leg longer than the other.”

Standing in my bare feet
I stood amazed that he
Could tell from just looking
That I was imperfect

“You’ve one leg longer than the other.”
And one breast that hangs lower
One foot with a bent-in toe
One brain with misfiring neurons

We are all of us imperfect
Standing in our bare feet
Or standing clothed, but solo
Trying to project perfection

hanging the lights

shivering in the snow
I hold one end
of a long string of
multi-colored lights
a queue of gems
they reach from me
to my brother
standing on the ladder

the cold doesn’t
seem to bother him
nor the height
nor the precariousness
as he reaches out
along the eves
and hooks the lights
on timeworn nails

he likes the doing of it
the job, the task
but seems not to care
for the result
I like the effect
of the house lit up
cheery
on a cold winter’s night

together
the laborer and the poet
we construct
a Christmas vision