The Poetry Marathon

Day of the longest night
when earth, reborn,
begins to feed again.

Melting snow and
warming soil
births the seed again.

Oh, day of the longest night,
four and eleven days hence
we celebrate birth and death.

And birth again.

Sure. I’ll be quiet

like distant thunder.

Not heard like the sirens.

Seen, like a Hollywood Goddess.

Silence is golden for the golden ones

who believe no others should speak.

They fell in love.

As with all good fiction
they fell in love at first sight.

It was the purest love with all the
vengeance and spite hell could muster.

A love of hate and wrath and evil deeds;
but boundless, indescribable love nonetheless.

Each time they saw one another
their love blossomed like foxglove
at the edge of a ditch where deer won’t feed.

And, with each passing moment,
their passion grew into

visceral rage

so unfathomably large it knocked Satan’s
worst cherubim to earth.

It grew and grew.

It blossomed!
It seeded the earth with millions of
hate filled thoughts and wicked wishes
for the other at every turn of the
tickling hands of fate.

Until one day they had to speak
a thought or two about some
innocuous topic of mutual vehemence,
leading to that one thing he swore he could

never do with her of all people on earth!

They kissed!

They made up!

They made up together in one grand, passionate scene
described in such a lascivious manner that any
good Christian might soon wander into the nearest pub

in search of a devil!

Perpendicular, straight, ascending.
Not parallel, but normal to the earth.
Like trees.

Breathless, obedient, acquiescing
Not questioning, but normal to the trolls.
Like views.

Ordinary, likely, predictable,
Not surprising, but normal to the we.
Like folks.

Theft, espionage, trickery.
Not ethical, but normal to the kings.
Like them.

Let’s you and I
take the golden gate,
my love.

Let’s leave our breath
like wisdom
on morning’s window.

I was a child when I went to school in a building.

Six. My brother, Jake, was ten
just learning science and
long division. I knew how to
read and multiply.

That was the night I knew why Spot ran away.

The crash through the front door
jarred me awake just as Jake
opened my door
carrying the crossbow Santa brought.

He was the best big brother ever in a million years!

“Shh!” his finger to his mouth as he
slid open the wall above my toy box
just as Mommy had taught us.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

Those were the last words he spoke before the bullet.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry as I
heard my mother screaming
“They’re not here!”
And I stayed for hours
until they left. The soldiers.

Men in crazy hats waved tattered flags seeking the disobedient.

I stayed until I knew
they were gone, and not asleep
in my mother’s bed…
until long after the toilet flushed.

I stayed until the coyotes came close, and there were no more Cheerios.

Strange finding the town so empty
when I rode my bike to the store –
the door wide open and lights still on.
I stole some Velveeta and crackers.

Alone, twenty years in a town of ghosts has no advantage.

I was at least ten years old
before all the food was gone
from all the houses,
and I had to catch little things.

“Stay small and stay alive,” were my mother’s words.

I lived in each of them
from time to time,
eating what they had
sleeping on their beds.

Changing my clothes and catching water from the rain.

So many dead mommies
and dead daddies
still in their beds;
but no children.

They took the children, but they never found me!

I heard about the fires
and the riots and protests
on a radio left playing next door.
And saw the flames nearby.

The wind blew it the other way for me.

Finally, today, I found it
buried in the rubble of my old house
beneath some sand
and my brother’s bones.

His crossbow. I could learn to hunt.

I could hunt soldiers
in crazy hats
waving tattered flags.

“Tell ‘em all to stand up! Tell ‘em! Tell ‘em!”

As if it will do any good.
Let someone else stand up.
Someone else, surely, will take a stand
against the ills of this world.

I am too busy being an artist,
too busy being a worker bee
in the institutions of finance
making money to be an artist.

Too busy making money to just be.
Too busy to take a stand.

“Sit down!” they might say to me
when I insist upon justice.

“Sit down!” they’ll shout, when I point
my truth, like an arrow through
the nothing of their wicked souls.

“Sit down!” their press will write, when I speak
of their debauchery and sin. These flagrant
men whose black vision rules our world.

And then, they laugh, these men whose
withered dicks once saw a child’s uterus
in the darkness of her tiny body.

They laugh. “She’s just…
getting it out of her system.”

“Yes, who believes the matron?”

“Haha! Who believes the witch
walking between the light and the dark?”

“Tell ‘em to stand up!” shout the dead, “Tell ‘em!
Tell ‘em!” in time eternal.

I already did.

But truth is not a Goebbels theme… I’m sorry…

“Ah, yes,” they chime. “Goebbels.”
“We gobbled him up yesterday”
“In Nazi pie, with sherry wine.”

“We shat him into brine today”
“He grows again and again,”
“To our dismay.”

Again and again,
a bored dessert he became,
for goblins and trolls.

“Maybe they’ll stand up tomorrow.”

Credit: the first line is from the one-act play “Bury the Dead” by Irwin Shaw

Ah, New York!

I know that bridge.
I know that rock
where he first kissed me.

Not really… I made that up.

But, I know that bridge.
And, I know that rock.

I know that beautiful
bustling place where the muses live.

I know the snow, and the sleet,
and the 24/7 noise of night music.

I know the theaters, and the stages,
and the late night coffee shops
of street musicians.

Ah, New York!

The place where new and knockoffs
meet to mingle and dance
the way no one has danced before.

I know the devil’s destruction
and the place where angels met
for poetry the night before.

Oh, New York!

I know this place
and how you grew beyond the blues
when news of Satan’s play
became old hat.

I’ve seen this line before…
this line I walk between worlds.

Razor sharp, and yet I live
as it splits me through.

I AM light in the darkness.

I am darkness in the light.

Fly then…
but you don’t fly, little one…
little brown one…
little brownie in my house.

Go count the Safeway clearance grains.
scattered yesterday
to keep you away.

No more crushing of paper
or pounding my drum.

Don’t scurry more
across this fake wood floor.

I came in from the rain!

They made it rain too many times a day
with their hoses with noses
spewing nasty water…
Plus the Mother’s rain that night
I crushed your big paper
between the sofas;
and rattled dirty dishes.

Tried to help, I did!

Not my fault!

Rain, rain! Every day! Rain!
Wet, wet, wet! All the time, wet!
My grass, mushy with sponge rotted roots!

My tree, you see, you see, is dying
from the snot of that dead
rubber snake and its metal noses!

You see the death of it!
Leaves, bare branches, lichen, and moss!
But one! Just one pink flower
this gale season!
A sole fallen blossom.

I taught the snake a new lesson,
little brown one.
The grass will find root.
And your tree will revive.

You found me safe, and
thought you might help;
but I, knowing your type,
and knowing few others of my kind
are so kindly toward yours,
need a quieter home when my guests arrive.

Your bumps in the night,
bad odors when you rage,
odd mews and music,
might scare them away.

So, go, dear Brownie Banshee…
little one who came
just to escape the rain.