The Poetry Marathon

I was walking along a Florida beach
when a man approached just to talk.

I’d walked many miles, all the way from
Miami to somewhere north of there.

I’m not sure where I was. The post 9/11
world was fuzzy back then;

And, my mind was just beginning to emerge
from decades of traumatic abuse.

We talked for a while about nothing
but life and the strange times.

Was he an angel? I wonder that still,
for at that time I was struggling on so many levels.

Pennies in my pocket, and not a job
in sight, save an ice cream shop,

whose owner thought I was a Jew
just for having a widow’s peak.

It was true. My father was Jewish,
but that’s beside the point.

What difference does religion make
to ice cream, coffee, and milk shakes?

Anti-Semitic jerk!

Back to the angel on the beach…
what was his name? I don’t recall…

He gave me a rock. Just a small, round,
flat sandstone, about the size of a silver dollar.

He said “where I’m from, when someone gives you
a round rock, you put it in your pocket,

and it will turn into money. I think he was right.
After that, my luck changed, though very slowly.

It was among many low points in my life,
all of which I survived with growing strength.

I am comfortably secure these days,
though still quite cautious with money.

And, I still have that rock in my wallet.

I thought I might
drop in for a bite.

A frog or two have you here,
my dear?

SSSSurely, ssssomething to eat
amid these rocks and boxessss!

I taste it in the air, but where?
May I play with your hair?

Let’s just slither over there
for a nap on these bags.

Or perhaps on these rags
What’s this? A bottle of Bragg’s?

I’ll resssst for a while,
atop your junk pile,

Then slip away
to play.

I remember you
and your bustling vibrancy!

Energy, like nothing else
in the whole world.

Creative consciousness
wired in a hive mind.

That’s you, New York,
and I still love you!

A home of my own.
It’s time for me
to finally
settle down.

A house, a kitchen…
is that too much to ask?

A place that’s mine
that no one else has.

Can it ever exist?
Can it ever be so?

A home that I own?
At home in my home?

We laugh around the fire
as its light flickers on all our lit faces.

Beer, wine, vodka, peach whiskey,
Sweet spiked, or bitter,

Whatever the taste, it’s a lit crowd
of raucous friends.

He tells the same stories
again and again – about the island
and all the elk he’s shot.

He’s lit, and the light from his face
never ceases to charm us all.

She drinks vodka and soda,
but is never too drunk.

My choice is usually wine,
though beer is better in this atmosphere.

I wonder what warms us most…

The earth is like a blue bottle jelly fish
a creature of many creatures
floating in an ocean of cosmic gas.

We hurtle through space at an incredible speed
pushed by waves from an unknown source.
And we each are part of the other.

Singular, but whole.

One of the same creature
if seen from afar.

And, we hunt, collectively,
for our place in the vast universe.
Such an existence!

It was my first Christmas in California.
I had met him just a few months
prior to that night.

He seemed so sweet,
and so quirky at the same time.
And seeing someone else, of course.

That’s always the way it is in my life.
Like a magnet for married men,
I attract them like flies to a picnic.

Ah, but he was a charmer!
Blue eyed blonde, about my age,
athletic, and even played the guitar.

We were a perfect match, I thought;
me, a singer, songwriter, poet, and
him, a charming, quirky guitarist.

We went caroling with the music club
in which I had first met him.
He hadn’t told his girlfriend about us… yet.

She had to have known! All women know
when their men have wandering eyes.
She knew. Indeed, she knew his nature.

Just like all the men I attract, he was another
Romeo. A cad who loved women in general,
but no one in particular. Just another user.

I hate that about him now, though I know
it was nothing malicious. He was, like the others,
just a broken man who learned love the wrong way.

But that night, I was convinced he would be
my second husband. I sure know how to pick ‘em!
Charmers, like rattlesnakes disguised as men.

It’s never me that approaches them, but perhaps
it should be! Though, come to think of it,
that has never worked out either.

I am still single nearly thirty years after I divorced
in court, and more than thirty years since I divorced him
in my heart – that man who never was MY husband.

I don’t quite understand why no man has ever been mine.
Not that I need ownership, or that I tend too much toward
jealousy – then again, maybe I do. I don’t know.

I see couples all around me who are happy together.
Often, they’re attractive men with just so-so women,
and sometimes they’re not so handsome with real beauties.

I see how comfortable they are with one another.
Why can’t I have that, and also have the thrill of passion
at the same time? The electricity I felt with all the married ones!

I’m old now, though. Old enough to have too many incomplete projects
and not really enough time to take care of a man.
That’s my excuse for all these Christmases alone.

You try and try
to stay alive!

But, none
can beat the sun.

Just lay a strip
for miles and miles

In stone
we’ve laid before.

Some brilliant child
of how’s and why’s

Will know
how to explore.

It’s up to us
to educate

And spend
the penny wise.

We know not who
to advocate

As one
whose mind will rise.

So, keep them strong
Old power lines!

Keep all
in wisdom’s hand

Who innovates
is up to God.

As we
increase demand.

If ever there was a moment
any moment,
in which I was not myself,
that moment pushed us
each away from the other.

I am she who is not,
yet I am eternal;
a child of one who is.

He was huge, my guardian
Sent my way by who knows who
Big people no doubt.

Concerned with my safety, no doubt.
Or perhaps concerned I might explode?
Who knows…

Mountains of molehills if that be the case.

I am not like the terds not deserving of a “u”.

In any case, he was enormous!
Six feet, eleven inches tall, as I recall,
Flying coach instead of the business class ticket he bought?
Trading down with the guy next to me?

Very strange indeed.

I’m a nerd, not a terd,
And so sorry to have inconvenienced you,
Oh so very handsome tall man from somewhere else.