The Poetry Marathon

I have escaped nostalgia
Missing nothing and no one
For in each moment I am here
And because I am here, I am love
Therefore I love.

I cannot miss that which is
Within my soul everlasting
Divinely connected through me
To eternity. Because I am love,
I can only love.

She knew her ears were blushing,
and wished, in that moment,
for long tresses to come back.

These up-dos were far too revealing;
and she, with her pale complexion,
could vaguely hide her interest.

Head turned, she watched him saunter
closer, greeting dignitaries at each step.
eyes burning into ivory skin.

The blush moved across her cheek
Down her stretched neck to
black velvet barely hiding her virginity.

Feet away, her balance drifted
hard against an empty table.
Her black fan whipped into eclipse.

“I see a profligate gaze this evening, mademoiselle.”
Tears behind dry eyes gasped for breath.
“And no other suits draw near.”

He kissed her animate hand. She bit her siren lip.
“My duty – solely to honor your beauty.
I sorely lack cupidity.”

With that he walked away, leaving her puzzled.
Was he a priest? Or a monk? Or perhaps royalty?
Too good for a peasant in black velvet and diamonds?

Suddenly, she understood, when his hand
hunted the backside of her elder brother.
Her ears went white again, and she grew older.

“Big as a house it was!
I never knew goldfish had teeth
Until that moment.

I’d gone from predator to prey
Diving the depths of that
Florida bay.

I was but a nibble.
The manatee he ate was
A much better portion.

And that’s how I escaped.”
Little Charlie giggled.
“Grandpa, there’s no such thing.”

“Oh, but there is!
And that is why, sweet boy,
we never let goldfish

Swim in the toilet.”

Broken culverts
Beneath fallen trees
Pushed to a jumble.

Steel struts seem to grow
Among hemlock
And wild watercress.

Old concrete
On its way to sand.

Leap frog! Across
New breeding pools
Eroded via deluge.

We pray for rain,
But not all at once.

A tiny dot on a piece of paper.
Too much for one small body’s initiation
Into the acidic abyss
So, he cut it in half, twice.

It would have been a bad trip.

The bowl glowed with embers
Burning like a red star in some distant galaxy.
Mesmerized, she sucked the plume until it died.

Then choked on the exhaust.

Her mind was not her own.
And he, the devil’s son, smiled a vicious grin
As he led her to his lair.

She couldn’t stay inside.

From above, she saw herself,
Then flew to outer space
Like a helium balloon

Held down with a rope of pure gold.

Speeding past the moon and Mars,
Skirting the rings of Saturn
Before seeing the swirling system

Hurling through the galaxy of distant stars.

“What might I find at the edge?”
She asked herself as she sped through emptiness.
“Is it a wall? Just more space? Or nothing.”

“Keep going and the cord will break,” spoke the dark before her.

She willed herself to turn and look.
Swirling behind her, every universe with galaxies within
Danced along a rhombus strip.

“Life is never ending,” she heard herself speak.

“I brew a pot each morning
And drink it all day long,” she said.

“Would you like some?”
His smile, a sly revelation of intent.

“Tea, I mean. Not me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She read him like a slutty novel.
“I see what’s in your eyes.”

Blue, with hints of pine and gold dust.

“Milk? Or lemon, like a true Brit?
I like mine with cream and honey.
Hot, blonde, and sweet; Just like my men.”

Things were getting interesting. He smoothed
For a dainty cup among the flowers,
Girding his full attention to her immodesty.

“So…?” she smiled as she poured from a cabbage pot
Into a strawberry rimmed in gold.
“What’s on your agenda today?”

My yellow squash died.
Three of them I drenched
until the cool of spring
rotted their roots.

I watered and they did not grow,
and so, I watered more
and more, for hours at a time
each and every morn.

Behind them, the zucchini went.
And, oh! The butternut, too!
My thumb now brown as matter spent
because I water too soon.

My husband must be king!
And therein, I, his queen
Shall rule with an iron fist
When he is gone.

When his codfish belly,
Bloated of ale and hemlock
Festers with worms in the peat,
I shall rule all.

And none shall know the blood
On these, my royal hands
When the house of Lady Macbeth
Wears robe and crown.

The blood, red, like paint it is,
Though I wash from the deepest well.
This soap! This blistering soap!
I’ll have her head!

The maid who gave this blistering soap!
Not soap, but lies of lyes it is!
Lies of lyes! And these hands!
Most royal hands

Still stained with their blood, and now his,
My most unbeloved husband.
Yet stab him I did not
With knife nor sword.

Dirty hands stained evermore?
Then queenly gloves I’ll keep.
What? These stained, tattered rags
Are not my gloves.

Off with her head, I demand of no one there.
I am alone. No sound in the castle lurks.
Is that my husband there
Moaning shadow?

I saw him yesterday at the creek
Talking with his mother
As she gathered shells
For his necklace.

Achilles had many a flame.

I was just one maiden, fair enough
To have caught his eye
At the celebration
Of the solstice.

More than me, he wanted fame.

Never spoken of in myth, this peasant
Whom he loved as much
As the young temple
Priestess that day.

I would have borne his children.

Or so I was told by the Goddess;
His mother of ancient times
And mystical plays
Who lives far away.

He sits on the thrones of Heaven.

Frogs don’t chirp this
Strangely silent evening.

Not a peep from my tomatoes
Struggling to please me
More than last year’s jars
Of deep red succulence.

Less steam today.
The desert deluge passed into Texas
And we didn’t see a drop
Peculating for dry clay.

Children sometimes play
And cry, and scream
From the yards next door.
But not today.

No. This silent eve, all but a timid
“Shrip” punctuates the stillness
Like any mystery elbow
In every crowded subway.