The Poetry Marathon

Aloha 2022 Poetry Marathon Poets!

Wow! I have waited all year for this (I say this every year), but this year it seems the need to crawl into our writing space together is stronger than any other year. I am blessed and humbled to be thinking, writing, stumbling, conquering,  snacking, 20 minute napping, creating, and poeming with all of you. You are my muses, and I am so excited and grateful to be with you soon.

Last year, I wrote exclusively from the provided marathon prompts. I was nervous about my decision, but quickly found they were actually more structuring and liberating than I had assumed. I am looking forward to writing from them again this year as well. With all that is happening in the world, there is a great peace in the lengthy meditative space that is our poetry marathon. Bringing the prompts into my process helps direct the flow for me, and hone my thoughts. I highly recommend the prompts!

So, here’s my countdown…

Write 1 one hour poem each day this week until the marathon using a randomly generated dictionary word.

Thursday: Buy my favorite easy to grab marathon snacks… Trail mix, mini Mnm’s, dark chocolate bars, grapes, apples, frozen blueberries, limes, LaCroix soda waters, good chewy ice, Starbuck’s Nitro Black cans… crackers. Make chicken salad, egg salad, and tuna salad for the crackers.

Set up 3 writing stations… one at the dining room table… one on the front lanai… one at my bedroom window, all of which I will abandon for 24 hours cross-legged on my comfy bed, or lying on the floor. It’s the process though, right?

Friday night, set out all snacky snacks, and make my bed with my favorite linens. Set my alarm for 2:15am (We start at 3am here in Hawai’i). Go to bed at 7. Not fall asleep until 10… too excited!

Saturday 2:15am. Wake. Make awesome coffee. Shower. Put on super soft leggings and tankie. Remind myself that it’s just writing,  and if I write 24 senrua or haiku, that’s a good marathon. Do my best. Support others. Have fun!

So, that’s a little bit about me. I hope to meet many of you over the coming week, and see you in there… 9 days to go!!!

Me ke aloha nui loa 🌺

Elizabeth

Home is my silence
where these monsters can lie still
feeling protected

When I was young we watched a video in science with a block of cheese under a microscope.

It wasn’t cheese at all but a hoard of microscopic maggots holding hands and wriggling to form what looked like a block of cheese.

Block of Cheese

Microscopic maggot tricksters looking like a block of cheese.

I didn’t eat cheese for two years after that and wondered what else in my reality wasn’t real.

I learned that every kind or cheese was actually tiny maggots cha-chaing their days away pretending to be cheese.

I learned that if you had hooves or horns or poultry feet you could pretty much guarantee a heartless existence followed by a tortuous, brutal death.

I learned that if a human could eat it a human would eat it with ketchup and an inalienable sense of entitlement.

(Throw the maggots blocks at these guys!)

I learned Mexicans picked strawberries but couldn’t get a license to drive to and from the fields. I learned the same thing about the help at our favorite restaurant.

I learned most people practice compassion only when it’s convenient.

I learned the more you said about it, the more you started looking like you had hooves yourself, or chicken feet, or unlicensed brown skin.

I learned to eat the maggots and keep my mouth shut.

In early early morning
during parade season
we marched and played across the field       marched and played for two hours
across the field

marching band music
Sousa music

marching
leaving wakes of perfect lines
across the dewey grass
across the morning field.

Wake up. Wake up.
It’s time to play music.

It’s time to march
perfect lines of poetry
across the dewey field.

Oh Butter, how I love you so
though doctors say you have to go.
I’ll cherish you always
through the rest of my days
Your sweetness warms my oatmeal bowl.
Your creaminess does make me whole.
Melt well on my toast, Dear,
And on my rump roast rear.
You make my cookies taste divine.
You’re perfect with French bread and wine.
You make everything better.
This is my love letter.
You’re worthy of a heart attack.
Your extra pounds round out my back.
Oh Butter, lovely Butter
For me there is no other.

Before the blast and takings
we had a little place in Paukukalo.
It was hotter indoors there
less breezeway
but so close
the chatter of cartwheeling shorestones               told all their secrets
so close
I could walk down on sleepless nights
to join them in their sharing.

Only the Moon listened in
and a few helpful fish and
of course the stars
who could always be trusted anyway.

Neighborhood cats walked me home          protecting my tell-alls
from nosy minah sunrise gossip.

Nights were good in Paulukalo                           before the blast and takings.

I’m a grieving thing
monsters shushing stars
under my tongue.

I’d rather just be silent
but my silence screams for audience
and calls the Monster’s war.

Stars surrender
hide in vocal folds
slide all the way down back…
escape.

Sometimes, I am funny.
Grief is not funny.
Monsters shushing
stars protecting grief
are sometimes funny.

It’s a balancing act.

I’m no good on the tight rope.

Put your sunglasses on
before I open my mouth.

Just be still. Listen.
There are bigger thoughts than these        antiquated words.

Antiquated words
keeping us tied to the now.
We have outgrown now.

We have outgrown now.
We’re ready for the new words
the whole new language.

The whole new language
of expanded beingness
higher frequency.

Higher frequency
connecting The Collective.
Just be still. Listen.

“Books were safer than other people anyway”
-Neil Gaiman

I’ll take the hard corners
of a good book in my back
under my covers
over the fleshy resentments
of a worn out love affair
gnawing silently through my ribcage
any night … every night.

He drunktink tinked his sloshy glass against
liquor bottles on the front hall sideboard.
He called them “decanters in the fourier”

It was the entryway to his tract home
his rented tract home
his rented tract home… in Texas.

Pretentious Fuck.

Pretentious Fleshy Fuck.

He wrote a few selfie novels
many years ago…
thought they were open ended
festival seating all access passes.

Nothing like getting cock blocked
by Don Miguel Ruiz, William Hudson, James Frey… Oprah…

How was it for you?

Did you feel it
way down in your fourier?

You smell like freedom
faintly like fresh sourdough
but mostly freedom