The Poetry Marathon

Hi,

• I’m a returning marathoner. I write poetry a lot and love thr challenge of the marathon – I like the challenge of sticking to the prompts as I find that way, it takes me beyond my comfort zone. My special interest is to match up my poetry with work from my other great passion – my photography. I have my own writing blog and facebook page where I share my work.

Once I’ve finished my normal waking day,

It’s time for it to give way

To something far more spectacular –

As they would say in the vernacular:

It’s time to get down to business –

There are plots to be finished

And dreamscapes to revisit,

New adventures on the astral plane

A choice from the menu –

Lucid or unconscious?

Preparing the venue

For  absolute calmness

So I can be sure to harness

Every spark of magic

My day-life –

Just a mere shadow

Of the existence

I’ve created with persistence

At the Imaginarium –

An entire universe of my own creation,

Where I can take delight in every temptation,

Discover new pleasures without cessation,

See a new world through tight closed eyes

Renewing my citizenship at every surprise

And I never want to leave…

Sometimes I even try to weave

The normal waking world in with my dreams,

But I’m always woken by defeat

Once again exported

From my dreams

And I emerge thwarted

By a disease

The call reality –

Always a travesty.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

‘I doubt it’ should be my middle name,

And if doubt was a game

I’d be on the leader board

For every decade since the eighties,

When all of the world’s issues

Became weighty on my shoulders

Gaining at least a metric tonne for each year I got older,

And I should have been bolder

And done really brave things –

I don’t mean joining CND and blocking a road,

Hacking computers and cracking a code,

Hitch-hiking round the country alone –

I did all of those.

I mean acts of true bravery

That might just have saved me

From not ever feeling good enough

And never really being half as tough

As I seem.

I love myself

I truly do

It’s just about time someone else

Did too.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

Niall Griffiths writes a tidy book

Always worth a look

Like

If you’re bored as shite

And not easily offended

By the terms ‘sheep’ and ‘shagger’ blended

On the front cover

And can pronounce Welsh place names like

Llanidloes without help from your mother

Ah, give ‘im a read mun –

He might not be proper like

But he’s bloody good fun!

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

Tentative notes

Emerge from your throat

A song like a lullaby

To help say goodbye

To the cruel day

A break of rhythm

That you were given

To alter the sound

As your tears hit the ground

So it wasn’t the same old same old

And this became a story that had not yet been told

A melody

Not quite ready

To have the lyrics inflicted

In a way that’s unrestricted

Because this is a story not yet told

And you can’t come at it cold

And there’s no ending yet

Just a simple refrain

Because you’ll want to hear it again

When you notice the sound of rain

Is hidden in the frame

Of the story not yet told

Eventually

A harmony

As things come together

Just when you could have been at the end of your tether

And you realise this story untold

Won’t have to be finished alone.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

Thank God it wasn’t a child:

Seems to be able to be applied

To almost everything

To lessen

The impact

Of doom:

‘The votes are in, we have a new Prime Minister!’

‘Thank God it wasn’t a child!’ the public cried

For all the difference it will make –

But still, it eased a nation’s heartache.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

First line borrowed from the first line of chapter 1 of Butterflies in Novembr by Audur Ava Olafsdottir

Beggars can’t be choosers

When they’re manipulative users,

So while you’ve still got a choice

Don’t use your voice

To whine and plead –

Don’t beg,

Take the lead –

Go ahead

Make it happen,

Do what you need for your own satisfaction,

Then bask

In never having to ask

When everything you wanted is right within grasp –

It really is a simple task

To take off that pathetic mask,

And put in some real effort on your own behalf,

And stand back and admire the changing view

And have the last laugh at those who doubted you.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

What one possession

Is my obsession?

What do I treasure more than gold, frankincense or myrrh?

My camera, my memory maker,

Recorder of dreams and scenes,

Preserver of people,

Sharp as a needle,

Life through a lens,

Anxiety ends

When things are brought into focus

And captured in calmness,

My camera –

A loyal best friend.

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15

From clouds of inspiration in a sky of emptiness comes rain –
To soak a parched cocoon,
Which appear to be levitating
Concealing a phobia
Unexplained by life
No matter how many moment’s notice
And you may or may not notice,
Through the clarity of rain
Every drop of it magnifies – a wonder of life –
Everything that’s held within the cocoon,
Every beginning of a hope or a phobia
Levitating
Perched on the edge of dawn, levitating,
And slowly, a crease unfolds until the miracle is allowed to notice
They are not the pupa with a phobia
But a butterfly – baptised by rain
A pearl of wisdom inside a shell – a cocoon
The oyster of life
And as this story of life
Begins levitating
Through your mind’s cocoon
Where the things you notice
Are magnified by your brain and not the rain
You shatter your own phobia
A long held phobia
That your own life
Would rain
Down tears instead of levitating
Or elevating and everyone would notice
The gloom of your cocoon
The doom of your cocoon
Now a bygone phobia
Something to pay no notice
A cast away part of life
An empty shell left levitating
In the rain
Your empty cocoon no longer holds life
Your phobia can be left levitating
And all people will noticeis the butterfly baptised by the rain

(c) Gemma Hinton 14/6/15