The Poetry Marathon

An easy fix, this, with the very small words and easy banter- who could ever declare anything truly false

The catch, is the desire to sleep is not worth the strain- of adding additional thought

It was rough.  It is now not. The desire to sleep replaced the original to wake up

But waking up, was rough

The sense of panic when you see a car with no driver

Right before you realize it is hitched, and being towed

Perhaps vigilant is a good word

Easy banter, who could ever declare anything truly false

The driver seat was empty

The emotion valid in that reality

Enough is enough

Careful now, slowing to a drip in the stream

They tried to turn the power on in other ways

Solar, at first, taking them out to sun with an immediate depletion

Upon return

And then wind, repurposing the gusts that would break bones

But the wear was too great

So a dam, a dam was made

To harness the power of pressure

Or at least, a dam was made

By the old parts of the sun and the wind panels

Recycle, am I right?

But the dam is no longer needed

The pressure building but no longer needing to keep the lights on

Nobody is home who cares to see

To be fair, nobody is home who remembers how to see

Oh the rush after the dam breaks

Not a slow release

A catch up as that water was meant to travel somewhere

Oh the rush after the dam breaks

Surging everything in it’s path

Those caring enough washed down stream

Only the meek remaining

Still refusing to speak

Or make moves to drink

Gosh, the dam breaks

And all of life comes free

Filling the banks with nourishment

Careful now, slowing to a drip in the stream

I won’t look, no, ‘fraid I can’t

My eyes will stay focused on the black dots

Which stack together just perfectly into little lines

All code

All code

I won’t look, no, ‘fraid I can’t

I have a problem of opinion

Others get the best of me

All code

All code

I won’t look, no, ‘fraid I can’t

I might loose myself

And then where would you find me

All code

All code

Wisdom helps us garner opinions selectively

From days we did not know

Because the days are already gone

And time moves far too slow to ever turn around and go back

So we don’t look, no, ‘fraid I can’t

You see through a bias perfectly as I

And I can’t, look, no

I’m still trying to not limit

My subjectivity of you

Based on my objectivity of others

But all that vity can be confusing

All code

All code

The old car sits in the front

It rusts, matching the yellow

Surely meant to be

Never mind a new car

Or new paint

The old car sits in the front

Where it should always be

It’s an anchor point

As is the old kettle at the diner

The one no one moves

Easier to fix it but why fix it

The old kettle sits in the front

And the servers just move around it

Just like the street sweepers

Anchor points

And that tree

That lives in the middle of the bedroom

Of me

The one I hadn’t been tending?

An anchor point which is living

Not an obstacle or recyclable resource

Just, anchoring

So I can trade in the car and buy a new kettle

Without feeling

A sudden and sever loss of the sentimental

The sentimental, always a lousy form of anchoring

I want to write, hi

Could you stay a little while

We’re the word belong

Hyperventilating.

A flash of memory distilled to a thought-

A lie, recognized

And needed to be relived

So it could be replaced

With truth

I hate this.

Hyperventilating and deep breathing

They are extremes

Of desperately trying to find homeostasis

One just feels better and is more apt to succeed

Homeostasis is hiding at the end of the brown paper bag

And underneath the yoga mat

That’s the real lie

The truth is those lies

The flash of memory

Never belonged to me in the first place

It was borrowed

From someone else’s hyperventilating

And deep breathing

Homeostasis is a very old place

The return of address

Would never reach me

I’m far too gone now

Replaced someone else’s fear

With Someone else’s strength

Replaced someone else’s sin

With Someone else’s embrace

Not borrowed, freely given

Makes the waves of anguish

Flashes of memory shorter lived

And the replacement with hope and rivers of water living

Just as natural as breathing

Pools of blue

The color of the sky

When it is over cast but not cloudy

Depth perception

A little deceptive that high

We know how deep the sea, we float gradually

But always rocket into space

Pools of blue

Gravity pulls

Effort is equally distributed

In breaking from the weight

We would never rocket into the sea

Why then, do we push so deeply

Breaking and entering

Trying to leave the gravity of our own weight

Pushing into the eyes

Pools of blue

We should be sinking

Exploring the depths

And shining lights on mysteries

Instead of launching rockets at children’s eyes

I cheated, knowingly so

This is a new sort of game

Posting exactly the number up to the hour

Somehow getting all the way to fifteen

In ten minutes

I know i’m cheating

I layed on a bed

No, I already wrote about this

I layed on a bed

No, I already wrote about this

I cheated, knowingly so

Made a man mad

Because this always could just flow

How boring introspection is when you’re self ascribing

The bed was a doctors table

And the man I did not know

Someone who wanted to connect

But instead I took a low blow

Carelessly, cheated him from self-discovery

Slapped him across the face of his ego

Because he wanted to really just be a poet

Instead of a doctor and if I had not cheated

We would have related but no

New to this sort of game has been the only mantra I know

Things take time

And that is actually okay

Perhaps I should have told him

Writing was the only way out of living

But I cheated – God gave me an exit gift

I cheated.  Were either of us poets?  No.

Pick up stix

Someone once told me if you think in rhymes

You have a mental issue

I rather differ

Poetry is a far more effective method of communication

And it helps me be okay with not actually trying

Pick up stix

Isolating a thought pattern

Selecting one

Without disturbing any others

When all I want to do is combine all the thoughts together

My favorite part was always dropping the

Pick up stix

To see where each one would lay

Which would nuzzle against the other

Which one would move if you dared prove your brother wrong

(Clearly a favored game of our multi-year mandatory, induced boredom)

I never really cared to win

Pick up stix

To pass the time

Instead of competition or advantage

I just never really tried

Left them there on the floor

Someone would say it was understandable

Pick up stix

That would be my therapist

The time is, 2PM or, frankly, central time 12:00

My clock chimes on my laptop undisturbed

By my being.

I’m at brunch

With two delightful beings

Who would rather discuss the world

Than anything else

Be it, 2, or 12, or 9:00

In Tunisia they bake their bread in the sand

We would never

Something about zoning violations

Or even pettier

Just to avoid court letters

For 6, or 8, or any o’clock

Simple method though, this sand bread

Easy ingredients and large enough to fill

The mouths of many, so families

Can work and be healthy

And share bread at no demand of the clock

They skipped meals, I know they did

And they would send their kids to school without any bread

No, not the ones in Tunisia

The ones in Chicago

Pricey shoes but no food

And we could compare sand bread

Simple ingredients

But the same comparison still

No one would let you bake it here

No not here

And the families with kids who have shoes and no food

The system keeps it simple

Keeps it simple

Do one thing without the other and have the roof over your head

Let your child suffer a while and eventually you’ll all be fed

But just like sand bread

Those grains baked into the growing flour

Have to be beaten out

By knocks on doors and reality bruises

Something wonder bread kids live without

But do you know how many ingredients are in wonder bread?

The exact opposite of simple

And those kids spend the rest of their lives doing too much

Thinking they are getting ahead and exhausting every extreme

Never seeing the simple joys

Of flour, oil, and salt

A different sort of clock

The time it takes to bake the bread is the time it needs

No one lives within their means

And the systematic racism keeps the time from being

Anything but run down