The Poetry Marathon

Bury My Head in the Sand

is how I felt the day of the fall.

Having played the pandemic well by having

two knee replacements and cataract surgery.

None of which had to be done

but after all…I was mostly stuck at home

like everyone else with nowhere to go.

So why not get all of these out of the way

in time for Spring and hope for the pandemic to wane?

And swinging a six week trip from

WA State to LA in an isolated campervan

made me feel like I’d played it all right.

Until a huff and puff from the gods

blew down and sent me flying

through air and onto my hip.

Suddenly I was setting my alarm for the middle

of the night to take medications, slowly ambling around.

What is my lesson?

Who will I be?

But the biggest question that I really can’t answer…

Was I not being careful or was it just meant to be?

Boys in the Boat

They heard a voice

no one else could hear.

or maybe a whisper.

Not children of excess

with names like Bobby, Joe, Roger and Don

Jim, Gordy, Johnny and Chuck.

From farms, orchards and shipyards

they acted out of hunger to be the best

and some of them knew hunger all too well.

Their inner strength proved stronger than

upbringings designed for their biggest day

and weather that assured their defeat.

I look to them and know

that all we can be is nothing

more than what we can see.

Hardscrabble country kids

took hitler to task and showed

him that all the privilege in the world

can’t buy victory if your heart is empty.

Poem 7

Normal

I could say normal is typical or regular or average,

which begs a question. Is it desired in any way?

At times normal is a beacon of light as I am

giving up hope, so lost in the fog.

Other times it has shackles that make my wrists

and ankles ache from locking them in.

In nature it can be the natural pattern and

we may seek the usual in verdant lush gardens.

Normal can be healthy and routine when we

think of our bodies.

Normal is orderly and customary and sane

but let’s be honest here…it can be boring.

After all it’s what’s expected and current

and proper and decent by some accounts.

I mostly rebel against normal because it’s

not weird and weird catches my eye.

Doing things as expected is predictable

and satisfying and in your genes if you’re

in a lineage of farmers.

If you’re from a city, you’ve watched

normal change like sheets blowing

off a clothes line and into the sky…

You may want something different.

We’re all different, so why would

we want to be the same?

Isn’t that thought normal?

Poem 6

Creativity

Where do I find creativity?

It’s often not at my desk

where nothing much changes

except on this electronic gadget

that wants something from me.

I enjoy strolling amongst

an ever-changing landscape

that speaks in a language

all its own.

I trek past lush gardens

that sometimes can’t

contain their exuberance

and overflow onto what

used to be boring grass

strips by the street.

I hike trough the woods

where once in a while

a house in a clearing

has a Rapunzel like tower

just lacking her hair.

I march into downtown

met by overwhelming input

from so many directions.

I don’t know where to look until

someone so down on his luck

no longer pleads with his eyes

which says much to me.

Other times I plod through mud

turn head down from the rain

and remember a time I was lost

in a storm that altered my life.

I promenade through my neighborhood

and catch up on news that might

sound a lot like gossip if you’re not

from around here.

Where do I find creativity?

The answer might be nowhere.

When I look up

from my fog…

and notice…

the bright red package

that is parachuting down toward me

I stand with open mouth

and watch it float in the breeze

with a fluorescent green label

that has my name on it.

I reach out to grab it

and a voice screams

Don’t be greedy!

Another package will come

but you need to trust rather than want

because after all…isn’t that why you’re here?

Time Capsule

My shovel struck a rock

which was the obvious thought

until I dug it out to see that it was not.

Much too deliberate a shape

quite wide and so oblong.

I had to start to scrape.

Clanged with a trowel

washed with a hose

cleaned with a towel.

It glimmered at me

shined bright as carefree.

I noticed a hatch

with a spring and a catch.

I opened it up

not believing my luck.

Our popped a note

I can’t believe who had wrote.

It’s words were from me

I was overwhelmed with glee.

I suddenly remembered

many lifetimes ago

I wrote it so slow.

Wondered who would find it,

wise words tried to transmit.

I couldn’t wait to find my

directive for futurekind.

But was quite disappointed

at words so disjointed.

It said don’t rock the boat

keep your dreams afloat

but wear a red raincoat.

Poem 4

Don’t Look Away

“This is our life happening, I told her, or would have told her if I could have caught my breath long enough to say it over the clamor of the clarinet and fiddle, and it’s happening right now.”

Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs.

This is our life happening, I told her,

or would have told her

if I could have caught my breath

long enough to say it over the clamor

of the clarinet and fiddle,

and it’s happening right now.

This is life

catch your breath

dismiss the clamor

play your fiddle

be here now.

This is life

it’s all ya got

so play it right

and don’t ever

ever ever ever

think that the future

is more important

than now…

because the past

must have shown you

that looking ahead

makes you blind to right now.

And the best part of now

is that if you do it just right

it becomes the future you’d

been striving so hard to create.

Poem 3

Unfiltered

How much of me is unfiltered?

Am I a compilation of people I’ve met

and admired or had issues with?

Smart kids in college.

Athletes in high school.

Winners with the girls.

Those with ideas I love

but would never have thought of

in a million zillion years.

How much of me is unfiltered?

The Marlboro man puffing with certainty.

Babe Ruth pointing to the stands.

Ranting politicians.

How much of me is unfiltered?

Each day dripping newness

as if rain has washed away

what used to be me.

Much of me is unfiltered.

because all my huge decisions,

the ones that changed the rest of my life

the ones I talk about reverentially now

that may bore those around me who

have heard the story one too many times…

were shots of lightning

blasted from the canon

of imagination freed from

the fear of doing something wrong.

Poem 2

Long Run at Dawn

Dawn comes early

solstice glow time.

Birds calling when

December’s freeze

would silence the world.

Pink sky, distant islands

hope trying so hard

to push away doubt.

I wake up, do exercises

know they are a step

to get me past this broken hip

and though I won’t be running

at dawn…

I will be walking on a beach

feeling sand between my toes

with a recognition that this

precious life can change

with an unplanned fall

and a long run at dawn

may become a stroll

on the beach.

Poem One

End Game

Is it my imagination?

Is it like this for everyone?

My ten year old me timidly not seeing much else.

But the thirteen year old is elbowing for space – not quite as innocent.

Life hasn’t been linear.

My ten year old had no doubt, was confident.

My twenty year old had a lot more uncertainty, had to consider where I fit in, and realized that

I was not floating on a preordained template. Had to plan and decide.

The certainty of uncertainty hit home.

Looking back I realize how privileged and cared for I was.

So sure that the future had a plan for me.

Grappling, I realized I needed to jump templates from cared for child who didn’t need to make decisions to a struggling student whose grasp of quadratic equations defined who I was to a being with choice. Who do I want to be?

The answer came in a flash of light and a combination of circumstances, the words of a teacher and a bum on the street.

Family and career engulphed the new me. And like every other phase it moved on to the next undefined stage as one more curtain rose and fell in my play.

I planned three surgeries and tumbled into another during this endemic pandemic that at times seems bathed in pathetic. Is anything different as I see ugly roar like a lion all over the globe?

My onionskin self has so many me’s to consider the new world and where I fit in.

Friends and acquaintances are falling like trees in a cyclone. Is this a weird combination of circumstance or is it age?

I guess I’ll need to figure that out.

Clamor

What I knew seems lost

amidst the clamor of lies

and social distancing.

How many nutcases there

must be for our president

to be considered seriously.

Tommy next door practicing

his clarinet, again off key

like life has become.

I fiddle away time as if

what’s happening now

isn’t the most important time

in the history of this planet.

If I look beyond the clamor,

I find a lot of noise

going in the same circles

as our planet and solar system.

Maybe life imitates nature.