The Poetry Marathon

As human beings
It’s too easy
To get trapped in our own heads.
Some escape through ceaseless chatter
Finding doors to the outside through
The voices of their neighbours
But I
Open another door entirely
True life disguised as fantasy
Pages of written words
Which open doors to others’ hearts
And let me out into a world
Much larger than my mind.
Let us escape together
The madness of loneliness
And meet each other in the middle
Not written words,
But spoken stories,
Not that vapid daily chatter
But true connection.
The world is so much larger
Than each of our individual, or even our collective,
Minds,
Let us look on it together
With eyes sharpened
By the minds and hearts of others, of each other.
Precious human beings
Together.

10am

In a topsy turvy world
Where every man is for himself
At the expense of
Becoming foe to friends
Justified by the ends
Of personal happiness –
Each hand and head becomes a rung
On the ladder to success
Whatever that may be.
In a world where every man is for himself,
Every man destroys himself
And those beside him.

Friends, most precious,
Until
We see that which we prize
And believe will be our completion,
Though we mourn that our clawing at happiness hurts our friends
We brush it aside
Justified,
The means by the ends.

When will we learn to be human again?
To just live and forget the myth of success
To know that in love,
That most difficult task,
Is our happiness?
Our happiness.
Not mine.
Not yours.
Ours.

Before Darkness

Before darkness, there is hope

As humans cling to the dying of the light

Grasping, as if we may yet

Deny it the chance to fade.

Looking back, never forward,

To the prospect of despair.

We do not brace,

But deny, deny, deny

Our American-Dream worldview

Has not prepared us for this.

But before the darkness comes, look it in the face

But be careful, else

It shall fill you up completely

And it will be all you see or taste or know or feel.

Before darkness comes, look it in the face,

Through the face to the heart,

And see the angels hidden inside it.

Angels of comfort, of peace,

Ready to hold you in your darkest hour,

Waiting on orders to send them when needed most:

Humanity’s secret defence

Against the ever-looming darkness.

Secret from us, not from the bringers of the dark.

We cannot know them if we

Deny, deny, deny,

Despair, despair, despair.

Before darkness,

Abandon all hope in yourself, humanity,

That hope which keeps you grasping the dying light,

Denying it the chance to fade,

Looking back, never forward,

To the prospect of despair.

Instead, look forward,

See the prospect of despair,

And alongside it the truth of angels,

That there is a hope greater than you ever knew,

The divine intervention,

The dawn at the end of the dark night.

Sparkling creek and untainted air

Rocks rise underfeet

Civilization momentarily left behind

As mountains rise up on either side.

Sunlight warms to make heavy the air

Until the breeze tears

Through above the icy water

If you breathe deeply enough, it will make you alive.

City girl,

Lulled to sleep by nature’s song

Her soft sounds, her apparent drowsiness

As the waters tumble and leaves flutter.

There is much more noise in the city,

Constant stimulation,

Hustle and bustle and Tweets and the daily offence

With every turn of your head.

The voice of the city is shallow,

and shallowly we respond to it,

With unthought words and hollow feelings

And poses on our screens.

No wonder nature makes the city girl drowsy:

She is so used to hustle and bustle,

To things happening, happening in her face.

But in nature, she must look.

As deep calls out to deep,

So calls the voice of

The earth, the air, the rocks, the trees

To the deep she has inside and has forgotten how to hear.

City girl sits on the rocks

Turns one over in her hands,

Rough edges sensitizing smooth fingers.

Slowly the relative silence of nature

Clears the muddied shallows of the waters of her mind.

She stands

Touches the leaf of an aspen on the banks

Watches in her soul as it becomes alive,

Breathing sunlight,

Raising bark and branch and heartwood

High above her head

Into the limitless, living sky.

Sparkling creek and untainted air,

Rocks rising underfeet,

She breathes,

And connects in her heart to the deep.

Blinding sunlight

At 7am

I shield my eyes,

The lightness of my

Hands and soul and eyelids

Amazes me.

An unexpected sunny day

Breaks up my dreary gray

My soul finally awakes

And heals me with song.

I look out at the bright blue sky

Sigh.

Breathe.

Smile.

Hello! My name is Jade, and I am writing the full marathon. I discovered the marathon a few weeks ago while scrolling through FaceBook – and decided to join just after the first application opportunity closed! I am very thankful that there was a second one!

I love to to write poetry and am inspired to do it for many reasons, ranging from admiring the beauty of nature to processing my emotions to philosophizing on life to celebrating the people I know. I hope the challenge of the marathon wills kickstart my creativity. To prepare, I’ve recruited some friends to help me stay awake. I suspect we’ll be watching a lot of Netflix, and I hope my poetry doesn’t all develop a Doctor Who theme as a result! It’s times like this that I wish I had a laptop, as that would make posting throughout the day much easier, but such is life. As for what else I’ll do to prepare, I’m not quite sure – it will certainly involve caffeine.

I look forward to reading everyone’s poems! I’m also excited to share my own – my poems have been purely personal as of late. It’s been years since I wrote poetry for any sort of audience. Good luck to you all, and may the best of your creativity shine forth!