The Poetry Marathon

I am stoked.

I am a furnace fresh

with wooden fuel.

I am moving to my own tune,

dancing with phantoms,

and loving life.

This is temporary, and the result

of a liberal glass of red,

luscious wine.

When we find that house, I will

plant grapes.

I will plant tubers

of potatoes, and asparagus.

I will have huge

rhubarb, and my kale

will win awards.

The red wine is a ruby jewel

reflecting light

through its portly waves,

and I wish for a moment I was

light enough

to wear a red velvet

gown.

Wine does this to me,

makes me wish

and wishing makes me

happy.

I move from here to there,

and am hopeful that the movers

will come

next week.

Of course, they won’t.

I raise my glass

to empty rooms.

To you, to this house,

to these walls that have sheltered me,

it is not your fault

that you are losing nails.

It won’t be long before

this structure crumbles,

and I weep

for the waste

of trees.

Her smile haunts my dreams.

When told to stay, she came;

when told to stop,

she would turn toward you,

and let you know, that yes;

she will save you.

She never cried,

knew when to stand her ground,

and knew when to move

to another place,

nearer to me.

There was never a one

whose bravery was shown

in a more concise and miraculous way.

She was proud,

yet humble.

Quiet, but could startle me

with the depth of her voice.

She never cried,

even when the cancer

was everywhere.

I thought she had

a sprained ankle,

but the vet, fresh out of school,

came in with tears,

holding the thin film

in her hand.

Her lungs were filled

with a vileness brought on

by years with smokers,

hacks, and bums.

I don’t believe in “rainbow bridges”

and the term irritates me.

Mango was love.

She was pure, sweet,

love.

What a gift.

What a priceless,

tender, gift.

He smiles, and utters

a strange muted sound.

His face does not reflect

his irritation.

He is bored,

uninterested,

wishing he were

somewhere else.

He squints his eyes,

and turns his mouth,

as in a smile.

Again, the sound.

Should I save him?

If I do not,

his anger will spill,

like his words,

over me, and consume

all the air

around him.

Bored,

uninterested.

He will tell me later,

or the whole way home,

how this,

these moments,

listening to that person,

took away from him,

precious time;

time he will never get back.

I watch his face.

There is so much in him,

to love, to admire,

to respect.

This, is not

one of them.

I have a time

to give you.

I have a moment to spare,

thanks to the clock

on the mantel.

I want you to know

that once,

I adored you.

Once I left you

in charge of the children,

and you let them

go astray.

You led them away

from me.

My dogs are tired,

and the heat

takes a toll.

I used to want more

than the average bear,

I used to strive

toward Jupiter.

I wanted to walk

on Saturn’s sandy rings,

and deploy my parachute

on Mars.

I’ve mountains to cross,

rivers to ford.

I’ve kissed the waves

on two oceans,

and dipped my toes

in the Mediterranean Sea.

It was there that the fossil

I found, I took home,

and bound by its secrets,

I buried it.

There is no place

like the home you dig into,

and the place you put

old treasures.

And I’ve a lot of bags

of dust crusted things,

and tomes of forgotten

memories.

We need to talk.

We need space.

We need air, sunshine, rain.

We need rain.

Drought speaks louder

than the thunder that roars

over the dry crests

of prickly mountains.

It is all protest,

and little promise.

The clouds sputter hail,

then lightning.

the bolts ignite the tinder box canyon,

and shows us

power.

It could have been harnessed,

like the geothermal heartbeats

of the Earth.

We need this rain,

before the dust

of the farms

picks up

and leaves

for parts unknown.

You really had

to be there.

When stars collide,

the resulting dust

and collected mites,

formed us.

Imagine the lines between

the loved

and the hated.

Imagine them crossed,

and blurred.

This is the beginning.

Right before the end,

it began.

Hating spiders,

and loving a man

whose arms are everywhere.

He weaves webs of silken words,

and you are trapped between the lines.

He whispers into your ear,

as his tongue caresses

each word,

and they slip in,

one thrilling word

after another.

It’s a visual,

you had to be there.

Your self promises

versus your virtue.

Ahhh, but the words;

the words wrapped round

my spine,

and I could not move.

It is the glory of time,

that for the most part,

we will always have

tomorrow.

It is difficult to put into words.

Images created are often

chimeras,

desert wishes on a long,

overheated trek.

Should I take the spoiled

French bulldog?

Wearing the sweatshirt

like a fighter

warming up,

he is not where my

gravity sits.

The handful of moss

without the eyes

would have been better,

for me, anyway,

or perhaps not.

Then there is the keyhole

window onto the countryside.

The tree, the tall, uncut grasses,

the falling down

of the stone structure.

This last is most

like me.

I kid myself that though

my running days are over,

I can still hike.

I can climb the Blue Ridge Mountains,

or crawl the Appalachian Trail.

And I will do this,

through the pain of

locking joints,

the loss of synovial fluid

in my knee,

and the agony

of losing forward.

Maybe, one day,

on some grassy, steep knoll,

instead of walking down

after climbing up, and feeling

every grind of

bone on bone,

I’ll simply tuck inside myself,

and roll on down

the hill.

I’m never as serious

as I am now.

I am a Him.

As male and obnoxious,

or caring and visceral,

as any female human.

I stand on my own,

principals, goals,

drives driving me toward the

father I don’t want to be.

I won’t be another HIM,
just the Him I am.

I won’t beat my children

with the end of a fishing rod.

I won’t pull the daughters around the floor

by their hair.

I won’t finger their innocence

because of uncontrollable

hatreds.

Or I won’t be with a Her,

or I will sheath my manhood

like the gloved hand

with a finger in the dyke.

No more water,

no more collateral damages,

no more babies.

I am a him, as best as I can be.

I love, respect, and still want.

More than all the world,

I want more than I need.

All too often,

forgetting that I

gave it all

for them.

Life is science fiction,

she said.

It stands reason on its head,

and drowns the memories

of yesterdays.

Look up, she said.

See what stars you can

in the daylight sky.

She is this close

to sanity.

I’ve lived here before, she said.

I’ve walked these steps,

in these shoes,

on these days,

and have yet to step off.

I keep returning, she said.

I keep forgetting the message,

what it said, and where I left it.

I experience, she said,

all the joys anew.

This close to sanity…

All the sorrows afresh.

I’ve forgotten where I left my map,

she said.

Four hundred times,

repeating the same moments,

walking the same shoes

into raggedy bits,

leaving my heart gently folded

into origami birds,

spread out one after another,

on the ocean’s waves.

She is holding my eyes,

and she really is,

this close…

It never used to be so hard.

You called me,

‘beautiful’.

You told me

you needed me.

Now, what difference

does wanting make,

when fishing for the right words?

I cast my line

into your pool,

yet it does not tickle

your appetite.

You do not take the hint

anymore,

and leave this morsel

to rot in the sand.

I cast in flight

the lines;

the feathered lures,

jerking the line to make the words

dance,

to tempt you, as naked,

and lying on your bed.

Some fishermen

leave the banks of

their favorite spots,

to gig another.

They whip the lines,

casting there, back, forth,

to settle on the slower depths.

I see some taking strides

in waders, working to reel in

their prize.

Yet, I am loyal to this

sanded, rocky, pile

of experience.

It becomes rote.

Perhaps, it is hope.

Maybe, it is the comfort

of knowing what comes next,

and waiting for the inevitable.

You are no different

than the others.

You are simply

now.