The Poetry Marathon

I hear sounds
Meanings carried like melodies
But the lyrics are lost
In the acoustic ocean.

Hearing tests passed
In quiet rooms the waves still
Soft voices and bright tones
Like clear waters

No ear-worn aid
Could teach my brain to hear
One sound against a thousand
One fish in the shoal

I relax with
Sign language and subtitles
But may not request them
Not being deaf

I love sounds
Music is a lifeline with which
I catch your meaning
If not your words

No more planning, no more waiting,
No more frantic breath-abating,
No more standing in the line,
No more checking off the time,
No more nervous fretting,
No more not-just-yetting,
No more crawling time,
Now the time is flyin’!
Now the racers
Set the pace.
Get set:
GO!

Crashed out last year, so just up for the half-marathon this year.

Name: Kell Willsen

Location: UK

Some favourite poets: Quentin Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, F W Harvey, Wendy Cope, Ogden Nash, Allan Ahlberg

Writing style: Still searching for it

Marathon preparation: Reading poetry, writing from prompts, collecting inspiration.

Mellow hollow, shaped by time,
Safe, familiar, soft and warm.
Where I sleep, sit and recline,
Dawn to noon, to dusk, to dawn

I mostly live inside my head,
And leave my body on my bed.

Prompt: Sleep
Form: Ode

“…we should be unafraid to doubt,”

— C. S. Lewis

“What if…?” The famous thinker’s friend;
For great ideas of every kind,
Begin, “What if…?” and in the end,
Creative gemstones may be mined.

Beware of doubt, the siren song!
It’s poison to artistic souls
Don’t ever ask, “What if I’m wrong?”
Trust in your heart, your self, your goals.

An inconsistency? Why, no,
Imagine freely, pretty thoughts!
Ask anything you please, but don’t
Dare ever question what you’re taught.

Prompt: Write about doubt.
Form: Cross-rhymed quatrains, in iambic tetrameter

I loved you without word, or look or token,
You satisfied a need in me,
I didn’t even know I’d need
A primal urge, instinctive and unspoken.
Then I, so unaware of this devotion,
Was given to your look-alike,
A hateful thing of bile and spite
And learned to loathe your name once it was spoken

Your stand-in was a feeble imitation
My innocent, instinctive need
Became a slave to social greed
Delighting to reveal my limitations
Three times the term of years we were companions
Was I condemned to suffer there
All in your name, my thick despair
Was blamed on you, with careless, gay abandon.

At last, my prison term was deemed completed,
The warden-puppet sent away
Left me to find my lonely way
My hatred for you now as deeply seated
As once, in innocence, I used to need you.
I battled on in hate and fear
And loathed you deeper, every year
Until I found the truth required to free you.

The memories fade of tortures I endured;
Although committed in your name,
I now dismiss the worthless claim
As slander of the worst ever procured
For now I recognise this buried yearning
The joy of rediscovery
And how the truth has set me free,
I hold you in my heart again, sweet Learning

Prompt: A non-traditional love poem
Form: (Iambic meter, syllable count: 11/8/8/11/11/8/8/11, rhymed abbacddc)

For a hurricane of puns,
And allusions by the ton,
You know there can be just one:
Jasper Fforde

Jokes about the written word,
Are not just for grammar nerds,
Who delights in the absurd?
Jasper Fforde

If by plot-holes you are vexed,
Sub-text leaving you perplexed?
He explains through Thursday Next,
Jasper Fforde

Or if magic’s what you’re after,
Who saves quarkbeasts from disaster,
With some string and sticking plaster?
Jasper Fforde.

Each new world of his devising
Is as rich as it’s surprising,
Who can keep the tension rising?
Jasper Fforde.

Prompt: A writer you admire
Form: Ballad (with added refrain)

Tentative steps, unrehearsed, moving awkwardly.
Gaining pace, each other’s grace lends fluidity
Half-remembered forms returning as the music plays,
Confidently stepping forward, trusting each to know the way.

Heading for that vital moment, landing blind in perfect time,
Tempo heating up, the movement coming forth from just one mind,
Drawing closer in the music, risking moves not seen before,
Slow and gentle steps returning, see these strangers own the floor

When the final dance is over, he may think to ask her name
Or may not, perhaps one evening’s all these dancers want to claim
Simple joys, to find a partner who can match us, slow and swift,
For an hour, or for a lifetime, dancing partners are a gift.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

Please don’t attempt to sing my praise,
The awkward pause
That’s sure to cause
Hurts more than blades.

You’re sure you can say something nice
Until you see
It cannot be
Take my advice

Avoid the subject entirely
Remain tacit,
Tactfully lest,
Truth revile me.

Prompt: Write a poem around a saying or proverb
Form: Minute poetry

Prize nothing above
Life: things may be loved
But only by the living

Though precious the gift
Inviting such risk
Misses the point of giving

Past prompt: What object would you save from a fire?
Form: Alouette