The Poetry Marathon

I want to plant pine trees
On the edge of the ball field
so students see the sky
Instead of the prison
On the valley below

I want to plant mighty oaks
In the potholes of my street
Sometimes, to alert drivers
And sometimes to have
A forest instead of a road.

I want to plant gardens
Along the neighborhood walks
Fresh vegetables and berries
For those in want and need
To take as many as they please.

I want to plant lavender
In place of GMOs
So we never have to see
Glyphosate decimated fields
Where wheat and grain grow.

I want my wants to be my needs
To eat from where I live
To grow and flourish
In the sun and clean air
In my city and in my skin.

“I need space.”
He stepped back.
Farther and farther
Until he disappeared.
He didn’t understand

My need for inner space
Inner peace
Peace and quiet
Space. I need space.

Space for love, not
As distance between
I want to share and hold
To touch
To breathe and live.

At a table for two
At the far end of the bar
I sit alone,
Thinking of you.

At a table for two
I drink my scotch neat
And think
Of what I would say.

At a table for two
It doesn’t seem fair
To see people
Smile and hug

At a table for two
No one chances to sit
In the chair
That is meant for you.

Lose the goddamn need to tattoo
Your life on your ass
And then bitch
Because people are all up in your business

Lose the goddamn need to defend
The political machine
When he’s an ass
On the world’s stage

Lose the goddamn need to create
Drama out of nothing
When life just flat out is what it is
And everyone can move along.

Lose the goddamn need for validation
Every damn time you turn around
Trolling social media
Like it put the dope in dopamine.

Lose the goddamn need to give up
Personal rights and freedoms
Even when you are the only one
Who cares.

I have done this for a million years
And have seen you live
I have watched a planet die
And another born.
I have loved a woman in reverse
Our timelines running to the other ends
And through it all,
I am here.

Trust me, I am The Doctor
And trust me you must
If you refuse, my stories are meaningless
For a leap of faith
A decree of absolutism
A requiem on imperatives –
Moral or otherwise.

How do you see me, I wonder?
Always trying to slow down,
To not speed ahead of you.
To explain things
Without giving away
Event changing secrets
To fixed points in time.

Now I am the 13
Lucky for some
Closed minded be damned.
For they are unlike the TARDIS
They are even smaller than they appear to be.
Mostly they cannot see
Although I help them nonetheless

I do
I can
I am the Doctor.

Hail the name of Ganesha
Oh, wonderful and powerful Ganesha
With a elephant’s head
Given after yours was cut off
By Shiva, petulant Shiva

Hail the name of Ganesha,
Oh, wonderful and powerful Ganesha
Made of earth and shaped by his own mother
Easily holds his own with demons
And others who mean to do harm

Hail the name of Ganesha
Oh, wonderful and powerful Ganesha
You remove obstacles
And ensure success
For people over all time, all the world over.

Children laugh and play
Each donning a brightly colored raincoat
Steam rising from cement
As they stomp and splash
In puddles left over
From the warm summer rain
They ask for jars
To collect fireflies as evening falls

Unbeknownst to most,
Save for only a few,
The laws of science are put to a vote
And the laws are then renewed
Last time, Pluto’s fate was sealed
The system now a skewed.
This time, we have a new conflict
Between gravity and magnetic fields, to view.
Tesla had been eloquent
Debating facts clear and true,
So now we know magnetic force
Keeps Earth green and blue.
Always we have had the poles
That is nothing new,
But did you know that it is this force
That keeps me next to you?
Gravity alone doesn’t explain
What we have set out to do
Gravity would bring the moon
Crashing on us, too.
Except for the magnetic poles,
And magnetic fields, to be true.
Keep us rotating and revolving
So our skies stay blue.

Note: 100 non-repeated words.

There was a time,

when she was my friend.

Long before she was controlled by man

Before governments could bend and mold her

Time was different then.

Instead of linear, she was deep

Time wasn’t rushed; she had purpose

She had scope

And could move mountains

She lived and breathed

Like all things,

Time aged.

She let me play in the soft folds

Of her wrinkles

As I dreamt and read, imagining until

One day,..

or Hour,

Minute

Second

– why did man split you into unreasonable units

Was it man’s doing, or yours, Time?

Did you have this idea to make me miss you, to want you back?

To punish me with late and early,

Time after time?

I digress –

And I start again.

Then one day,

Try as I might to hold onto her,

to turn her back,

She escaped me and I lost time forever

Earth under foot in time,

to music played with a bow.

Eyes that shyly meet

Have a luminescent glow.

The dance is a frenzied weave –

Of twirling, spinning rows

Leprechauns and their kin

And others you may know

Quicken the pace of the dance

To keep everyone light on their toes.

The frenzied pace continues

As long as the party goes.