The Poetry Marathon

over and over things repeat
palindrome, square, cube, overlap,
spirals on a snail’s back, edges in the sand

over and over things repeat
radar, murmur, shshsh, alfalfa,
circles in an old tree trunk, aerial photos of coastland

over and over things repeat
|-*-|, |-*|-*, |*|*|*, |-*|-*|
habits of your parents that you picked up secondhand

The master extended an offer that his student could not refuse:
To be the master’s partner, his colleague, his muse.

An Oscar in the students’ field, this offer should have proved
He was a bonafide professional–his skills had successfully improved.

But the student protected his dreams with self-deprecating humor,
Poking fun at his work in case failure wasn’t just his rumor.

He did not take his dreams seriously,
So they evaporated mysteriously,
And now he just imagines what he could have been, deliriously.

I want to kiss each
Of your individual
Eyelashes each one

The robot you bought
Flips the rug over and breaks
Must be a bad rug

When I say goodbye
do you wonder like I do
when you’ll see me next?

Golden Shovel: “Let us do something grand” from “To the Poem” by Frank O’Hara

She refuses to let
herself go so she drags us
to the park and we all do
lunges and squats and make our bodies be something
smaller. She jokes, “let’s shrink ourselves grand!”

Golden Shovel: “Oh god it’s wonderful” from Steps by Frank O’Hara

Now, when he comes home late she just says, “Oh.”
Now, when she feels alone she talks to god.
Now, when she suspects the worst she knows it’s
Now. Just now. And the coffee tastes wonderful.

The record shows he is to blame
His calendar is now a loop
Big mistakes put him to shame
He feel like a big load of poop
His friends told him that he should stop
He wanted to keep turning up
But every other week he’d drop
Not acting like a real grownup
Now he need wads of support
From those who thought that he knew better
Needs to rebuild his rapport
So he can be less of a debtor
Think before you say or do
What gets you up now may later make you blue.

When I was three I
thought beautiful meant someone
who did not wear socks

Pedaling backwards
To catch up to younger you
You’re always trying