The Poetry Marathon

Apocalyptic endings
Mass extinction all the way
People think they’re rarities
But they happen every day
Within the souls of people
Passing on the street
You wouldn’t know to look at them
It could be anyone you meet
The kid who sells you coffee
Whose smile can’t touch his eyes
The old man in the pouring rain
Holding a cardboard sign
The chick who’s always cracking jokes
With a laugh that’s never real
The counselor helping everyone
Who’s forgotten how to feel
The point is, you can never know
What’s on another’s mind
What apocalypse they’re dealing with
So remember to be kind.
~Mandy Kocsis©2021~

All my life I’ve had a gift
A way with precious words
That when the right ones come to me
I put them into verse
If I try to force it
Or change it, just like that
If I try to make it different
I’ll lose it and that’s a fact
If I betray what I’ve been given
I’ll never write, again
And in that moment, I would die
Now, back to my pen…
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

“Who are you playing with?”
I’d ask my baby boy at play
The answer that he gave me
Blows my mind unto this day
He’d look up with a smile, and
“‘Nother me,” he’d say
My jaw just hit the ground
As he turned back around to play
You see, my baby was a twin
A fact that he was not aware
And ever since his birth
I’d catch him talking to thin air
This was the first time he was able
To put it into words
That he was playing with his twin
Who’d died weeks before their birth.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

Once upon a marshmallow morning
In a cotton-candy land
Children’s laughter everywhere
As they did the candy dance
Around trees of chocolate kisses
At the Skittles rainbow’s end
They danced and sang so merrily
And held each other’s hands
While fairies dusted them with sugar
That glittered in the sun
They gathered ’round on gumdrops
Giggling in their fun
Once upon a marshmallow morning
In a cotton-candy land
Children laughed and children danced
Because children understand.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

 

The night’s dragging on forever
And yet time is flying by
Dripping poetry in our wake
As we pen words with a sigh
24 poems in 24 hours
A creative’s crazy dream
Push your talent to its limit
Like a seamstress’ outer seam
Now 21 hours in
I can see the finish line
It’s been fun, it’s been real
And soon sleep will be mine.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

Star light, star bright
A million tiny points of light
Scattered ‘cross a velvet sky
Like a jewelry store just seen at night
There’s light in every darkness
If one just looks to see
I know a thing or 12 about this
Because there’s a moon inside of me.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

We’re far too many to be silenced
Though we only need one voice
We’re going to make a difference
We’re not giving them a choice
Black lives always matter
Each and every one
And we’ll never stop our movement
Until real change is being done.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

“What did Santa bring you?” Asked Mommy on the phone. Her eyes were big as saucers as she looked ’round her daddy’s home. Her little heart was broken as she sobbed into the phone, “I must’ve been a bad girl, Mommy…Santa didn’t come.”

“No!” Mommy reassured her, “Santa didn’t know! He thought you were at my house; that’s where he was supposed to go. You should see the presents he left under the tree! Grandpa’s on his way to get you; he’ll bring you to me.”

But it was too late; the damage, done. Somehow, she was a bad girl; she was the naughty one. She cried as she waited, and held her unicorn so tight. Tears flooded her sapphire eyes like a million points of light.

When Gramps got there he told her to go wait in the car. But she didn’t make it to the door when she heard the yelling start.

“You’re just a waste of fucking space, you broke your daughter’s heart! Looks like cocaine was more important and worth ripping her apart. You’re nothing but a piece of useless trash, and now you’ve got 2 seconds before I kick your fucking ass!”

She couldn’t hear what daddy said; her ears were born all broken. But somehow she knew what Gramps had said were the truest words he’d ever spoken.

Then dad came falling down the stairs, and Gramps had a bloody fist. “Gramps, now, Grammy said we’re not supposed to hit!”

He reminded her she was supposed to wait outside. Then picked her up and carried her out to their waiting ride.

She was only 3 years old, but felt all a broken heart could feel.

And at 40 she remembers how she learned that Santa wasn’t real.

~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

Just like a broken record
My heart skips out your name
Every time you cross my mind
Like so many childhood games
He loves me, he loves me not
Daisy petals on the floor
And, like a broken record,
I can’t take much more
Every memory we share
Stuck forever on repeat
My heart’s a broken record
Drowning in defeat.
~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

“Do you hear that?!” He said.
I looked at him and shook my head.
“Legally deaf, remember?” I grinned.
He went tu the window and lifted the blinds.
It was storming like crazy outside.
“You don’t hear that? The rain?” He asked.
“Babe, I haven’t heard the rain since I was 9 years old.” I would be 39 in 2 weeks. He started going YouTube channels of rain sounds till he found one I could hear.

The man gave me rain. The sound of rain. To many, that would be nothing. Laughed at, even. But to me, it was nothing short of a miracle.

He’s gone, now. I haven’t listened to the rain, since. But sometimes, on days like today, I look out the window at a storm, and I remember.

As even the Earth weeps.