The Poetry Marathon

“The white of the paper
Will be incorporated…
For the green and yellow patterns.”

Says Jane Strother
In her book about
Drawing with colored pencils

Making me wonder
Which parts of my
Ever evolving flesh

Will be incorporated
In the patterns
About to be etched

Onto my forearm
Forever
By this talented person

Who only just now met me
And is doing this job
For money

Seven pictures hang
On my grandmother’s bedroom walls:

1 My Grandfather, whom I did not know
2 The gaudy guardian angel hovering behind kids crossing that bridge
3 Me
4 Teddy Roosevelt, no one seems to know why

These on the west wall above her hope chest.

Seven pictures hang
On my grandmother’s bedroom walls:

The east wall displays

5 A framed newspaper article, now brown and undoubtedly fragile, Charles Lindbergh landing in Paris
6 Her high school diploma

And above her bed

7 A dreamy oil painting;

of a Polynesian beach,
a place she’d longed to visit,
but, what with working for pennies
and raising my father alone,
fretting and wrestling his demons,
alternately offering Dad
tough love and soft,
he largely accepting
responsibility for her reddened eyes,
cobweb thin hair, leathery outlook,
time ran short
for making it to Maui.

One picture does not hang
In my grandmother’s bedroom:

o Regret

I hand each of these to Dad
One at a time.
He stacks them
In a box
Destined for
His attic.
In a few years I’ll
Have to unpack them again
And wonder what Teddy Roosevelt
Is doing there.

[sung to a pleasant melody]

Last night while we were sleeping,
The dog pooped on the rug.
This morning I was seething,
But I gave that pooch a hug.

Though what he did was wrong, sir,
It’s not the same as naughty.
The moral of this song, sir,
Is: dogs can’t reach the potty.

Ralph maintained a humongous
Heap out back.
Not crap. Useful items.
Chaotic to every eye but his.
He could put his finger on
Anything you’d need,
Including an old galvanized trough.

Five-year-old me,
Dropped a glass marble
Into that trough.
It landed with a tink,
Rolled along the bottom,
Randomly,
Making a feeble hollow rumble,

Then stopped.

No one heard but me,
And I quickly lost interest,
Leaving to investigate
Other crannies
Of Ralph’s impressive pile.

If we had flawless crystal balls
there’d be no misery making decisions.

But the best in augury cracks, leaving us,
(if observation of daily news

is any oracle,) merely wagers,
amusements, for our gods.

They can’t predict with greater
certainty than you or I

what random, free willed zig
we’ll zag, or bluff we’ll bluff.

So I amuse myself imagining
a pantheon with wads of dollar bills

in their immortal fists
shouting, “Buy that Chevy!”

Or “Kiss her! Kiss her!”
Or “Pull the trigger, damn it! I’m down a hundred!”

While here on solid ground we stand
in befuddled agony,

every card we pull
leaving us more bewildered,

praying to those who seemingly only know
that they have double or nothing riding on, “Do it!”

I’ll live inside a taco shell
Crispy please I like the cheese
I like the smell

I’ll dance each morning in the nude
Chipotle sauce around I’ll toss
I like my food

With Fresh tomatoes in my hair
It may sound slappy but I’ll be happy
When you are there

I remember camping
Under a moon so bright
It cast a shadow
Of Mr. Manaugh
Across my sleeping bag
As he walked from
Boy to boy making sure
We had
All
Brushed
Our
Teeth

Failing the porridge test –
That is, stealing someone else’s
Breakfasts, in their cottage,
Until one of those strange breakfasts seems
Least disagreeable
And then awaiting lethargy…

But to repeat,
Failing the porridge test,
I could not sleep,
Knowing everything was broken,
Knowing I had broken everything
And was in the wrong bed…

Failing the porridge test
And feeling like a firefly in a bottle,
A mask wearing, heat crazed,
Panicked, zooming, self made inmate
Spying a treeline beyond the open wooden door…

Failing, I say…

Emojis rescue
Sincerity soon lost in
An age of sarcasm

The taste of grapes, when I was young,
They’d not allow to stain my tongue.

But I escaped to legal status
And used my grapes to knock me flatus.

Then I acquired gourmet decorum,
And munched my meats with grapes chose for ‘em.

But just today I took a walk
Into the cellar to check my stock.

I fear it’s down to one or two.
So I’ll savor them until they’re through,

Then feebly rinse my empty cup.
So here’s to you friend, bottoms up.