The Poetry Marathon

You didn’t make it

The Marathon I mean

You faltered, sleepy

Hour 20

Started resting

And slipped through your alarms

Dozing gently into REM

But this is a dream!

All you need to do is

WAKE UP!

*SMACK*

Just kidding, it’s only hour 22 and you have time to spare!

It seems strange to say

But one day

the wheat

Which guards our homes

A staple in many biomes

Will be called a weed

and we

Who live in its roots

Rodents, insects, and pests

Will need to migrate

post haste

To new plants

Hopefully untainted

By modifications that make them

viable as plastic.

Looking at you,  corn…

An Ode to Time

Always present, yet unknowable, an ineffable pace constructed on the premise of change.

Your passage is marked not by your existence but by the perception of it, unique to your peers and overwhelming to those too small to grasp it.

And yet…

We insignificant in comparison consider you known to us, we stretch and thin you, compress you to our whim wile still shoving meaning into you like bread into a turkey’s ass.

Time, oh time, there is never enough of you in your expanse but we who created you spite an excess of your presence

You enigma in a ham sandwich, Time.

A time machine

On sand does sink

if it goes too slow

Yet I swear I did blink

And slow down light

While I stood still.

Perhaps the car sinks for a reason

While people crawl the sands

If time machines didn’t sink sometimes

What would we blame on aliens?

Have you ever walked at night?

Alone or with others does affect this

At night walking becomes a limnal space

Between normal and strange.

Like a school after hours

Or leaving a dark theater and it’s still daylight

Walking at night can be normal

But it never stops being magical.

Crags and cliffs have often called me

In both curiosity and caution.

Their striated secrets are plain to see

If I could just read them.

Yet, cliffs turn to sand and soil

Far slower than I age

Unearthing their stories is foolhardy

And calls me to the void.

I am

Or at least I try to be

Magical, not ethereal, but rooted deep in time;

Turns out some of those routes are buried deep

While others are blocked permanently.

I have

A deep love of many things;

Cats and writing and wastes of time

And games and gizmos and water color –

Though I lack skill in most of them –

Love deeper still for thrills and creation which hones a skill.

I sculpt

And shape

And crush

And reshape

More often than I’d admit

My own perception, and your exception

Within my mind before they ever reach paper.

And perhaps my stories would be better worded if unhinged from fear.

But the fear is juicy and

Well I love juice

And take solace in twilight

Alone on a crowded shore.

They say cleanliness is close to godliness

But I think they mean

Minimalism is closer to death

Because that’s the only way to get close

to perfection.

Use this image and/ or the line it contains “…just be still, and listen” as a jumping off piece. Full credit goes to Shlokla Shankar.

I was cursed at a young age with

A mouth that spewed fabric whenever I spoke

Muffling my words and leaving me muted

They tried finding the source with an x-ray

Ignoring two flaws

Fabric is invisible

And curses are magic

Stronger than physical science most days.

I tried to explain but choked and sputtered

As they tore the cloth from my lips

I wanted to tell them

Indeed I had tried

But they just…

I devoted years to communication after

Hiding how stunted my trust in them was

I couldn’t just tell them what was wrong

Or let new people  in

I was muted

Until I met someone

Who taught me the spell to quell them

Not a doctor or science, just loving care

“Just be still and listen” she whispered

A frog hopping out

And then I well,

I told my story.

Don’t go towards the light

It leads off the bridge

and into colder seas beneath

Instead dance between

The glow of each light

Along a lit path that gleams

While shadow fights shade

You’ll make it

to the other side

Where my arms are waiting

To keep you above the tides.