The Poetry Marathon

Lumber yard
Construction
Sunset
Industry
Destruction
Regret
Built city
Production
End it
Flat lands
Reduction
Spend it
Mountain land
Obstruction
Bend it
Train Station
Seduction
Defend it
Cross puzzle
Induction
Up ended
Graveyard
Destruction
Unscented

I’ve Fangs of beast
But no teeth,
Claws but bear no eyes
My children might soon go extinct
They take your children’s lives
Coyote Burned me once
And Bobcat hid my wife
I have an empty stomach
With which to feast on flesh
They burned me to leave me dead
But I’ve returned to man’s dread

What am I?

What do I see in these ghostly leave
Portents of the future?
Or perhaps the echoes of the past
Or a mysterious allure.

I see their structure clear as day
See the way they work
Their delicate lace pattern
Revealing nature’s secrets
And how it’s all connected
To create the perfect home
For plant cells green and rigid
And supports for insects who make them home
Though I suppose it’s now a haunted house
Left to desiccate by time

That thing, give it to me, please
Your shiny clicky click-clack
The faceted rock I want to squeeze
A precious stone, your plastic jewels,
Give them to me now. Or I’ll shoot?
I’ll shoot. I need the shinies, the pretties
To put them in my mouth
You can’t possibly need them all, so
Give them to me now.

Oh what’s that? I run away,
Your shinies are safe today
Distraction has won out.
I fall into the trap you laid
Though your companions doubt
It would have worked if not for these
Little pretty rocks called beads
Stretchy stringy things
Oh if only I could focus.
If only I weren’t so lost
In the fog of distraction
Would that I could win against you
I’d be the richest ‘blin

If only I could focus
Bested once again
By these tricksy humans
And their med-el-en
Perhaps I’d sneak upon them
In the deepest night
And steal their lovely trinkets
Hiding out of sight
Or maybe I could find a dragon
With the humans slayed
I could win the right to take
Their things once Dragon’s paid

Oh a deal with dragons that’d be good
For protection and some food
But why did I want dragon’s help?
Oh right to take a flight?
A shiny! [The sound of falling]
[The goblin hits the ground]
[Distracted once again,
This time left unfound]

Journal Entry 247
I came across a legend,
They looked to be like toadstools
Homes for fae the size of shoes
Too large to be normal mushrooms.
My colleague saved me from disaster,
Had I given in my toes would shatter
For these were hard as iron
Dragon eggs, a mushroom breed
Fungal and fantastic
Had I stepped upon them in attempted destruction
Their rocky-texture would have proved
Quite effective, and I would become
A witless, hapless, research detective

See beyond the iron exterior
The dragon shells are sporous
And should you inhale their dust
The symptoms are laborious
First there’s visions, then the sweats
Then there’s begging and regrets
Then the dragonlings will find you
And grow upon your skull
Parasites of decaying nature
They might as well steal your soul.

The tale of Crane Hill
An old Military post located in the bay
An old war room, updated with radar and sonar
The echoing halls of a retired war zone
Here the natives laid
Slain by disease and Conquistador
Here the soldiers died
Blood spilled in anti-communist tide
A history of death far longer than you know
Now where military reservists
Host the fourth of July

This place is haunted by its past
A cannon circle from pre-America
Can deafen a man of war
Though no canons reside there now
On Crane Hill’s high up shore.
And nameless soldiers stalk the halls
Invisible on camera
Reported, dismissed, and disbelieved
Retreading ephemera

The old sailor warns his family
His family and friends take heed
Don’t go to Crane Hill on your own
Or you’ll vanish for their need
Captured for a war long gone
Or deafened by ghost canon
Alone you’re taken one by one
Revenge be had by Shanon

Human, I have some words
Some words I know are tough to say
So I’ll go slow

You are my human after all
And regardless I love you.

I just think it’s unfair
That you leave me at home
That you go out for ages
With no signs or notes
I smell the steak upon your clothes
The dogs you cheat on me with.
Then there’s the pointy small ones
You call them cats I think?
I understand you get lonely while you’re gone forever
But those things say I stink!
Dear human, while I love you
Please reconsider leaving
And while we’re being honest
Pink is more my color
I don’t feel cute in this black sweater.

Many believed for years that divorce was wrong
A sin by religious standards, an escape for adulterers
There’s even a King with whom we associate
A fanciful rhyme for his wives he left
Divorced, Beheaded, Died: Divorced, Beheaded, Survived
There’s a lot of harm from divorce
But ultimately it can be for good.

When I was little my parents fought
I was the scapegoat on which they united
For years they piled their hatred upon me
A child whose growth they blighted
Had they divorced perhaps things wouldn’t have
Turned out quite so bad
I may have had a better family
And not ended up so sad.

I think when I left things got worse for them
Their marriage became untenable
And while their abuse never lessened
They finally learned their lesson
They split just last year
Bringing my other family far closer
Reunited with a brother I hold dear

The morals of divorce
Can’t be decided by a religious text
But they can be helped with evaluation
Of whether marriage created a toxic nest
While I still feel aftershocks
Of choices made by my parents
I can finally rest easy
Knowing I don’t need to be on their fence.

To trim the fat on an old adage,
nothing is simple nor is it savage,
While time may change tastes
And consumerism increases pace
The winner is the one who adapts
A meeting room with old ways and new
Combined into a comforting view
Is far better than the corporate smooth
Method of minimalism
The complexity of a simple shape
Cannot defeat the the purity of man’s mastery
Of tools in a comfortable space
Function and comfort need not be separate
They each have their place and can coexist

So why does brutalist architecture still exist?

Deep in the woods with the moon at its peak
The goblins come out to creep
Along the river on paths of moss
Tiptoeing past where naiads sleep
They clamber over long dead ents
And flee the wolf-men’s tents
To gather at the Coyote’s Fang
Where nightshade berries hang

They chitter and chatter, small words
About humans, pollution, an ocean solution
Brine, and bagels, and glowing blue swords
They share acorns and deer meat
Converse with strange tongue
They share their own secrets
With the new goblins among
The nightshade’s grove
And reveal the secret of a treasured trove

Til daybreak they gather, at dawn they do scatter
Fleeing the hills for the trees
And scattering among the cliffs by the sea
Waking the naiads and ents and the dryads
Not seen til next season
For some unknown reason
They only meet On the dragonfly’s beat
Small servants of the bobcat