The Poetry Marathon

Count your chickens
Count your eggs
Eggs of potential
Eggs of hope
Hope in the future
Hope to grow a family
Family of freedom
Family of reconciling
Reconciling misunderstandings
Reconciling brokenness
Brokenness of thin skin
Brokenness of pride
Pride in perfection
Pride in knowing
Knowing what it takes
Knowing when to give
Give a bundle of tears
Give a lifetime of change
Change to become better
Change to be new
New not just what I do
New inside–who I am
Am I on the road?
Am I the only one?
One of these days
One of these ways
Ways of growing
Ways to shine
Shine in joy
Shine in the light
Light of His countenance
Light of His grace
Grace to carry on
Grace to be whole
Whole and complete
Whole newness restored
Restored to life
Restored to collaborate
Collaborate for teamwork
Collaborate for justice
Justice to count loss
Justice to count costs
Costs of delaying truth
Cost of sharing pain
Pain of a soured world
Pain of a shrouded grave
Grave that was overcome
Grave now full of life
Eggs to chickens life
Hatred overcome

From “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
The Blitz form

Normal
Normal, who throws going out to dinner
around like we never forgot
and asks, how’s it going?
who is ever changing
and wears different gear each season
who sometimes is busy every hour
and sometimes has nothing to do but overeat
until we finally can’t seem to recognize her
whose little eyes are clouded
and acts surprised that we don’t remember
who used to go on day after day
is finished
is she a hug and a handshake
or is she a mask and hand sanitizer?
is she justice and mercy
or is she fear and anger?
Normal is hiding in the closet
and hasn’t talked to me in years
she doesn’t live here now
will she ever come out
or is her time passed?

Inspired by Prompt for Hour 7 and Sandra Cisnero’s “Abuelito Who“.

I learned about an Elfchen poem from Donnetta Norris this past week. Here is one about walking from the last hour’s prompt.

Stride
to find
all the hopes
promised in arriving ready
Strong

I have a list of poems I wanted to try, so some of these are getting a workout for The Poetry Marathon. Here was a sweet poem from Buffy Silverman called “Rainbow-Colored Springtime.”
She wrote this sweet rhythm with each line ending with time. There are six stanzas. Click the link to read the rest:

Red time
Green time
tiny on a tree time

I decided to use one of the photo prompts from earlier to write about taking a bath.

Wet bath
Free bath
Rock the best tunes bath

Rest bath
Calm bath
Soft and pruny toes bath

Warm bath
Peace bath
Lolling, lazy lounge bath

Release bath
Embrace bath
Tensions down the drain bath

Oh my goodness. It is only 7:00 p.m. here, but I’m already slap happy. I just grabbed a scary book off the shelf and will use the last line. Here goes nothing…

No Witnesses

It was the first time the roof of the
emerald convertible had ever been opened.
They were honeymooners and
borrowed the car from a temperate old uncle.
They wanted the full experience.
The roof folded back with one magical click
of a button on the dash.

They rode carelessly,
willy nilly
happily down Highway 1
toward Big Sur,
feeling the breeze in their hair
Eating their favorite
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and roasted almonds
laughing at each other’s jokes,
like they were the best comedians,
thinking they were each the luckiest
person alive.

They both agreed when
they saw the stranded motorist.
They had time to help.
Maybe he needs a charge.
Yeah, for his phone or his car.

Hello, can we help?

The man leaning into the VW bus
stood up quickly and said,
Nah. Everything’s fine.

Really, we’ve got all day.
We can help. It’s kind of deserted out here.

Nah, I’m good.

The happy couple
got out of the car
and walked over to the bus.
The man tried to slide the door closed,
but the bloody arm fell out
just before the door latched.

Oh, sir. I’m sure she needs help.
May we call the doctor?

It didn’t take long to deal with the
naïve and nosy couple.

This time, there would be no witnesses.

Last line from the last line in Lies of Silence by Brian Moore

On Friday, I read a lot of Zentangle poems. A zentangle poem is a blackout or erasure poem, a sort of found poem with designs made on the unused portions, instead of just blacking out the extra words. Read more about it on this post from Kat Apel. I have spent some time each of the first few hours of the Marathon on my first Zentangle poem.

The Poem:

After

After, write a chapter,
words and lines use summary.
Words describing a story,
a visual, a communicator
ready to ready thinking,
solution,
parroting powers of description
in writing.

It doesn’t mean much, haha! It was from a page in a booklet of After Reading Comprehension Activities I put together for my undergrad education students one year.

These hours are flying by
How can we get anything else done?
Will I really stay up all night
Writing poems each hour?

How can we get anything else done?
Cooking, eating, outings–they warned me
Writing poems each hour
Will more than fill my day!

Cooking, eating, outings–they warned me
No time for these things today
Will more than fill my day
With The Poetry Marathon

No time for these things today
But thank you, Jacob Jans
With The Poetry Marathon
Your gift of love to Caitlin helps me

But thank you, Jacob Jans
For hosting us in this challenge
Your gift of love to Caitlin helps me
Write and persevere today

For hosting us in this challenge
Rhymes, meter, word choice, more
Write and persevere today
Looking forward to success

Rhymes, meter, word choice, more
These hours are flying by
Looking forward to success
Will I really stay up all night?

Brilliant reflections
Sunrise on the soul of the Deep
What will protect the sea?
The soul of the Deep
when all that is left
are marine research venues
with beautiful architecture
“the world’s only submarium” the fliers say
The soul of the Deep
is surely more than seven shark types
among the thousands of other sea creatures
More than two and a half million
litres of water and 87 tonnes of salt…
But…
read the reflection in the mirror
Who will protect the sea?

Source: The Deep (aquarium) Wikipedia article

Twenty-four in twenty-four

Can we do it? Wait and see!

Through the lyric diction door

Go trekking each hour! Agree?

I tried to write a tanaga.

Hello, my name is Denise (My username here and on Twitter and Instagram is mrsdkrebs). I am an American living in Bahrain, teaching English to elementary students. I’m married and have two married daughters. We will retire at the end of 2021 and return to the California desert to live.

We are out of school now for the summer, and our country is currently under lockdown trying to fight the Delta variant of Covid-19. I don’t have any idea how it is to try to write a poem every hour for 24 hours because I have never tried it, but this is the year it may work. At this time in my pandemic life, I don’t have much else on my schedule because we only go out once a week or so for groceries. I’d rather write poetry.

I have always written poems in school as a child and with my own students since the 80s, but in starting in April 2020, I began to write poetry in a writing community at Ethical ELA. That’s when I fell in love with poetry. I blog at Dare to Care.