The Poetry Marathon

I always check the levels
First, before even putting my shoes on
It determines how my day will go
And if I even get it done

The smell of rotting vegetation still stuck to the bag
Along with oil and gasoline rich with detergent
Covet my sense of smell
And I smile

It brings back memories of my uncles house
Where I stayed one summer
As punishment
I wasn’t a bad kid
But I’d done some bad things
He was a Drill Instructor

One of my chores was to mow the lawn; front and back
The neighbors, too
For East Chicago
That isn’t much
Unless you use
A push lawn mower, that had no motor

I was pretty strong that fall
Between pushing the mower
And bagging the clippings
I learned how much powered mowers are taken for granted

I always check the levels first
Always

What is there to say about them, that has not been said in the title?
I can think of plenty
So can you
And so can they; if only of each other

I find it odd to hear a man
Dressed in finery
Fed the finest
Cared for by the finest physicians
We can buy
To speak of the horrors of poverty
And how they will champion the cause

What is there to say
That hasn’t already been said
They are truly different
They do, indeed, fight for change
For us
Not just them

Though I hope for better
I always expect the worst
Because if I didn’t
When it comes to them
I’d have given up long ago

The air is thick with sound
Horns of cabs fighting over fairs
Buskers at the corners, plying their talent in trade
For a fiver or two
The street is warm from the days sun, and the rub of feet
Moving almost in unison toward one place or other

Even as I walk with and against the crowd of faces
I feel at ease, as I sway with the circulation of air mixed with all the pollution
New York City has to offer
I am seaweed
And the ocean of the Big Apple
Has me at its mercy

What’s a foot without a shoe?
What good is a me without a you?
How can there be sun with no rain?
To recall the good side of a bad day?

Let’s take a walk inside the sun
Swim to the moon
Just for fun
Revel in the space of we
Make more lovely memories

All about me and you

Firefly’s scared me when I was a kid
Unless they were in a bottle
I could mask my fear then, but barely
Blood flowed like that second bowl, still
My heart a zooming pace car

I would suddenly feel lethargic
And my legs trembled like a treeline awaiting the saw
The heat of dread washed over my face
My cousin looking at me strange
“You okay, cuz?”
That jar was the cottage
That firefly
A bear

Tiger! Tiger! Flame and Spark
Space between the trees apart
What spector hand with startled eyes?
Praise surprise left and right
Tiger! Tiger! Flame and Spark

It was the season of the gun that year
All the kids just had to have one
Some just liked looking at them
Shying away from the trigger pull
Shuddering at the words it spoke
In 9mm Parabellum or .223
They didn’t make it

It was the season of the gun that year
All the guys gabbed about
How theirs was so fucking cool
Kitted out
Locked and Loaded
Ready to rock the world in body counts
Some of them were even allowed
Some even went to show the kids
To hear them speak
They didn’t make it

This year is the season of the gun
Only these guns are older
Ancient by design actually
And unlike their contemporary counterparts
These guns spit ammo that can pierce souls
They fire in pejoratives and slurs
They scream in waves of hate and fear
These bullets bleed the spirit
They didn’t make it, but they live on

This is the Season of the Gun

No alarm
Just our eyes opening
As if on cue
We look for purpose
Right beside us
And we rise to face the music

Coffee, that shot of sweet darkness
With just a hint of even sweeter cream

Miles pass by
Speed
The engine of getting somewhere
But only just
We are on 1:1
There are so many more lines to write

We sit on sand
You smile as I crack open the wine
Chilled in the cooler
We bought last spring

We drink
We speak
With our lips sometimes meeting
In between words

The lines write themselves
And we ride upon the stylus
Carefree
Undeterred by the danger of losing ourselves in the moment of moments

Darkness takes over
The sun becomes the Grim Reaper
Tolling the end
Tomorrow we shall look back upon today

Looking forward to when we’ll see it again

I wonder sometimes
What it must feel like to be a leaf
Slowly falling
Aimed toward the earth
Anticipating the sudden stop
Upon the ground
I am destined to one day be under

What must it be like
To one day be high up
Close enough to taste the sun
Close enough to smell the clouds
Close enough to hear the stars
Close enough to glimpse…God?

Just when you’ve begun to decipher
The mystery of it
The tree shudders
Your place in the heavens
Taken
By time or some other faceless cruelty

I shall no longer wonder of this
Because it is a truth we face from birth
We are all falling leaves
And despite our position in life
We all land in the same ground

So
It has been awhile now
12, 13 years?
Might as well be a day
Because that’s how long it feels, when I think of you

I can’t get past the feeling of non closure
There is still so much to be said
There are still feelings left unshared
Even though I spoke to you
Moments before you took your last

6:35pm
Your birthday
You were 79
At this moment
I sense the tragic irony, though not lost to me
Just the sensation of,
“Damn. Of all days.”

I remember a few days after
I came across a bottle of Dewars
It was old; at least a couple of decades
It was so terrible
But I drank on
And inside that bottle I found warmth
Mercy
Maybe even a little hope
But you were nowhere in sight

I miss you dad