The Poetry Marathon

Haiku Not Mentioning Marriage

Morning tea.  Thank God

I dodged that bullet train.  Rice,

toasted, floats in green.

Little Poetry Projects

Q-Tips are soft small clouds in a glass jar

but on bad days we smell the sulphur lightning

and hear thunder when we scrub our ears for wax.

“Can you taste the wax?” said Simon,

our cat.  “Yes” said one of us.  “No” said the others.

Simon has it all figured out now.  That poet,

he thinks, knows so little about what matters;

she’ll be one of the first to go.  Comme ci comme ça.

On good days we stroll the boardwalk at Boulevard Park

and I think of my Danish grandmother’s nickname

for me, which is a secret I tell nobody

although Simon knows it and under correct circumstances

he would talk.  We lie on the beach, collect rocks

with white rings.  It is good luck to throw them

at passing children and if one of us is ever strong

enough to hit a cloud we will control the rain forever.

Caitlin’s Hair

is a long ladder to her ears,

each rung a wave that follows

not what OSHA rules but

its own curvy direction.

It is a strawberry red umbrella,

a super-thick invisibility cloak

smelling all too wonderful

to hide Caitlin.  Caitlin’s hair

is the unhemmed fringe of the world’s

longest pair of jeans

walking through the art gallery

in search of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”

or Renoir’s “Young Girl Combing Her Hair”

or works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

who were the dudes who totally got

Caitlin’s hair.  Some say a little mouse

lives in there and hides cheese

under her shirt collars

and swings from hoop earrings

when it’s frisky.  It’s a lovely mystery.

(based on image prompt from hour 2)

This Is How It Finds Us

after Diana Khoi Nguyen

blue ruffle out on the bay

breaking briefly around one reef and

another

snagged

white shoreline rushing

and receding

with It.  How the juniper

rattles and loses

its buttons

and we think we don’t move

a fiber if we’re still

in our big wooly coat

I like that story

where a visitor is told

The universe is a blanket

spread above us as a tent

Over time the fires warmed us

sent up their sparks

to burn small holes

through which the bright

light of the world beyond

shines through as stars.  Today

Teresa writes to our family

the results of her mother’s scan.

Picture the sky filled with stars,

with several small asteroids

here and there in my aunt’s lung.

I can’t.  I hold this picture:

Pat in a hot yellow mini dress

marries my uncle, her beautiful

beehive—gathered and glossed—

rising high as a sun.

I picture a life she’s woven

of hardship and disappointment,

of faith and devotion,

of tenderness, humor,

and Love.  Picture a family

as warm and as strong

as a soft knitted blanket.

She is the light shining through.

Normal Poem

This is a normal poem for normal times.

Like normal poems, it normally rhymes.

It goes to the store—without masking up.

It hugs its grandmother; she sings at worship.

This poem goes to concerts—makes dinner for friends!

This poem is so friendly it overextends.

It only thinks “swabs” when it thinks about Q.

It’s as open to me as it’s open to you.

It likes regular stanzas: all lines in their place.

It doesn’t know chaos or shared live/work space.

It goes to the office; this poem’s a commuter.

It gets down to business on a desk-top computer.

This poem does not zoom.  This poem does not go.

It’s an end-stopped pre-covid old-timey memento.