The Poetry Marathon

The brightness is

Warming

It is cause

and reaction

It is going to be better.

As I expected

Expected

Expected

Expected

Expected

it is the sun burning dinner.

Philip V. Coombs 8-9pm 

24 poems 24 Hours.

This is the longest day of the year

The sun will be at its hottest

There will be calving

Get to the Kampong

Collect the children and rambutan

the waves won’t

wait for Sunday

or for a list of those

still running away

Philip V. Coombs 7-8pm

Honduras’ hot sauce

nor

Budapest’s boat ride

nor

my inventions

nor

steps backward

nor

silence in empty spaces

hair folded over

steamed pores

wine over tongue

Vinegar and poison

flesh burning

hair smouldering

ears filled with noise

nor

this

nor

that

nor

barefoot

nor

naked

nor

nothing.

Philip V. Coombs 6-7pm

Your truth is

at the end of your fist

I close my eyes

and take it on the chin

I swallow a tooth

and lick the blood

My truth is

at the end of my swing

you take it in the skull

and see the blood

You choke on the truth

with your palms open

Pause

Sometimes it is just about the light

and the warmth it gives

This is the day I will embrace

and walk to it

This is the day it will be okay

Philip V. Coombs 5-6pm

After crying loudly

in a pillow

and watching

my Leonard Cohen CDs

refuse to flush

I pray to my favourite cult

The one that keeps me from ever being

wrong.

Philip V. Coombs 4-5pm

If you should survive the fall

and have to explain that killing yourself is illegal and and you will have to pay the wages

of the people who tried to save you or collect your pieces

when the rest of your money was scooped away with a purpose built stick

counting how many more trips to the ATM you had left before you lose the house

the same house where the ripped paperwork is in the garbage where you left it

sitting on top of the full coffee filter

from the morning when you woke up

with freedom and possibility like never felt

going to be a day of opportunity

falling in place

the glorious sun shining down on plants and umbrellas

of those who are unappeasable

trying to control the dogs that are fucking

and chasing things they cannot catch as

it is that time of year

if you should survive the fall.

Philip V. Coombs 3-4pm

Clear smell of something

Hair

Clean hair

Hair on

”I’m going to Vancouver”

First not hunger

feeling in my stomach

Clean break

Drove away fast

so fast downhill

avoiding the fences

and

a slow horse

Freezing and eyes full of water

Been trying to find the gum I was chewing that day

ever since.

Philip V. Coombs 2-3 pm

A glass that stinks of gin

straight from the bottle

or the Juniper berry

wherever Juniper trees grow

next to the pond

where the fish are forced to be huge

so we have more fish to throw

away when the fork scrapes the plate

and fins and heads and scales and eyeballs

hit the top

layer of garbage

that was pushed down

as far as it could go

so yesterday

it was either that

or take it out

on the feelings of the person who deserved it.

Philip V. Coombs 1-2pm

Where I am walking

is just as unappetizing

as where I am

I will leave by my own hand

The sun burns the feet

The breeze is full of confessions

I will leave by my own hand

I will not be defined by the

SOS in the sand

The sun burns my hand

Why did I follow myself here?

Was it to chronicle?

I will leave by my own hand.

Philip V. Coombs 12-1pm

I stubbed my toe

walking too close

to the turning

of the corner

Time does it to me

Every way

My toes have been broken

the way a second hand initially needs to be bent to tick

I can feel it

slipping and releasing

slows gravity for a moment

the little bones are broken

and no matter how many corners I try to cut

you have passed

Philip V. Coombs 11-12am