The Poetry Marathon

Imaginarium

The sleepy, somnolent air of a summer’s day
reels away in ribbons through the stratosphere,
spooling down to cooler night
as the city awakens again.

Electric cars are death watch beetles, tick-ticking
over still hot pavement, invisible until close enough
to be touched by startled pedestrians sharing their space.

Lights in skyscraper windows flicker and burn
in tandem, until finally they are as torches
reaching up to the sky, a sacrifice
to the new gods of industry.

Furtive love and quicksilver hate duel for supremacy,
a lover’s dance that never ends,
slipping, sliding, grinding, through the night.

Duality

Sadness and joy often inhabit
the same moment, a counter balance.

I had just finalized my divorce
and moved into a home of my own,
signing the papers for the house
on my daughter’s fifteenth birthday.

I could not celebrate her birth,
nor mourn the death of a marriage,
as the children would be away with their father
for the first time since the divorce.

Melancholy welled up as I sat
in my nearly empty home
on the futon that was
then my only furniture.

Sensing my sadness,
my dog Ginger cuddled up on my left,
and Black Magic, the cat,
on my right.

Both gazed upward at my face
with twin expressions that said
“Don’t worry, it’ll be alright,”
and suddenly,
inexplicably, it was.

Green Eyed Monster

Medusa was born a mortal beauty, the daughter to two sea gods
and sister to monsters.

Her beauty became her undoing.
An enraptured Poseidon seduced and impregnated her
in Athena’s temple, enraging the virgin goddess,
who then turned Medusa into the most hideous monster of all.

As if that weren’t revenge enough, Athena then gave
the location of Medusa’s island to Perseus,
who cut off her head and used it to turn his enemies to stone.

Freeing Medusa’s head from her body also released
her twin children, Pegasus and Chrysaor, from her neck.
Blood from her severed head dripped onto Lebanon
as Perseus flew with it overhead, dooming it to a plague of snakes.

All this because a mortal woman was just too beautiful.

*42

At age fifteen I met the boy who would one day become my husband.
We briefly dated, then parted ways after a misunderstanding
we were both too shy to correct.

Don’t panic.
It all ended well.

Decades later we met again after hardships on both sides,
stronger and wiser and finally ready to deeply love.

We each kept our towels with us,
as we wooed one another and finally married.
At what age did we figure out the answer
to life, the universe, and everything,
and incidentally, marry?

*“Write a poem with the last line being a question and the answer being the title.”

Truth and the Chinese Lantern

Come closer, grandson, and I’ll tell you a tale,
the allegory of the Chinese Lantern.

Once there was a plant, lovely and mysterious,
her fruits enticingly veiled in lacy shadow.

The Chinese Lantern thrived in nearly any climate,
though given rich soil she spread beyond control
and killed off other plants in her exuberance, therefore:
in all things, moderation.

The Chinese Lantern tidily grew in poor soil,
lending her beauty to an otherwise arid landscape, thus:
where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

The Chinese Lantern seed pods dried to ethereal perfection,
their seeming fragility lasted long after the rest of her died away, and so:
death is the greatest illusion of all.

Chinese Lantern seeds were found in small, round, sweet fruits,
both medicinal and nutritious, but remained cloaked
in a paper shroud that had to be stripped away, so as the Buddha says:
three things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Admire the Chinese Lantern, dear grandson,
and remember the truths she teaches.

Idun and Bragi

In the Old Norse mythology of my ancestors,
Idun holds as high a place of importance as any,
though few people now know why.
She both owned and dispensed the fruits
that imparted immortality to the gods of Asgard.
Without Idun, the gods would no longer sustain
never ending life and power.

How appropriate, then, that she was also the wife
of Bragi, court poet and minstrel who chronicled
the lives of the gods. For the Norse,
writing also imparted a form of immortality.
Their Viking descendants were known to leave
ancient graffiti, secret carvings depicting
their runic names in places that might never be seen.

A Viking father of long ago inscribed a standing
stone with spiraling runes describing the life
of his deceased son and his valiant death in battle
in the hope that by so doing, his son might never
actually die. We speak of him still, and so still he lives.
And now here I sit, a sister to Idun and Bragi, scribbling my name,
staking my claim, to a longed for form of immortality.

Disaster

Death, divorce, desertion, depression,
name your disaster and I’ve had it.

Childhood abuse led to adulthood abuse,
and a widening chasm in my first marriage
became the demilitarized zone
that began with the death of a baby.

Depression spiraled year upon year,
further and further down until
hitting rock bottom would have been a relief.

Near suicide after the discovery of a cheating spouse
was averted by the almost unbearably sweet intervention
of my chubby toddler child, cuddling close, patting my cheek
and crooning “No sad, mama, no sad.”

Through it all, one disaster, one heartache,
one agonizing pain after another,
one thing held true, one thing sustained me.

Writing saved me, pulled me up and out of myself,
purged the sickness that plagued my soul,
and quenched the flames that ultimately annealed my character.

I came through more flexible and strong, more open and ready
for the advent of real love. Had I not suffered, not bled, not written
through it all, I would not have the strength, the love, I have now.

Diaspora

Our family is a Viking horde,
descended from hardy Swedes and Norwegians
amid a colorful range of other backgrounds.

Fifty to one hundred people we consider family
have gathered together around a pool every 4th of July
thirty-six of the last thirty-seven years, excluding 2020.

Coming together every year and reacquainting ourselves
with each other’s lives is a renewal to me, a touchstone
for my at times lonely heart to caress.

Some years I haven’t personally attended, some years others could not,
but when we did, the connection sustained.
Losing even the option to gather in 2020 was devastating.

Our family’s personal diaspora from its beginnings in Indiana,
our travels to far corners of the world continues in each passing year,
but always we return, strengthened, and look forward to the future together.

Ode to a Golden

I cannot have a bad day when Rosemary is around.
Dancin’ Rosie, Rosie the Nosy,
golden Rosie make me smile
until my cheeks ache,
sides hurt,
and happy tears stream down my face,
because love grows where my Rosemary goes.*

Oh, I love my Rosie child,**
tappy toes, happy Rose
as she wriggles and shimmies
from one pack member to the next,
grinning her doggy grin.
Rose gold, lovely,
furry, funny baby:
life is better with you in it.

*line from the song Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes, by Edison Lighthouse
**line from Cracklin’ Rosie, by Neil Diamond

Bound

Spring flowers surround
marriage in June’s early heat
bound together now