The Poetry Marathon

Terminal Case

I should buy two dozen raised garden beds,
gravel, dirt, and mulch, seeds, potting soil, and fertilizer,
and build a green house in the back yard,
plant fruit trees, berry bushes, and vines,
and learn to can and preserve it all,
in case the grocery stores all run out.

I should convert all our jars of spare change,
the crumpled dollar bills in car consoles,
and the kids’ birthday card checks
into precious metals and bitcoins,
and stash them all in backyard and digital holes,
in case the economy pops.

I should collect all our rainwater
in barrels and tubs
and filter it through sieves,
treat it with chlorine
and store it in the basement,
in case public water is no longer clean.

I should have the roof of the house removed,
send Elon Musk’s kids to college
with the loans I’ll take out for solar panel roof tiles,
buy a woodstove and cords of wood,
and install a grill and outdoor firepit,
in case an EMP blast takes out all power.

I should buy and install a new shed
and seal it against the weather,
buy sturdy shelving for it
and fill them with a year of food,
toilet paper, and wet wipes,
in case the food chain gets disrupted.

I should do all this and more,
make myself crazier with each article I read,
each news story I hear,
for the end is nigh, after all.
I could, I would, I should,
world without end, amen,
until I take down a book,
take a step back,
take a deep breath,
read, and remember:

*”But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.”

*The World According to Garp, by John Irving

I See It All

I see it all
from my vantage point
above,
my perfect portrait
of water, rocks, and cattails,
a bucolic vision nearly unmarred
but for the jarring, fuchsia clad woman
I will later digitally remove.

I see it all
from my vantage point
upward,
my perfect portrait
of arching stones, vines, and tree sketched sky,
a softened man made vision punctuated
by heads and shoulders
of strangers I will ignore.

I see it all
from my vantage point
behind,
my perfect portrait
of amateur photographers
snapping each other unwittingly,
a collective vision for my professional eye,
and I capture them all, and laugh.

I see them all
from my vantage point
outside,
my flawed poem
of people seeing and not seeing,
scene by layered scene,
chronicled by my faulty pen
and laid bare for you.

Reflective

Angry words flew between my love and I,
propelled me away from our shared space,
stomping my way to our kitchen,
red fury in my eyes
and black thoughts in my head
as my hands filled the sink
with stacked dirty dishes
and boiling hot water.

I squirted dish soap
into the flowing water
with one vicious squeeze
and a string of minuscule bubbles
shot out around my face and shoulders,
startling my mind away
from thoughts of what I would wear to his funeral one day,
grudgingly barking a short laugh at myself.

Transfixed, my eyes tracked
each bubble,
reflected colors streaking their surfaces,
and tiny kitchen snapshots
with tiny me in their center
watching each implode, disappear,
with a near inaudible
pop,
pop,
pop,
but for one holdout
caught on the towel roll
in front of my eyes.

There it stayed
for an eternity,
longer than any bubble
had a right to remain,
and I told myself
to move,
convinced I could not
until it popped,
and waited,
unmoving,
waited,
stilled,
waited.

Pop.

Post Cursive

My hand flows with ease across the page,
connected rhythmic hills and valleys,
a mountain chain on a page linking hand and mind
from this present day
at my kitchen table
in the middle of my life
to a childhood classroom,
chalk dust in my nostrils
and thick, lined tablets and a stubby pencil
in a blonde pony-tailed little girl’s splayed fingers,
new tools awkwardly grasped while
furtively licking the acrid, freshly sharpened tip,
then scrawling for the first time the shapes
that would later come to define me.

Long years would pass,
years splintered, flayed, and broken
by circumstance and randomly cruel tragedy
beyond the child, girl, woman’s control,
but
smoothed, straightened, and sutured
by lines on a page,
flowing from mind to hand.

I watch the fuzzy, near transparently blonde
head of my grandson
bent over his work
at my kitchen table,
small splayed fingers grasping
his black digital tablet,
images, ideas, and thoughts of others
inserted between his mind and hand,
and I mourn a loss
he does not yet feel.

One of the unasked for upsides
to being richly blessed
with loving family
is the many wonderful
gifts from them I have received.

One that stands out, though,
is a gift that the sender
had no idea would be so profound.

My first husband was abusive,
did not value me as a wife or mother.
He declared Mother’s Day stupid,
a Hallmark holiday with no real meaning,
and so for years its only commemoration
was by what teachers created.

That marriage eventually failed
a shock to no one but him,
and I began to date online
a new old love from high school.

He lived far away in Germany,
I and my children in the States,
but constant online contact
meant he knew me and the children well.

The last Mother’s Day before we married
he sent a sumptuous gift,
flowers, chocolates, fruits, sausages
and cheeses, and a beautiful note
took me by such complete surprise,
I cried.

Years of neglect and cruelty
had trained me to expect nothing,
so simply being remembered
became extraordinary.

Our girl was a preemie,
a twin bereft of her sister
before their life outside of me
could even begin.

She was tiny, an elfin child,
with delicate features,
large eyes, and thin limbs,
seeming to exist between worlds.

She spoke of strange things
no one else could see,
imaginary friends populating
each corner of her fertile mind.

Most memorable to me
was the creature that inhabited
our Christmas poinsettia plant
one December; Buggy was his name.

Buggy had many tiny friends
that held elaborate parties
among the red and opulent leaves
every night as we slept.

It was only as I quietly discarded
the strangely sickly plant one night
that I discovered the truth our spritely
three year old had tried so hard to convey:
an infestation of spider-like mites
danced under and climbed over its leaves.

Old Man Under the Mountain

I scrabbled over stones slippery with sea foam,
hands and shins bloodied, steadying myself
with a staff from a dying willow tree.

I approached the stone ruins backwards,
at sunset, glancing sideways only
and tapped three times with the staff at the gate.

I turned seven times counter clockwise
as I intoned the proscribed words slowly
“Old man under the mountain, hear my plea.”

Just as I finished the final turn,
the last glimmer of sun slipped below the waves,
and the gate rumbled open.

Golden light flooded the opening, an invitation
to enter fairy lands. Down I went upon
stone stairs to find my fate.

Old Man reclined on sumptuous fabrics,
velvets, silks, and furs, but what truly amazed
was his visage, unlike any I’d ever knowingly seen.

Seeming starvation had lent his face, hands, and feet
gaunt elegance, and had chiseled musculature
that in a man would be obscured
just beneath the surface.
He seemed on the verge of atrophy,
but as he was when seen,
he displayed a beauty angels alone possess,
difficult to behold
in its implied suffering.

He rose, and to my shock he bowed to the floor,
exclaimed “My son, you have returned at last!
I may now finally die; you have  passed the test!”

Rocks clapped closed over me as he disappeared
and so here I remain, elegant, starved, and waiting,
waiting for a successor’s release.

Tracy Plath

Ten years ago I walked my way
back to health again,
seventy-five pounds lost
on the country roads
near our home, music fuelling
my feet.

Heavy metal accelerated my pace,
blues was my cool down of choice.
Smooth, even, swift steps daily
melted pounds and anxieties away.

I long to be that person again,
healthy, balanced, confident, and free.

Burnt

Bring to the light
at lightning speed
the candle that burns
at both ends.

After all, you can’t hold a candle
to the cold light of day
so come on baby, light my fire,
for it’s dark before the dawn.

Go out like a light
in the half light,
don’t hide your light under a bushel.

In broad daylight,
the clear light of day,
let there be light
like a candle in the wind.

Don’t rage, rage against the dying of the light,
rather, dance by the light of the moon.

Travel light,
like a trick of the light,
and trip the light fantastic.

All will come to light,
as you light up my life,
all sweetness and light
is you.

Tracy Plath

My husband and I first met in high school,
two gawky teens that wordlessly yearned
for each other, until graduation and youthful
dreams placed our feet on parallel
but separate paths.

Dreams became nightmares as divorces
came about for us both.
By chance, we connected online one day,
thousands of miles and an ocean apart.

For two years before marriage, we wooed
one another online, long, deep conversations
becoming shared movies, gaming, and finally
sleeping, connected round the clock.

His snores were a strange lullaby, until
I noticed the stops.
Sleep was trying to kill my love.
I would wake him through his headphones
and he’d roll over and breathe once again.

We finally united once more, youthful
dreams coming to fruition.
We lay side by side,
my now masked bear and I,
and sleep without fear or separation.