The Poetry Marathon

as if your breath could contain the world

to bridge me to pieces of myself lost to you in the folds of the leather

in your back seat

staring at the world meant to join us

in between all those moments we promised

we would save for ourselves

before we were all we had

in stolen seconds between rain drops

in the back seat of your car

meant to take us places

instead of separating here from there

until we are in the back seat of your car

stuck to leather

together

until someone finds out.

(c) r. l. elke

(dude in the tub)

you had me hooked from the first song;

grabbed me by the neck

and emptied me into oblivion

like a white page in a snow storm

incapable of holding words

implicated in secrets

submerged from the neck down

floating in my own filth.

I think it’s you who needs cleansing.

(C) r.l. elke

“…these existing plays have already begun answering the questions of where we are all came from” as if we had no idea our stories held our babies like pits in peaches and all our wishes lived just on the other side of the stars next to the ones who held our names in shaking hands until we return from this burning planet to hold our babies once more in the breaths of our grandmothers’ prayers for our waking when walking became more than anyone could manage in these days of dirt and images the opposite of sonograms singing stories of life when our babies are more than just bones and dust filling our mouths with anything else but gasping

these plays these days take our stolen questions into the rib cages of all those babies so we can sing behind them in the resonance of this earth who loves them more than the land could feed them medicine for this nation’s plan for us all in the days when they wanted us all to vanish

the questions of where we all came from hold the marrow in me so i don’t leak on the ground like fractured fiberglass oozing black gold on the bottom of rivers held up by crimson relatives breathing water to keep us all alive to tell the stories of our families living in the spaces between letters between lines between questions of how coming here would be so many beginnings

if you tell yourself often enough, all of it can be true

from waist size to waste sizing up the spaces

open to spill into

and take over

until the next moments cannot be contained

in over-flowing graves

filled with secrets everyone knew

if you tell yourself often enough, all of it can be true

in between the silences after confessions

of horrors even God couldn’t see

under the black and white curtains of righteousness –

or hate

sometimes I can’t keep them straight

or separated into columns on lying ledgers

stained with Indian ink

on the fingers of all those who count copper pennies

kept in porcelain so the other piggies couldn’t see how

if you tell yourself often enough all of it can be true when

all of them get to press their hard noses against the soft cheek of Christ

whispering those truths told often enough

all of it can be yourself, too.

(c) r. l. elke

the joy of unseen things

our ancestors dreamed us here,

according to my teachers,

who know such things

beyond the reach of grasping fingers

around the throats of loneliness,

separation,

or despair.

the imperceptible changes in breath,

reveal,

moment by moment,

so many tiny windows to sing from

or jump out of.

who’s to condone the thought of either?

because

our ancestors dreamed us here,

holding hands with eternity,

so that all the heavy lifting is hidden

under a mote of dust.

(c) r. l. elke

home

over and over these days

I hear page edges curling in upon themselves

so words fold upon words

until nothing seems the same.

maybe this is how we return to words

telling stories of destruction

of ideas

of places

of people

nothing means what you though it did

any more

and this “home” equals death

again.

the real question is:

what are you going to do about it?

(c) r. l. elke

prompt 24 hour 24

the gift

we are all born with a gift,

my Elders teach.

no one else has a gift like ours,

so we are told to share it with all –

“deserving” or not.

the stories teach us that our gifts are also medicine:

yours heals me and mine heals you –

working together as we reach to heal each other

as we heal ourselves,

so we can heal our Mother;

each connected,

one to the other,

until we become one.

© r. l. elke

prompt 23 hour 23

Arthur

I don’t remember when he first came to talk to me

in mirrors,

or when we would play cards

or at dinner time

when I would beg my mom to set him a place at table

so he could eat with us

and he was always hungry

and lonely.

I would call him on my red play phone

and we would talk for hours and hours

about his day

and the adventures he would get up to,

and he must have gotten up to some great adventures!

over forty years later I met him again

in a Great War Cemetery in France

(Sunken Road Cemetery),

buried near a lad with my daughter’s middle name,

so I know he was “real.”

Arthur was my relative…

never really imaginary,

just never really visible to anyone else but me.

© r. l. elke

prompt 22 hour 22

these little gifts

these little gifts remind me that I am never alone:

feathers are connections to those beings who

see the world above the little things that seem most able to ground us –

make us small

when we ought to celebrate the teachings

of those winged ones who teach us courage and humility

all at once.

I am made stronger

knowing these little gifts love me

when I love them back.

© r. l. elke

prompt 21 hour 21

what are you longing for most right now?

y’all know what I want…

the coolness of my pillowcase brushing on my cheek,

the last memory before sleep overtakes me into the daylight

where I dream of words

and poems I wish I had written

when the pen was in my hand with a life of its own

instead of this sleepy thing,

dormant except for the longing for cool pillowcases

and wordless dreams.

maybe a cup of Earl Grey tea

weak enough to warm without threat of keeping me

too much awake

when the time comes to fold up the laptop

and sleep.

© r. l. elke