The Poetry Marathon

I decided to see if I could put both the trapped and locked out…turned out I could:

i am a good girl

blasted bottle said “drink me.”

i am a good girl

i do what i am told

in this world of men

iron

ash

and coal dust so invisible

as to stain your cheeks with inky tears

after birth.

i am a good girl.

i drink when told to drink

i shrink when told to shrink

become invisible

when iron men reduce my dreams to ash when i reach up to

reach out to

find the box is lidded with glass –

the Cheshire cat grinning through the lid,

revealing the colours of its padded feet

to me

from the lid above.

i am a good girl.

i wait to be invited in –

a vampire

cop or

virus

panting at the door

drooling on the welcome mat

i am a good girl.

slide me the key under the jamb –

hide it under that sopping mat

so i may come in, too

to join you –

Queen of Hearts.

i see you through that glass lid perched beside ol’ Cheshire again

grinning at me

above me

as i stare into the sloppy welcome mat…

door knob getting farther and farther away from my grasp.

if i could only crawl under –

get out of this fucking box shrinking around me

like vacuum-sealed bags for storing old pillows –

but no!

i am a good girl –

too big for this place of men

Queens of Hearts wearing crowns of

iron

and ashes…

too small to hold the key

on my own.

(c) r.l.elke

animkiig

standing on the lake shore. black sky arches in a perfect “c,” cupping the lake as if to hold it in its palm. the lightning comes toward me.  in front of me.

behind me a group of people, concerned for their safety, cry for protection from the storm.  i tell them they are safe with me.  on the horizon

with the flash of lightning

the animkiig come.  i turn to the people

“they are here for me.  go now!”

beating wings whip wind around me

sharp feathers slice me.

i see them come

claws reaching down,

digging deep into the flesh of my shoulder,

left shoulder

to perch

or carry me off with them.

i knew they came for me to stand in the place of the others…

as i stood in this storm on this slate grey shore on this ink black lake.

(c) r.l. elke

#warning

heights

placed there by adoring sentiments

made to seduce me into the dark embrace of conceit –

removing myself from…

forgetting to remember to honour the muses

who fill me before my pen.

it’s a teaching in humility:

this crumpled parcel of longing to reach

above my station

when the ruler of this tiny realm

is the word

knocking me out

tipping me off

when I get too full of myself.

(c)

r. l. elke

This was a coooool prompt!  Below is a peek into the chaos of the house of a teacher at the end of the school year.  It sounds a right mess but it is just life scattered around the house of a family with a teenager and a young adult woman in transition into her grad studies in another province in process of moving…my children on the move.

walking in the chaos

these piles of clothes

this lived in home

that is new and not new

scattered pieces of life laying down on

floor

couch

table

dust

remnants of meals

heels

reverberations of other people’s lives not yet covered

by mine

or my family’s

attempts to place memories

from other places

in spaces too small to fit them all.

piles of books

gifts

photos of other times from other homes

where I felt more like they were mine than somebody else’s

contained chaos in empty cereal boxes and milk cartons

dishes in sinks

vases of roses given in gratitude remind me I am here for other purposes

than my own

padding on floors

to scattered rooms filled with remnants of business

dropped or placed

rested

draped

flung-back sheets in anticipation of days filled with hope to rise to the sun and reach for something new

reminds me life is filled with business and prayers in motion

walking prayers when we don’t have time to stop and kneel

or reach our hands to the quaking leaves and feel the wind in our hair

reminds me

this too is life

this too is living a walking prayer

a thankfulness

remembering to stop and hear the voice of Creator in this mess sometimes, too

because it means we live

and our living is full of dreams and prayers

and hopes that we bring medicine into this aching world

even when we leave footprints in the dust of our own floors

(c) r. l. elke

places we cannot name

I am taught

we are all one.

I read the wind with my fingers to soil –

could hear incantations of freedom

in the whisper of poplar dancing leaves forced into jigging

by gale-force Prairie winds

like those dancers in enchanted shoes forced to gyrate to death.

Everyday holds transformation

big and small

so that tincture

powder

or incantations

need not appear before breaking dawn

or remembrances of how to love in forgiveness:

people

lives

pieces of ourselves we have hated.

My Ancestors would have seen this as life;

now we long for it as something from the places we go we cannot name.

(c) r. l. elke

infinity

in this infinite space of everything i am

too many stars have fallen where i am infinite too when prayers

from infinity fill me with praying

fill me with prayers of infinity

i am all i am in all i am in all in all in all in all

to sit in the stars to feel the movement of it

for my dancing with the comfort of love so i am made more than i could dream to be.

(c) r. l. elke

through the haze

the sun cannot rise in this haze.

it tries.

I see it tries.

but the smoke is too heavy from the hectares of burning forest

to allow a proper sunrise.

there is usually a bit of light by now.

not today.

when the smoke clears,

I am sure it will be a glorious day.

R.L. Elke

©Aug 5/17 prompt 24

the return of the sun

my beach blanket smells of lake plants and sun.

I never knew I had a beach blanket

in these years of body shame

and black and white images

from a life I did not want photographed.

now I live in colour

and the whole world smells like sunshine dried clothing

and tastes like orange freezies

and sangria.

or the seductive taste of sweet strawberries

or watermelon;

the juices of both,

or either,

running down my chin in dribbles,

reminding me of you

and your sweetness.

Now I live in colour

and all I want is to feel the sun on my skin

and smell the heat of the day near water,

fill my head with reggae,

and read a library of books

from the warm sands of some local beach.

I want to live Baudelaire by sunset,

whispering his words,

French and all,

to the swooping bats

or

to a beautiful, receptive lover

who will then take me in his arms

and mouth

and love me to collapse under the Milky Way –

our naked, blessed bodies

glistening by starlight to show us what we are truly made of.

Now that I feel alive and loved,

I need to taste the sun so often it burns my tongue

so that my words are fire when I speak them

or your mouth ignites when I kiss you

or you burst into flames when I take you in my mouth.

I have walked too oft in the shadows these past years,

Now it is time to walk in the sun.

R. L. Elke

©Aug 5/17 prompt 23

the woman in red

She saw her at the other end of the room

and thought to herself

that she needed a new dress maker –

her frock was not as stylish as the woman in red.

She envied the other woman’s beautiful taffeta

and her silk shoes –

her gems studding her hair like stars.

She knew, then, beyond a shadow of a doubt,

that was why she stood alone at the table

while the woman in red filled her dance card.

She was,

certainly,

looking for a new dress maker.

R. L. Elke

© Aug 5/17 prompt 22

truly

there is no way,

in a million years,

there is enough money to fill my empty pockets.

I could eat ten thousand tables worth of feasts for the hungry

before I am sated.

seven great lakes are not enough to quench my thirst

and I walk a billion miles over broken glass to get to them before I die.

but if you ask me how long I will love you,

I tell you, truly, until the sun collides with the Earth,

boiling the seas dry.

and you can believe what I say because I never lie.

R. L. Elke

© Aug 5/17 prompt 21