The Poetry Marathon

Through deserts and forest and grassy savannah
a landscape that transcends them all.
Glowing alight at night with neon orbs that call forth
all the the bats and the moths and birds of night
until a carnival of wonder circles overhead
Above the teeming lights of the Scablands.
Multicolored landscape as rich and vibrant,
yet hardened too,
where concrete slabs battle for the prestige of being the tallest
and highways and streets join
in a network of paths that connect all of us fiftieth cousins together.
In the Scablands
a hazy dusk hangs over us
from the steampunk machines
that thrive in their streets and in the Scablands
the plants are preserved in concret pots, rubber tires, bricks and porcelain toilets; anything to remind its occupants of what used to be. Little ghosts of their ancestors, teeming with light and with life, but yet so estranged from what it was truly like in the deserts and the forest and the grassy savannahs
and is now the Scablands

When
who and how to love is a mystery
what to do to be happy is insurrmountable
where to go to find purpose is impossible
and if any of it matters
is how you live.
Then
Lost
is how you live
does finding you matter
is searching for purpose possible
and can happiness become you
or will these mysteries fade
like wisps of soke

Moon suspended in a canopy of stars
And a lake so perfectly reflecting the sky
It feels as if I’m floating
No longer able to tell up from down
Panic thumps against my breastbone

When the snow begins to drift from above
It becomes easier to tell up from down

Today I awoke
I’m glad I woke up again!
I’m on a roll, 69 years so far
There were fluttering waxwings
to greet me
Yesterday there were robins
and crows the day before
I like waking to the birds above my head.

I rolled up my pack
and walked along the floor
of heather and grass
picking black berries for my breakfast
Where should I go today?
Summer is in full bloom, but
autumn comes quickly and
I must travel south with the birds
if I am to survive the winter.

South. I go south.
Tomorrow when I wake
maybe I’ll glimpse the black hills
As long as when I sleep
I sleep free.

‘I am so lucky
to have a friend like you
It sounds cliche
but feels so true

Because you love me
and you make me feel it
I can start to believe
there is some truth in it

When I need support you all but come blasting through the wall
like a superhero or the Kool-Aid man
“I’M HERE” you are here and you wont let me forget
nor can i, not anymore

If I can make you feel as cherished
as you’ve made me believe I am
I will have completed my life’s purpose
But luckily I don’t have your gifts,
so we’ve got many decades of adventures ahead.

I’ll do my best.

a photo cannot capture
the flavor of the air on the breeze
the scent of sweet pollen in the air
the moon, ever, because it’s just that ethereal
nor the feel of cool water on the tongue
nor the sound of hundreds of aspen leaves clapping

a poem cannot capture
the scope of all that is contained in
a sweeping gaze gaze in a single pass over the landscape
it cannot capture the way he gazed at you when you were busy
gazing across the water
nor can it capture any form of reality,
only what you observe to be so

And even to try to mesh the two pieces–
the machine eye and the organic brain–
would cause them to be at such odds that
you can’t help but suggest that
perhaps its time we spent some time apart

to find ourselves again

dear owl
please stop you midnight celebrations
some of us have to work in the morning

OH MY GOD
Bubble tea, cream cheese
milkshakes, icecream
why do you leave me so bereft
when all i want is one taste
i want so much to have you
and eat you and drink you
because that’s what we’re meant to do
I think you wont hurt me but you do
I keep coming back for more and it is
SOOOO GOOD

But a few hours later comes the pain
the bubbles the rumbles
the roiling the burning
why do you make me feel this way
I can’t be around people when you act
like this
I’m just going to take a few deep breaths
and step outside for a moment
to let all this hot air you’ve built
up inside me
release in private
I can’t let anyone know how miserable
you make me
They don’t understand they’ll just say
they told me so
and
I keep doing it to myself
But they don’t know what we have is so
good when its good, you make me so happy
and then you don’t.

I guess I’m in for the evening;
I need some quiet time to reflect,
and anyways,
I’ll be too busy farting
and trying to avoid sharting
To have people trying to comfort me tonight.

Today is like no other in memory
Let us not forget how the sun rays
exploded from the clouds
highlighting the ripe olives in our orchard.
Let us not forget that today when I
embrace you, it’s my wish that we never
again part
Let our love be a testament
a relic forever
Can you hear my heart rumble,
how the power of it makes the earth shake
and people run screaming from its blinding brilliance?
But we are not afraid
I will hold you and you hold me too
Our embrace so warm it burns
your breath hot on my neck and hands
stroking my back like licks of flame
your touch burns and I crave it.
I want more. I want your heat to flow around
my body and mine around yours and when
finally
it cools let our devotion stand like stone
Our monument chained forever to the earth
to prevent us from fleeing to the stars.

Swish swish gargle gulp.
No more choking down their shit.
Composting toilet.