The Poetry Marathon

The moon has gone to be with her lover
Falling stars flung like firebrands
to ward the paths toward heaven

A mile to midsummer
and she is full and dark

She will not be awakened

We chant psalms
and keen redemption
in the penumbra

A mile to midsummer
and she is full and dark

She will not be awakened.

Separate selves
entwined in entropy
glassware on the edge of the table
photographs turned backward
light shines through inverting
memories of lost cities
dreaming spires reaching toward God
In the morning we rise, shower, comb our hair
follow the routine like stations of the cross
and guide ourselves into tombs
hoping for a miracle to cast these stones aside

We are melancholy objects
mementos of lives long gone
our bodies remember what we forget

Cats perch on tables
Shuffle papers, steal pencils
But words keep coming

The rain that beats upon the dirt,
that tastes the leather kiss of leaves,
paints the mud upon the ground,
and runs a shiver through the trees,

soaks the yellow swollen moon,
and light-torn sky, bible-black;

night yawns and calms its gentle tears
—the streets are glass, and crack.

We put to paper
what things once were writ in bone
carry maps of home

underneath our skins
nothing can remain hidden
nothing’s lost for good

children concealed in
baskets hidden among reeds
may one day part seas

Rainy afternoons
summer breaks like a fever
thunder shakes the sky

Leaves quake in the breeze
Autumn’s around the corner
Memories of childhood

Silence in between spaces
separate minds adrift
thieves hiding in forests
of endless night
the last flicker like fireflies
and tireless symphonies
staccato and certain of nothing
except for the next note
and the next
gunpowder sweet and
mail order religion
lost and found and lost again
sins passed from father to son
familiar as secondhand shoes
comfortable as dry socks
after a rainy day
an evening by the fire
still smoldering still the next day
we sleep past noon
the sun refuses to wait for us

An ancient king
Once ruled O’re men
Not with sword but pen
His laws were iron
No man immune
From its wisdom or its doom

His eyes are sealed
With golden coins
His selfsame image sealed
This king who once
Had dared decree
That death should be repealed