The Poetry Marathon

Dear Heart,

Are you awake?

Did you fall asleep?

I feel your beat.

Please wake up!

I’m here.

It’s me…

Early.

A state of being filled with anticipation at its best. 

As a writer our minds can peruse the sites without contest.

Magazines, children’s books, paintings, flowers, plants, people watching…

Being early is a state of being that is elusive to me, yet when I get there, once in a great blue moon, it’s a place that fills my heart space with peace.

Deep down in my heart I know  this is a place I can be, but for me it is as elusive as the butterfly.

When it lands on my shoulder and I rest in this space of early, it feels so good and so free.

A place where we can all be what we were meant to be.

Early.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

A strategy for daily living by Ari Kiev MD: 

“Several years ago a young businessman visited my office with a very unusual request.”

He offered me no money.

He was all alone. 

He had a strange look of indifference in his eyes and that’s what scared me the most. 

He had idle hands that fidgeted as he smoothed over his pinstripe suit while he stood there at my office door.

He pulled out a robin’s egg blue handkerchief to dab the  perspiration than was forming on his forehead. 

Who was this man who came into my office?

Who and what was he looking for?

 I had no idea no clue. 

 He didn’t even make a fuss. 

He needed someone he could trust. 

Not a woman, not a man, a kindred spirit without an agenda. 

He needed me more than I needed myself and that was the first clue of my unrest.

Why had he chosen me at such a time?

I, who had all he needed. 

What was I to do? 

Give him more time to hear his plea. 

Or better yet, to ask myself simply,

How could he need me more than I needed myself?

I shut the door and quickly ran to look in the mirror to see  if I was still me.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

Dear Future Love,

I can’t believe I have finally met you. 

You came into my life in a flash of ultraviolet light.

As fresh and as fine as I can imagine. 

You are kinder than I envisioned.

Smart and funny on the outside and deep on the inside.

Just how I like it.

Your patience is grounding.

Yet, I know it may be growing thinner with me.

It is more than a gift that your interest never wanes.

Two balls of energy that reinvigorate each other.

Your sense of humor is like a badge you wear for all to share.

It is as open and as inviting you make everyone feel.

You evoke a sense of home no matter where we go.

Your heart and your chest call me home to rest.

Even when I may not know the place.

You make everyone feel at home, not just me.

You came into my life out of the blue. 

If I I had not invited you in to help me move my books before the rain,

I don’t know if I would’ve ever be the same. 

On that rainy day,I found fresh fruit to share with you. 

My shoulders were bare and my heart was open. 

Unbeknownst to me, my heart was shifting too.

You changed everything I believed in about love.

I knew not how to “think”, all I could do was “feel”.

I felt your heart, and I was not ever the same.

You sing without regret.

Spit lyrics and their meanings without hesitation.

With or without music when I’m near

I feel the rhythm of your vibe.

You pull me close, showing me what it’s like to be alive.

Every day and every night you bless me with more than a kiss.

We pray we cook, we dance, we play, and we continue to grow.

I’m so grateful you are no longer just a dream.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

A Prose Poem Inspired by “Quicksand“by Nella Larson 

(A first line too sad to add. Might I choose the second.)

“Last and hardly had she left her bed and become able to walk again without pain hardly have the children return from the homes of the neighbors where she began to have her fifth child.

Grace, Hope, Faith, Destiny, and finally Joy, her fifth and final child would be born on the summer solstice.  

Her last baby girl  born at home in the arms of a midwife. 

Joy was her precious miracle child, born on an auspicious day. 

Also a new moon, when the tides were low, long before the pregnant strawberry full moon came to term. 

She had blue violet eyes unlike her siblings who all had chocolate hued irises to match, truffle, caramel ,hazel flecked with sunflower gold & green and, blackberry brown, a pool of midnight unlike Joy ,who was born with an entirely different. hue. 

She was born in a veil.

She was born in the amniotic sac in tact. Her tiny palms as fine as the Japanese maple in new bloom of the early spring.

She was tiny and as perfect as  a grain of rice. She had a birthmark unlike the others.

Unlike the distinctive port wine stain of her second oldest sister Hope, or the freckles of the oldest, Grace she had a tear shaped like her mother. unlike the Milky Way that was found on the base of her third sister. Faith’s lower leg.

Joy was born without her father in the room. 

He came in right after she broke the veil and she cried a piercing scream the moment she came out of her mothers womb.

Her life was not predestined, she was the first to be born free, this was not prophesied like the rest.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

Doubt has swallowed me whole.

Stole my desire and even a tried to capture part of my soul .

I get lost in his hold, lost in its grip and each month I become a captive bought and sold to the highest bidder .

Weakness brought on with her sadness and regret .

Allowing another beautiful day to slip by unable to harness the pure energy from within.

I am a prisoner in my own body. 

Pain is my bondsman and for half the month I see no end in sight. 

Past hurts, unfinished work, I am not to be crossed, even I dare not try to rock my own  boat. 

I can ban all food fast away, yet the hurt will not quell the pain. 

No physical pain out does the mental anguish that remains. 

It’s all the same. 

Some months are physical and others it’s all in my mood.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

Blue

Blue clouds can be in reverse of white or gray. 

They come after rainbow clouds, and do not stay.

An iridescence, a solar halo with ice crystals and water droplets that diffract the sun’s light. 

Flying higher than any man-made kite.

Blue clouds are dreams deferred, like Langston Hughes’ poem.

Blue clouds are definitely something elusive we can “show’em”.

They are no longer imaginary, they are more like blue moons in the sky.

Two full moons in one month are the distant relatives of blue clouds who can often appear shy.

Blue clouds are saved up dreams come to life and fears rolled into one.

Blue clouds are filled with all the hues of the oceans, rivers, seas, lakes and sun.

They include every spectrum of the sky, from the early morning sliver grey  that comes hours before the break of blue begins to mature into day.

Long before it melts into the time of day between light and dark.

It is made up of the twilight that illuminates the sky line like roman glass with its soft pastel hues.

Deepening into jewel tones that appear after sunsets turn into midnight black that cover the the night the sky in the darkest shades of blackberry blue.

Blue clouds are all the tears we produce both joyous or sad. 

Blue clouds are the veins in our bodies that we always had.

Dependent on the amount of oxygen needed to make the iron rich blood coursing through our our veins appear blue.

Blue clouds beget the questions we have deep inside.

Blue is the faith we choose not to hide.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

Strawberries are found in her dreams in her earliest memory on the kitchen table, in the California setting, next to her mom.

A strawberry shortcake scented doll was her only friend when her parents left her for only one night with the man their friend and his English wife.

She only remembers the man who watched  the football game on the screen in the dark and alone like she felt so long ago only two.

No brother to call her own as yet, only strawberries to comfort her.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

She was left with an impression.

She made the strawberry association

With all that was good

Like in the month she was born in

Close proximity to Mexico and California

Fresh and ripe like her place of birth.

Also like her brother

Who sounded like strawberries when he spoke

Connecting her to her mother

Sweet and decadent as grapes

Closely related to her fathers favorite  berry as well

The rasberry.,,,

For this reason

Strawberries would always hold

A special place in her heart.

All rights reserved copyright (c) 2019 Natasha Vanover

“Banana Cream Dream” pie is a precursor to much more than a treat.

It is a marker of simpler times.

Not decadent or overly sweet.

It evokes memories made by hand.

It must be eaten in the week.

Bananas can be smooth and luxurious.

Power packed with energy.

Cream and shaved almonds are blended in its allure.

I’ve traded the richness of a cake for pie.

Marking my maturation and graduation.

From  a birthday celebration all grown up.

After 41 years on this earth there is so much

More I want to know and I’ve cone to appreciate.

I think I’ll be satisfied with just one slice.

If I can share a bite with you,

It’s perfect really, extra nice .