The Poetry Marathon

It hurts to be… alive

The threat of dying gives life to living.

It hurts to feel happiness…

Your throat tightens.

You can’t breathe.

You can’t release…

The tension hightens.

Thoughts of the past rush in, building like a fever breaking.

Shortness of breath persists.

“Help!” I think I’m dying, but inactuality I’m living.

(Sometimes sadness feels like the cloak of death. In times like this we must battle to push beyond the cloud of meloncholy. It is a cloud in disguise as doubt, almost as dangerous as death itself.)

All rights reserved copyright(c)2017 Natasha Vanover

Earth, the floor that grounds me.

Wind, the air that surrounds me.

Fire, the burn that warms me.

Water, the waves that push me.

All rights reserved copyright(c)2017 Natasha Vanover

The 12th hour a poem dedicated to Luna…and the Man in the Moon

Moon high in the sky looking down on us.

I see the face of a boy child in 3-D, just my brother and me.

It’s hard to determine his nationality.

He has a tapered haircut and a friendly face.

I first saw him many moons ago, his expression reflected on a computer screen under the protective canopy of the Great Lakes and the state it nestles in-between.

If you turn your head just so, you will see another little person, a little girl that my boyfriend says matter-of-factly looks just like me… a little Shirley Temple in the sky.

The glory and pride I feel inside was discovering this feat with my brother who is like no other.

We spare no time to uncover the mysteries of the sky when we can.

We almost fell asleep laughing into the wee hours of the night, yet for the record please let it stand he does not allow me to fall asleep in his room.

I’ve grown too old for this I know, but I still try to stay up, just to get a few more laughs in before it’s gets too late.

Until the next visit, at least we know, we all share the same moon from down below.

The 11th hour… Seeking land… home no longer for rent.

Everyone wants a home, but I’m afraid to call anywhere home when Muhammad Ali says that the rent you pay on earth is the service to others.

I want to plant,

I want to farm, to grow a little fruit tree.

I want to paint the walls and dig in the dirt as far as the eye can see, but wait… who owns anything, not me?

Pearl S. Buck knew that “The Good Earth” was more than about a home to call one’s own. It was the land.

The Irish writer still echo’s in my mind from college… many a family struggle to own the land under their feet.

“A condo is fine, but what about the land?”

“No matter how plush, or technologically advanced, no matter how high it reaches in the sky, how can a penthouse match the profound feeling when you put your hands in the dirt of a home on the land that you own?”

Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry knew and made us all think deeper when we read the book and saw the play, “A Raisin in the Sun”. ‘To own even the dirt under your finger nails’, a friend once shared, … ‘is worth something when you can call it your own.’  The value of owning a home is not something new.

Even Dido and The Cinematic Orchestra knew how hard it can be to build a home and no longer put your life for up for rent.

“Everyone deserves the chance to plant his roots in the ground.  I hope I get this chance to plant a tree.”

Hour 9 pm- Concrete Jungle meets Bohemian Rhapsody

I have a lemon tree on my balcony.

Succulents and Buddha reside next to a frog with marbles on his back made a local artist without strife.

Visited twice in the spring, by a bird that chirps for a full eight hours trying to lure a wife.

Orchids bloom and fade throughout the year renewing their life, one small and yellow another purple and white.

Air plants native to the everglades sit in a defunct lighthouse without working Christmas lights.

Close by, succulents transplanted last summer,suck up the sun and the rain without any fights.

Much later, turtle lights flicker in the night.

Two chairs are out of sight.

Two more face a glass table that we barely use, holding books, CD’S, glass, and basket weave…all treasures that we forget to see.

Don’t forget the plant that goes by the name “Wonder of the World”, siempre viva, grown from just a single leaf.

Shells that come straight from the sea and washed up coral sit nearby resembling a hemisphere of the brain.

And as you look down below you will see that the pavement is tempered by heat and strain.

All of these add up to my very own Concrete Jungle meets Bohemian Rhapsody…

Why every summer is there is bloodshed in the streets?

We have to go on to our parties, weddings, and vacations.

Another birthday to celebrate, as we hug our families extra tight.

Just another day in the middle east, east coast, west coast fight.

We go on to our parties, weddings, and vacations.

Celebrating, we hug our family’s extra tight, Down South, Up North, nowhere to run from the pain of the reality.

Just another day in the battle ground between east and west

It may not be your reality or mine, but it is happening all the time.

Nowhere to run from the pain of the times that we are living in.

They have no memory of the past,

It may not be your reality or mine, but it is happening all the time.

They fill our minds with promises they cannot keep and yet we follow like sheep.

They have no connection to the past,

Perhaps we will be the ones to shatter the mold without being bought or sold.

They fill our minds with ideas that have no real value and yet we still follow.

It is more than absurd how far we have come not as a creed, but as a civilization.

Perhaps we will be the ones to shatter convention and reinvent our intention.

We are the makers of our destiny, this is in our control if only we work harder than the rest.

It is more than absurd how far we have come not only as a people, as a nation; let’s strengthen the congregation.

It’s time to reinvigorate the hearts & minds of those willing to reflect and end the contention with positive intervention.

Every summer there is blood spilled in the streets.

Praise

The sun, the air, and water are staples to the life we hold so dear.

I wish it were that simple, I swear.

To love and to share.

To love with your whole heart, and care that is the ultimate dare.

A dare to be bold in the face of adversity.

A dare to be fair… to do what you know, what is right in the depths of your soul.

Yes, this is the first step to becoming whole.

…Inspired by Grace…

Angst

German or Dutch it doesn’t trouble me that much.

This is word-etymology that we trust.

Teenage angst is still most popular today, and that’s not ok!

The youth are a precious group; they are all our saved up dreams rolled into one.

My school or your school it is the millage that rules. Equality seems so far away, like a distant land, and this I can’t understand.

We don’t need pen pals to teach that “tolerance” is too weak a deed.

“Diversity” too, is losing its luster and its promise.

We desire something far greater than the “Dawning of Aquarius” to wake us from this sleeping beauty that we think we need.

Plant the seed, quench the thirst, however cliché the idea may seem, cultivate the mind with a love of knowledge based on curiosity, exploration, and not  just the mere hope of college.

Where is our dedication to the youth?  They are our future, just as much as we are their past. We both make up the whole and we cannot put them last.

Angst is an opportunity to uncover our fears and face reality. We must invigorate the youth. They deserve truth, not banality.

Haibun…Murasaki

Carnation Purple

Temporal color and form

Pantone petals bright.

First time smelling your sweet breath or is it the baby’s that you hold so dear? Your presence signals that all will be well, gracing my home when all is in order. You are a “just because” celebration.

So vibrant you are

You, a hue like no other

Perfect for momma.

Technology is a strange and mildly addicting science at best.  It is not as mysterious and as far reaching as the study of the stars as in astronomy, not to be confused with astrology.

Technology is the means by which we communicate most readily. Two of the poems for this event I wrote by hand, yet time does not allow for this kind of luxury.

Technology begs the question of efficiency and conformity.  It offers equanimity to those that master its quirks, but let’s be honest who hasn’t had a printer go off task when you need it most?

Technology is hip, it’s happening, it’s always in vogue, and it tests our ego “to do more and be more”.

Those again who utilize technology are rewarded highhandedly.

The smooth PowerPoint presentation will soon be outshined not by excel or publisher, but by other application programs that have yet to be christened like some new star, planet,solar-system, or galaxy that can be named just as easily by anyone who can provide the funds to get in the name game.

Prezi, Keynote, Google Presentations, or Slide Rocket… these are all buzz words in a sea of programs evolving much like newly formed stars, or should I say,newly named stars in a universe of novelty.

Windows or Mac, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or Green Party, let’s not forget the Independents. It’s all a name game to those who choose to play the part of a pawn in the hopes of moving up in the ranks to win in a game of chess in high-stake politics and technology. This is our reality.

By the time one star shines bright enough that we recognize it, it is almost too late because the next best program or app has already come out and it’s on to the next big thing, new name, new face, new brand.

That very star has come and gone, just like technology we are forced to live and coexist with the excess of knowledge in this fast paced reality, and before we know it…the star has died long ago.

So don’t get too comfortable with technology.  It can cut your commute just as much as it can injure your ego and ergonomics.

Be a butterfly and sample the nectar, don’t be a bee and get poisoned by the malware pesticides that alter your pattern.

Learn to live among the knowledge seekers and apply the information gathered; don’t just accumulate it.

We worship a star ignited and extinguished long ago, we have to keep up or we become slow.