The Poetry Marathon

Hour 1

Phoenicia:  Ancestor to the Phoenix of the Rising Sun

To embody a mythical creature who would it be?

One who lived in cycles of 500 years… witnessing the brutality of slavery and the birth of a nation once born free.

She with an immortal spirit that soars in the skies and will rise from the flames of humanities pain and greed.

One whose tears heal those that inspire true creativity.

A mystery revered by cultures of long ago.

Egyptian, Persian, Greco Roman, and Jewish mythology to name a few.

Her feathers if discovered heal the wounded and give birth to an eternal flame of hope that can only be sired in the depth of one’s heart…

She who is intuitive enough to sense her own demise.

Shrouded in a nest of Cinnamon, Sage and Myrrh… she heals herself almost extemporaneously.

Some think she will perish or burn under the pressure of flames, not knowing she has thrived and survived on the fire from within …a passion that ignites her, excites her, and mystifies.

Some think that she will be destroyed, yet she knows that she will come back anew.

Wiser, stronger, deeper, richer, to heighten her conscious mind and beating heart.

Her vision cannot be extinguished by the flames, only intensified.

She has an inner cool that prevents her sacred feathers form charring.  This pressure only deepens her colors, her determination to bring light to the depth of those that find a remnant of her feathered kind.

She is rare. She is beauty personified, not due to her multicolored hues, but to her lightness and grace. She barely grazes the earth. A pretty painted butterfly of the sky that flies with eagles and hawks, too multifaceted and high-minded to linger long among the flowers and trees protected by the earth’s gravitas pull.

If you spot her try to capture her attention, for like the oracle of truth, she may be attracted to a depth that she sees in you… she will stare in your eyes and pierce through to your soul if you can withstand her gaze long enough not be caught up in the cosmos nebula of her eyes, you just may connect on level not known to most.

A mythical bird…

A flaming peacock…

Tears that heal…

Fire in flames…

Cinnamon, Sage, and Myrrh…

Forever Young…

An old soul.

A sense of home.

Ancestors blessing.

Who is she really?

She is immortal and she intends to herald a new age of rebirth.  She brings a masculine energy that is imbued with her feminine touch.  Strength and Sensitivity are equally matched.

She is the epitome of masculine and feminine energies in-tune, ready to usher in a new age of understanding.  Some mistake her for the peacock with its cool hues of luscious larimar, hints of aquamarine, healing turquoise, royal violets, the height of the chakras awakening the most delicate of lavender, and heavenly baby sky blues.  From underneath she glistens in shades of moonlit silver and starlight when you see her fly from above as she glides in the night sky and morning breeze.

Yet, if you were to view her from a mountain top view and look below you would see that her feathers take on a whole different hue.

Hazel eyes that illuminate a warm transparent glow much like a candle flickering in the night sky, like an opaque brown hazel nut shell built up of  delicate layers of  a translucent mother of pearl imbedded with a light layer of rainbow topaz.  Her feathers are bolder and are warm shades of skin complexion, flecked with kisses of deeper brown freckles and shadows of mahogany, cinnamon, turmeric, merlot, papaya, and hints of the deepest black …that is what you will see from your aerial view.

One in two she appears  cool from below in all her silvers and blues, but if you are at her level you will be enveloped by her warmth.  If you should be blessed enough to look at her from above, at a summit higher than the rest, all you will witness is a glimmer of gold.  Gold and silver are the colors she wears best from above or below interchangeably… perhaps you might even mistake her for a coppery rose gold if you both meet on the same level, she will defy gravity like an optical illusion.

Perhaps she will leave a feather behind a mystical symbol of hope. Keep it close to your heart.  It will remind you of the hope and depth that you have inside.

This is the year of the Phoenix, the beginning of the end has already occurred, it’s time to live life anew.  Embrace the way of the Phoenix.  Her fragrance the scent of clean cinnamon spice, fire, wood like cedar or fig and, honey may linger. She evokes the deepest sense of memory, yet it is her presence that one seeks.

Yes 🙂

So happy to participate in a 24 hour poetry marathon.

My head is tired.

My heart is happy.

Mask

Eyes are now our focus. We can now imagine what it is like to wear a hijab or a burka. This is not the middle east, yet now we can see this aspect of the culture in a new light.

Is a mask a sign or modesty or mutual respect? We may have a new appreciation for our freedoms and our misjudgments of a culture that we need to study more in depth and did not take the time to understand.

We do not have to be a middle eastern princess or sudi aristocrat to learn about the mask and its many uses.

Some laughed at Michael Jackson or the Chinese Nationals who used masks when they flew, maybe they were more forward thinking than us.

Now we are left to contemplate how we wear glasses, lipstick, and all that we took for granted in between. Nose clips that fall off our face or coffee filters used to filter out breathing to stop the fog.  Saharan dust storms that cross the carribean sea, moving up the states from the coastal shores to the gulf of texas and beyond. Even Michigan and Canada may get a taste during the worldwide pandemic of just how useful those masks can be.

It protects what we cant see or judge. Do we need a mandate to decide what is best for the nation, our family, or the neighbor or stranger on the street?  Individualism or collectivism which we will choose.  We are now at a crossroads of time and space and this is our lot. How we handle the next few weeks may be a determining factor in our fate.

Covid

Waiting in lines galore.  It is no fun to go to the store.

The rules change every week, if not daily as the virus piques.

It’s not only frustrating or aggravating. It is out of self preservation that we battle the lines to hunt for food.  While the essential worker must battle another front line.

Sickness and covid complications loom in the air and, yet there is no fresh batch to relieve them from their dedication to the cause.

Only endless pain of seeing more of the same. Our hands are tied or so we feel. Now even the hug, the human touch, has now become too much. It feels strange the embrace, like the handshake has become a foreign custom that we question and hesitate to return.

The verdict is not out. It is not necessarily a zombie virus but it might as well be.

Is it strictly respiratory?

It can cause strokes and cardiac complications?

In the elderly, babies, and the youth?

What do we believe?

Do we wear the fashionable mask, or the N95?

Is it a matter of what we can afford or the supply and demand?

Have we truly forgotten to wash our hands?

I always took off my shoes.

This is not new.

It only feels strange to wash groceries paper plastic metal fruit vegetable or anything in between.

Gloves to move about I still struggle with as I visit each store with a mask muffling my word no problems as it is a sign of mutual respect.

Only as I walk or run do I no longer see anyone wearing a mask , now not even me.

These have become our outer accoutrements to stop the spread of a deadly disease that continues to grow, lawyers for the most part most of us seem unafraid. We seem unaccepting of its deadly raid on society. We feel invincible . Both young and old take chances because we feel healthy and strong. Not knowing Covid finds our weakness and unravels our health if we are not careful.

In its path we are rendered helpless.  To be intubated is to pierce the esophagus to help the breath the most sacred of our human rights.

Police Shootings inspired by Bop Poetry

The sirens don’t always go off when the camera captures the act.

If we are lucky we get to see what happened on the news.

Not from a police dashcam but from an innocent bystander who happenstance captures it on record.

The pain becomes real all over again.

Why is it that society is first to judge the victim’s history without realizing that an injustice has been enacted?

What can we do to bring peace to our streets before we can wish peace on earth?

So here is the deal, if I knowingly or unknowingly use counterfeit money at a store is my punishment death?

Can I travel to and from the outskirts of town on foot without being followed or assaulted?

Can I sleep in my bed and wonder if I will wake up alive?

Am I wrong to wear a ski mask in the middle of summer without being judged unfairly drugged and killed?

Imagine if i did not speak English and tried still to defend myself would I be treated just unfairly?

Would my fate be any worse if I were male or female because unfortunately, my one determining factor is race.

Even though you can’t even determine my ethnicity unless I revealed it to you. If you judged me by skin color you would be wrong.

How can we stop the brutality when we know that inequality is only a part of pain that has not been healed?

The solution is not as easy as it is to discriminate based on race.

Yes the police are potentially put in harm’s way every day on the job so that makes it even more crucial that we close the gap.

We are not asking that the police go rogue on everyone or to balance the brutality among the people regardless of race.

We need to reallocate the funds.It’s time to restructure an organization we the people gave the power to serve and protect.

This has gone on far too long and we expect the enforces to change a system we as society help perpetuate.

We did not scream loud enough that we were being killed,and as we were dying the inequality created a larger crevice on both sides.’

This is a perfect example of when you see a wrong being committed you can’t be strong and continue to take the abuse.

How can we stop the brutality when we know that inequality is only a part of pain that has not been healed?

Inspired by the words of Zora Neale Hurston…”If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Emoji Poetry

I pray for respect love and freedom

While the world celebrates victory, I hold my forehead in shame.

The UK is banning the US.

Parties are no longer condoned.

It is as if we look at the milky way with sunglasses on still in awe of just how curious and foolish we humans truly are.

You know what I want and need.

It is sleep uninterrupted.

A luxury that the youth waste.

A luxury that we appreciate as we age.

Give it to me in waves of pleasure.

Cool breezes that lull me to sleep.

A comfortable pillow that supports my neck.

A cloud of a bed that gently holds my body in place.

A refuge to dream and design to create.

This is what I long for at the moment.

It’s 5:15 am and I can hear the birds calling me to come to sleep.

I don’t listen even though they make sense.

I write and write till the light comes out, I see it and always marvel at how night turns to day so effortlessly.