The Poetry Marathon

Dreams are the imagery of what we long for,

neural playground for the literary soul, to wander,

with flashes of memory, their fabric ripped and

slurried, run with others, to rise dripping with thought

and vividly there. Ripped and wrenched, stirred

in the vat of short-term memory, dislodged from

common sense. Shaken, melded, fibers rearranged

to both nonsensical and realistic themes.

You and I astride some great behemoth,

talking of pashas and rainfall,

the taste of what we wanted, the feel of hands on,

of legs, of us becoming in the brief neural flicker

twin stars which never fade in that brief immortality.

The emotion in which I felt as you sat beside me,

stroking my hand and speaking of our first times.

How I would smile and nod, reminiscing of us,

beloved heart of mine, whom I felt was running.

How the small dark fist of doubt lodged firmly,

Impossible to loosen as it unfurled, choking

away whatever hope lingered as your eyes

gazed at mine. And I knew this was it, the end,

we would have no happy ending my beloved one,

and then you slipped to one knee before me,

and something within me let loose.

Finally, my hope and doubt were free.

I loved you first.

From the very first,

your father and I watching

as I ripened and bloomed,

nine months of connection.

Every kick, every nudge

was noted with love,

and you came to us.

From the very first,

with every beginning,

I loved you when you were little,

and even as you grow,

just know this for a fact my love,

that I have loved you first.

There they go by twos and threes.

There they go by twos and threes.

Sweet summer memories, of a young couple.

He is strong, fearless, a masculine perfection

against her pale frailness, her gentle quiet.

They stand beneath the glittering lights, slow,

dance to the beat of drums and match, as we,

two who were born to complement, bright

brittle arc into the sky, triumphant thunderclap

of sparks showering back to earth, before the

boom of impending rain. I can taste the sweet

of it on your mouth, feel the brittle bright heat

of the fireworks echo in my mind’s cortex,

a brilliant display of our love one summer year’s day.

You see of me what I want.
Little beast of camoflague,
dark of pelt and sleek as rain.
Forest-eyes that peer
through branches of distrust,
wary, curious, silent.
What words flow out of me,
soft and silent as sighs
on the breath of need.
I dip my head to
the cool drink of knowledge,
draw deep and within.
My back arches against the sun,
my voice a cry to the moon,
my hands and feet
so very lightly step,
wild beast-woman caged within.
I cry against the chains,
tear at the bars,
growl and whine and howl
for lack of my own wild woods,
now culled, now tamed.
Bite the hand that feeds me,
struggle to run free.
Little wild one biting back,
tearing back a piece of me.

Scrooge has nothing on the toiling ants,

whose tireless pursuits are aimed at

the simple desperate art of surviving,

rather than droves of gold, they march

determinedly up to the jar of honey,

frantic and clawing each to earn their

piece, each tiny pincer set holding aloft

a golden nugget of sweet sugar to their queen.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

I remember that touch. The burning kiss, where flame met cloth

and slowly wormed into the threadbare carpet, so clean

you could eat off of it and still live, still walk, and so it glowed

brief and hesitating flicker of psuedo-life, pulsing, growing with

each slumbering rise and fall from his chest, cigarette poised

in graceful fingers that loved to kiss the waiting cheek of a child

with a slap so crisp it reverberated like a snap from a clean sheet.

So brought to life it glowed, grew and gave back to the sleeper

its own exhaust, heat licking playfully onto graceful hands, and

I heard the screams long before I smelled the smoke, the sudden

freeze before adrenaline. The dish still wet in small-girl hands,

unsure immature wet small-girl hands that clutched desperately

to cling to comfort; soft linen of mother, brothers already out in dust,

and to carry to safety the soft, calm warmth of Mama’s book of pretty rhyming words.

In the deep midnight blue
hidden in the creche dark
came the softest, sweetest song
a crooning, lowing lullaby baby
to a green-jealous moon
and a stilling heart.
The private audience heart
in that deepening blue
did watch a blushing moon
beam in the dark
a tune sweet to a baby
a wordless honey-breath song.
the tender-voiced song
whose refrain touched heart
to a restful, sleepy baby
with delicate closed eyes blue
in the fading dark
to a waning moon.
And to the sickly moon
not a gentle crooning song
in the predawn dark
but from a loving heart
to that sweet boy blue
the loved restful baby.
That handsome baby
whose jealous moon
paled green from blue
of that hummed song
from now a wishful heart
in the slowly lighting dark.
And from the lighting dark
there stirred a sleeping baby
in the gentle loved heart
far from that weak moon
a love song
to a coming blue.
No longer to linger dark nor ill moon
stirred my dear baby my singing song
from one full heart to eyes of blue.

I stood at the ocean, and watched as a seagull dashed a clam against the hard rock. Pecking, pecking, the tireless drone, like the words of denial we spoke, chipping and breaking away our connection, breaking and cracking sharply

Crack chip plunk crick.

We speak of impossibilities, across the seas, and yet we know, that no matter how sweet the words, the tender the reunion, we will never be what we see. The bittersweet taste in my mouth always lingers, your voice haunting some neural context in a faded dream. Words that you will never say come and rise from grey matter, your own voice trembles; it isn’t, it’s too close to the surface and threatens to split apart like an overripe fruit, and I weep for you, I weep for what we have lost, dashed across the rocks like the clam I saw in the jaws of that seagull, relentlessly torn by Nature’s distance until we remain, two halves of a shell lost at sea.