The Poetry Marathon

The click of gears rusting, the brain slowing,

I feel it surely as can be, that groaning halt

as the great steel husks echo, a shuddering clang

that crashes through the empty air.

You point to the formula before me,

college young, youth fresh, frustrated.

“It’s not rocket science!” you fume, enfuriated

that my young brain cannot comprehend.

Algebra, your lover and I, we do not understand.

I don’t see y I should find out about your x.

Me and Etta James

singing, moaning, pain anew

humming the true blues.

I feel the softness of you, pressed against me.

Feather-light, blood-warm, sugar-sweet saltiness

that is you in the morning.

Your lips at my throat, your hands at my ribs,

fanning across the indentations like a blind man

searching for the Braille poetry of our desire,

salt, sweat, skin. Holy trinity.

Before I strip you of your wings

and we consume what is our Fate with relish,

hold me, cover me.

Alouette, gentille Alouette.

Our date by the sea, the restaurant (We are merely a temporary us,) a distraction from what is at last us.

You in your slacks, shirt, tie (tempted, separated by a callous hand of fate), not yet, not yet. Not now, you whisper.

I in my pearls and black velvet,(side by side we remain) striding in the beach. My high heels are

sinking into sand, (painful, we know this ending tale) and I remember the way, you know how my mind goes,

of blinding pain, and like Anderson’s mermaid I am mute (joking, laughing, loving, and internally maimed), though we are

laughing at the follies of Romans and Greeks (and Ulysses and Poseidon’s strife have nothing on this), the vanity of them,

I imagine for once those black heels thrown to sea (sailing to our own worlds, to part), a paltry mortal offering

to a jealous sea-witch(god, how we wish for the inevitable) to be spared in this final moment, our moment, to be.

That happily (never.)ever-after.

Late at night in desert gloom, the storm breaks.

There is no such thing as peace when Nature

rains down her passionate kiss to this dry earth.

The slithery serpent serpentines to his den,

the scorpion clawing at raindrops, vacantly

staring at the heavens with small black eyes.

I with child in arms, so much a child myself,

with eyes wide and heart pounding rapidly

watch as Nature outdoes herself.

Hello all, I am Sara Anderson. Pardon my off-the-cuff, it’s that time of night when the youth are restless and little else can entertain an idle mind. I look forward to posting up poetry in this marathon; though I may need help with the cocoa family(coffee and chocolate. Not that druggist third cousin, that’s a bit too much for any sane mind.)

So then, this is my salutations. Greetings one and all, all you beautiful people.