The Poetry Marathon

The first moment we locked eyes, I knew my future.

I wanted it all, when before I wanted none of it.

I wanted the last name, the last breath, the last embrace.

I wanted the first touch, the first kiss, the first gentle, sweet

good morning after tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

I wanted the weight of a band on my finger, the long slow days

after the cake slice and the rice has fallen, and there is just us

and the days of just living, just being, and to hold his hand

when there would be no more distance, no more ‘maybe-someday’,

but a today, and a tomorrow, and a future walking, running,

flying towards me for a long string of years of blissful, sweet simplicity

and a yes, a tomorrow, and a promise of forever.

Sweet as starlight,

perched on a summer rind moon,

cool golden honey sugar sweetness

burning bright chill heat on soft cheeks

snapping cinnamon mint smile,

bright, precocious, brittle

plump woman sitting on a Highland dream

deep bittersweet waters warm and cloyed

and a toothsome scowl she gives.

Based, as some would say,

Sugar-sweet and chocolate-bitter breaking hearts

with her back and forth logic contained

in a leaping-hare mind,

the throaty-laughing woman who dances at sunfall

poises, pauses, takes in her breath deep.

Opening lips wide to swallow the moon

as a Honeybee watches and wonders.

Such passion can’t be contained, but she will,

and she will starburst, suddenly, fiercely,

with a clarity that could outrival diamond yellow,

J’ai plurie, I want to say, but in feverish outlandish dreams

the mug hums of golden glitter tea and her smile

an echoing lipstick print, sunshine-gold

and summer-cinnamon dark.

Suffocated, pressured,

pressed, choking,

rage that closed me in,

shaking, aching, red and raw

want to scream, to lash out.

So I turned away,

toxic ex, toxic biological father,

go fuck yourselves.

Such a potent phrase,

one I wanted to yell

in fat, smug, satisfied faces

but that slammed door closed gentle,

that closed heart eased,

those bitter fists lowered

to soft palms to press,

to hold, to embrace the new life,

my infant son, and the jeering

voices of yesteryear would fade

to old scars, to whispers,

to nothing.

I am waiting for the boarding call to sound.

To carry feet homeward, standing tall and waver amidst the rushing.

I am the slender grass that bends to the pressure of rushing water,

Feet, hands, eyes. A hungry herding din that rises up.

They glance then turn away, bleary voices mumbling,

malcontent of the onward crowding crush to the next plane.

Weary crowd that presses me to action,

to move, restless salmon-rush pushing on to Home,

where he is, that first homecoming to a place I’ve never known.

To rest at long last, silently amidst the trees, the roses, his arms.

Sleep

deprived

sinking

back

to

sleep.

There is something so appealing to a story of a man and a woman,

isn’t it?

But the story can never be simple; toss in domineering mother element,

an old friendship, a new romance. Give our protagonist flaws.

Make them suffer. Beauty is in suffering, isn’t it?

Then when the end comes and it’s happy, it’s all the sweeter, isn’t it?

But isn’t that just goddamn wrong.

There is no light at the end of the rainbow, no right answer.

Say the story slightly misses the mark; the heroine walks off

without a lover’s spine supporting her

(though we all love a steamy scene or two with the opposite lead)

and goes into the sunset, loveless, but lovely in her pain and power,

goddess-like, and seizes her own, and gets that ring for herself,

to be herself, to connect with a bigger world,

wouldn’t that just be something, rather than the many other angel stories

where the heroine never learned to walk alone at all.

Small simple things, much loved,

1 cup of tea, warm.

2 hours binging a good series,

2 hours of cuddling and tenderness,

4 day weekend spent dozing,

simple, short and sweet.

Yellow umbrella
tugged from my hands suddenly,
soars on storming wind.

What’s once been lost was found again,

the Fellowship once made was broken,

or so my husband likes to tell me,

but all is well at home.

A cat at the hearth, golden babes at home,

and Samwise my darlin’ rests his feet by the stove.

Second Breakfast is here, and as he dreams,

I know he is home, but his heart drifts beyond these beams

To a time before, and a Hobbit Baggins boy,

a ring, and a promise, and fires of Mount Doom.

And though there is sun, and good rich earth

and love enough to plant him,

like a vine he’ll sometimes search

for the friend he loved and reach,

a bond beyond even ours.

Somewhere in the blue,

amongst the clouds,

there is a small woman,

who lives in a cottage

surrounded by bees,

and floating with the breeze.