The Poetry Marathon

Hi, Everyone. Back again, serving time for rhyming behavior. This is either my third or fourth thong–er, I mean thon.

Heck of a year for me. Lost house, hubby, health.

Currently in chemo, cognitive studies at Jefferson Hospital in Philly, as well as unpacking and waiting for the bank to sell our old house. Cognitive issues make it hard for me to synthesize just about anythings. From items in the freezer that should make meals and just look like boxes, to boxes in storage that don’t ring a bell when I’m looking for important stuff to unpack, to words–just words. They’ve never been ‘just words’ before. And what to put together is a challenge.

Halfway through my book and am re-reading for editing. Can’t wait to get to the end and find out what happens. Don’t remember writing most of it. Every book is that way–surprise endings, no matter how many times I’ve read it.

Hubby isn’t gone-gone. Just psyched out from losing the house and hiding it from our family until it was too late. His brain is fried. Which gives me another issue to deal with–mostly alone.

Teenagers try to be a help, but other than the oldest going for groceries and the youngest giving good back massages from time to time…

My emotions should be just lovely for the prompts!

This is a test. This is only a test.

Had this been an actually poem, you would have been notified by rhythm and rhyme, near rhyme, alliteration, and rampant imagery.

This test is brought to you by the comments of the many persons who still keep saying they can’t log in.

This concludes this emergency posting test of the Poetry Marathon system.

First, the conflagration of multiple postings and passwords and screens–myriad circus rings, with Jacob and Caitlyn wearing their high hats, balanced upon the trumpeting elephant of last year’s performance, as the parade of introductions promises ‘astounding feats beyond the imagination’, death-defying acts beyond mere pen and ink.

Then, the multitude of participants; a population of word jockeys, all saddled and dissembling words and meanings, meanings and words, chomping at the bit, ready to race from the post, past the tittles, and pulling up only at the final jot, where victory roses never smelled so sweet as in the imagination of those who have never worn their wreath.

And then there is me. Beast of burden. Gray and worn. Plodding where the fodder is ample and the sun is warm. Where old bones–and memory–tread slowly, half-dazed, half-mad, with the tattered remnants of dreams dispatched by dragons and windmills.

The whole–the enormity of this many people all sure of the perfect word for the perfect sentiment–is overwhelming. I cower in the shadow of what they might accomplish. And what I will not.

But I am not here to race, only to complete the task I have set for myself. I wish myself only the right word at the write time in the right place.

To you all, I wish the roses.