The Poetry Marathon

Cacophony of color

A kinetic patterned quilt

Spectral mystery

I’m going to bed;

I promise, I shall return.

Signing out. Goodnight.

Up with the sun;

to bed with the chickens.

Days rush by,

Calendar quickens.

I’m sitting around,

getting older than dirt.

I can’t write this poem

because I don’t work.

My ‘profession’ you ask,

is it not ‘God is Good’?

He provides all I need,

I could want, ever would.

And when at close of my tombstone date,

I won’t say goodbye; I’ll just walk through the gate.

I am moving.

My two-bedroom unit is no longer mine.

Walk in closet, big coat closet, two bedroom closets—and pantry.

Gone.

I will have one bedroom.

One closet.

Kitchen cabinets enough—

if I part with all I hold dear:

Grandma’s Depression Glass.

Family photos, Bible, albums.

A presentation flag of remembrance of a dear friend.

Baking pans and mixer and cookie cutters.

Genealogy research going back to the 1300s.

Memories from when my children were small.

History books.

Poetry books.

Old notebooks with my scrawl of words and gardens.

Garden tools and books.

Christmas treasures that make December festive.

And then—maybe—I can fit the necessities,

flashlights and can openers, toasters, and rainboots, mops and snow shovels

into lifeless chasms—great gaping repositories.

But they bring no joy, no life, no hours of good thoughts.

My closets are depositories of what makes life good.

And soon, they will not.

This tenuous hold I have,

ephemeral at best,

that keeps me rhyming,

timing,

scratching words with all the rest.

Too soon the sun will arch,

in Apollo’s wake, fall dark;

Yet half the race yet to run

before my pen and ink are done,

And wear the victor’s crest.

What is Love?

Greeks, adoring words,

had many for ‘love’,

thus “What are Love”

might ring truer

than the title above.

Agape, unconditional, sacrificial,

with naught in return,

heroic—Christlike, give til it hurts;

Eros, erotica, love’s physical side,

Cupid and arrows, lust and desire;

Storge, familial, as parent to child,

kinship with relatives, though distantly mild;

Mania, obsessive, jealous, or mad:

an unhealthy facet of love that’s all ‘grab’;

Ludus, friends with benefits, playful, a game,

courtship, non-committal–hope your date feels the same!

Pragma, with logic, obligation, and duty;

Philia, neighborly, affectionate friendship, not bootie;

Philautia, hubris, self love, self-esteem;

on the flip side, narcissism can be down-right mean.

These loves, interlocked, are what makes life sing;

‘What IS love’ you’ll agree, is too trifling a thing!

Down near the bayou, where the lightbulb bugs,

don in their jackets of night,

Can’t compare with the glowing of

Gators eyes glowing bright.

Don’t spill the bucket filled with beets;

Go feed the cows instead

with cinnamon to make it sweet.

The heifers must be fed!

And tomorrow when you milk the cows,

You’ll have Pumpkin Spice creamer that’s red.

We’ve come to the place

where two roads diverge, and I,

I’ll take my own path.

Swinging takes you up and down,

Under blue skies

As the sun goes round.

And tomorrow it starts

where it ended last day–

follow the sun;

don’t search for the gray.

Reach for the sky,

Turn toward the light,

and when day is done,

rest for the night,

The sun will return

with dawn’s golden start.

The dark can not stay

when there’s hope in your heart.

It’s all their fault.

The cat rescue folks, that is.

They sent me out to deal with this,

to a site reported to have strays–by the dozens.

Up an old dirt road that almost wasn’t,

where possibly no one had ventured for ages.

Potholes that gulped down tires in stages.

The road was endless, went on forever.

But, eventually, ended.

Abrupt, with a cliff.

No sign whatsoever.

There, thick on the edge,

like crust on a pie,

were more cats than I’d count:

I won’t even try.

A herd of cats. Maybe five or six dozen!

Every fuzz-furry feline,

and all of their cousins.

I came ready, I thought, but that wasn’t the case:

Fifteen carriers would never clear out this place.

Nor the couple cans of tuna to lure them.

More like a convoy of U-Hauls,

and a zoo just to store them.

So, I got out of the car to capture a photos,

for proof later, when they’d say I was loco.

No one would ever believe this!

I walked toward the edge.

Cat’s dashed left and right,

Fleeing under a hedge.

The one’s too distracted, stayed where they were,

preoccupied, mesmerized, humming a purr.

They were right on the edge, peering down over.

Soon, I too, was peering down over the side.

When I saw what was there, I nearly died.

Hundreds and hundreds of pickety bits.

Not specifically one thing, but it sent me into fits.

Rocks, cups, marbles, picture frames

All in great piles—

having been pushed off the edge,

likely, for quite awhile,

by the mysterious instinct of each feral cat!

There were breakables, edibles, mittens, and hats…

Lots of homework.

Retainers.

Hillary’s files.

Hunter’s laptop.

Jewelry. Money in piles.

All those poetry words, perfect but lost.

And now knew where Hoffa’s body was tossed.

Treasure from tombs.

Alexandria’s tomes.

Atlantis!

A dodo!

My mother’s lost locket.

Pan and the Lost Boys

A 10mm socket.

I was ready to go, with photos for proof,

When the cat herd pushed ME to the underside roof,

And while ‘cat’apulted there, dangling and taunt

One more thing caught my eye: Jimmy’s shaker of salt!