The Poetry Marathon

horse and dog books
have their own special shelf
in the children’s library
learning about love and loss
on the accelerated track

Office supplies piled high
should stir my heart and mind
but he defiles all he touches

When they’re used as empty props
to support his thieving aims
he inflames my heart and mind

Virgin folders make it plain
he’s never really worked at all
and when we’re asked to compare

the merits of his policies
based on the amount of paper saved
I exit the political theater

Thanks to my latest hacker, I have a new credit card. This one not only has a chip, of course, but the capacity to make purchases via tapping. Simply tap the card on the terminal. I haven’t had the opportunity to do that yet. I look forward to experiencing the thrill of crowding onto that cutting edge with the rest of the up-to-date buyers. The rate of technological innovation accelerates. We must keep up, even though the overall condition of the earth seems not to be improving.

I once saw a startlingly clear drone photo of a beach resort. The receding wave’s irregular lacework was frozen in one of its infinitely random macrame designs. The beach umbrellas had been arranged in straight, evenly-spaced rows of primary colors. The minds of nature and humankind are facing off, as usual. I suppose there will be a winner and a loser. In the meantime, I’ll share my new string of digits with all my pay pals.

The high priest croons
take this longing
while life is shortening
everything depends upon how near you sleep to me
but so much depends
upon a red wheelbarrow
and every other image
emblazoned on my retina
nanosecond by nanosecond
until I sleep.

At the art show opening, the juror explains his method for choosing from the many fine submissions. Turns out he categorized each painting, sculpture, weaving, quilt, and etching by which of the four elements he thought they were ruled by.

The resulting show made me weep, but probably not in the way he intended.

the gulls
look the other way
August evening

This will be my third half-marathon. The first two were both fun and productive. Looking forward to this international group effort dedicated to increasing the sum total of poetry worldwide.

Last year I did the half-marathon with my daughter, who was visiting at the time. It was great fun and my husband is taking her place at the starting line with me this year. I got a number of poetry starts last time, with a lot of variety. Thanks to Caitlin and Jacob and all the participants for making this possible.