The Poetry Marathon

Because I didn’t like the prompts and four is an unlucky number

That fall night in Shin-matsudo

Walking home along the

ripening onion fields

turning a corner to find the harvest moon

blocking the path ahead.

So large it could have landed like a sideways saucer

So close I could reach out and fall into its cold fire, but

my path was to the left

my destination home.

Years have gone

leaving the memory of

Basking in the

burning light of a Japanese red moon, and

choosing to rest in my own bed rather than

following the call of fire

venturing to other worlds — or

drowning in the flames.

Look at that bird!

Is it a goose? Is it a swan?

Legs and neck are too long.

Swans walk gracefully;

that bird looks drunk.

Maybe it’s a flamingo!

Aren’t they pink?

Not all of them.

It’s walking away!

Did somebody get a picture?

I’ll take one

but you know me.

See?

Looks like a chicken with its head cut off.

That would be us. Besides

legs and neck are too long.

Is that our bus coming?

It was not wise of you

to drown me in your whys

to keep asking me

to share painful memories

Why did you want to know

Why I had no use for educated fools?

Why I didn’t want you to be one?

Why I beat my last husband?

Why I thought his ghost would haunt me?

Why I don’t remember leaving you?

Forget the past

the tears and fears

the joys stolen

the voice taken

the choices few

Don’t dredge up

poverty’s pain

dreams deferred

Even before I crossed to this side

I drank deeply from the River Lethe —

Killing all those memories

Of love and loss and living

Remember me in those moments

where I would feign happiness

let me breathe color into my empty life

with a semblance of some meaning.

Are you telling me a story?

Giving me imagined characters

whose uncertain fates matter

enough to keep me caring

Are they me

wrestling with every struggle

choosing wrong choices

before our turning point?

Are you showing me a story

Giving me heroes and villains

who take less-traveled paths

which I can never walk

live thrilling lives

that I can never live?

On which side of the wall am I?

inside the story?

outside the room?

Is that honeysuckle

for feasting at the banquet

or woodbine

to hold me in bondage?

Are you showing me liberty

obtained or unattainable?

Should I try to escape

or am free?

Love lured him to the woods

Where he wrote her songs

of everlasting and eternity

of giving his all – his everything

Love was his heart and his hurt

She left him there

wasting away,

falling to pieces

Singing empty words with soundless tunes

and heartbreaking listlessness

He wants to speak heartache

But he gave his heart away

And no longer feels the hurt

or knows the love

or hears the songs

How did you get so

Red? Did careless painted hills

shove you to the side?

Wonder! beauty! when

You burst a vessel, reaching

For freedom’s blue sky

Did you bleed out or

Simply lost some leaves that had

Faded to fuchsia?

 “Supreme Court Invalidates Key Part of Voting Rights Act”

My peers, savoring fresh air, are buying campers

And basking in wonders of waterfalls

And sunsets and snowy woods and meandering

Rivers and breathless vistas atop

breezy mountains aiming for paradise

My retired friends vacation in Hawaii

Tour Europe and cruise the Mediterranean —

where the seas are smooth and calm —

They relish Alaska’s northern shore –

where they watch dawn’s borealis shimmer like a dream

of angel’s wings, brushing the sky in rainbows

without the inconvenience of rain

“But I have promises to keep”

Promises made to the ancestors

Who brought me through

And made this way

out for me

when there was no way

I have honor to keep

To carry the dream for

Progeny because

The battle was won for me, for them

Yet the war rages on

I have war songs to sing

Set to the cadence of higher ground,

Marching to Sweet Honey’s pure sound

And Ella’s prophetic voice:

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest”

Slipping up mountains coated with life’s blood

Carrying the burdens of this history

“Lifting as we climb”

Letting the future know

They won’t be able to retire

from this battlefield

For we have “miles to go”

And “promises to keep”

Wednesday was Colored Day

At the Jackson Public Pool

Arriving too late,

All we could see was a rainbow of brown heads

Bobbing up and down in water

Once cool but now heated by bodies

Packed like cargo but

Pressed too close together to lie flat and flay

Through the warmed water

We wore our swim clothes:

(There was no Colored Day

For public toilets or changing places.)

Walking barefoot from the car,

Climbing in

Pushing aside other bodies

Bobbing along the water

Cooling off the sweat

Raining from the relentless sun

Beaming its hate upon our heads

An hour was too long to stay

Walking the bottom of sweat and pee scented water;

No need to carry a towel

When the oppressive sun dried us on the walk to the car

But towels covered the seats

To catch the dirty water

We bathed at home sweet home:

Lying face down in the cool soapy water

Kicking our feet

Imagining what it would be like to swim

If I had energy,

I’d bring out Lizzo

Who’d ask me how I was feeling

And I would stick out my booty,

Grinding to the rhythm,

Tossing my braids while checking my broken nails,

Shouting to the world and Lizzo,

“Good as hell!”

Because dancing to Lizzo

Always wakes me up.

If I didn’t know it would put me to sleep,

I’d bring out “Storyteller”

To shake up my memories,

Massage my poetry muscles,

And coolly slide home.

But without energy,

I have no story to tell.

So I blink my eyes,

Grab a peach,

Guzzle some tea, and

Keep LIzzo and twerking inside my head,

You began with the end

When I was prepped and primed

You carried me effortless

Through your prompts

Music and lyrics and images

I burned the hours

Breezing through barriers,

Keeping time

Until the half point

When some would stop

You shoved me through my second breath,

I fell into the arms of Morpheus,

Left my determination with you,

drowned in the River Lethe.

Waking before sunrise,

You showed me the finish dawning,

A sliver of you lighting my way.

Do I have the juice to cross the line?

Will you inspire me to burst out

With a new beginning?