The Poetry Marathon

The world was on fire,

Because once upon a time,

Her fractures were only deep down,

And on the surface of it,

She lived and she laughed,

And carried jewel-like dreams in her hands,

(No, she cried like monsoon, too, she did).

Yes, she did. There were rivers everywhere.

But oh, the asteroid, oh holy destruction.

Every last thing,

So who cared if it burned, too?

She struck a match.

Before Darkness came

And grabbed me by the throat

And squeezed…

Oh, you were my Light.

Sun and moon,

Dancing flame…

Before Darkness swallowed the world.

We spent our time watching,

Watching the threat.

We sat across the expanse waiting,

Vying for an upper hand.

And our watching became worship,

Worship of the threat,

Our attention rapt,

Till it became some backwards rapture.

Only once our vision was bleached by the sun,

Did the spell break,

And we were free to walk away,

And no threat followed,

But crumbled instead.

My fuse has grown short with all this burning.

I am still smoking, a meteor crashed to Earth.

When the end is not the end,

But a gateway into Hell,

What can you do but endure your demons

Until they grow weary with gnawing at your flesh

And say, “You win. The exit is straight ahead and to the right.”

At times I’ve danced with them, found them amusing,

But they would always do something sneaky then,

And prove that we are not friends,

And that they are bent on destroying me.

They are not sentimental.

But then, neither is Kali.

They don’t know that I am she,

And that I will eat them all,

When they least expect it.

Hi!  I’m Shyami.  This is my third year participating in the full Poetry Marathon, and I am really excited about this one.  I feel like this will be the best yet!  I’m from Upstate New York but live in Ireland, and I am visiting my family in New York at the moment.  My two children are with me.  My brother and his wife and three-year-old daughter are visiting us tomorrow, so there will be numerous furtive sneakings away to write poetry, which will add an interesting element to a wonderful and unusual day!

There is a strange embarrassment

At ambling up to a finish line

Still feeling good.

An abashedness at being able,

And in control.

This is a good moment to notice,

And to ask questions.

For whom am I pretending?

I can do what I set my mind to,

If I set my mind to.

And that’s the end.

Old friends I couldn’t do right by.

Too much in the way.

Fits and starts before the engine seized again.

I’m rebuilding the engine block,

And I’ll take you where you need to go.

Just indulge me, if you will.

Make it fresh and new,

When we meet.

For if I feel I remain

Ten, fifteen years in the past,
I will be doomed before I put the key in.

Lend me your grace,

My dearest ones;

Rest your glance upon me.

I am tinkering, working to restore

Earnestly as I can,

But you,

You have wings.

She saw the place,

Earth newly disturbed.

The other graves were grassy

And herbed.

But this one was dark with dirt.

And she knew.

But still, she needed to make certain

And pulled away the earthen curtain.

And saw a shroud conceal the face

That brought him carelessly to this place.

How could she tell him this was true?

What would he do?

What would he do?

She removed the gauzy shroud

Hoping to see a different face

But it was his love now still as stone,

An empty vessel of flesh and bone.

She set about to replace

The shroud and dirt upon the face,

And gathered up his his fatal loss,

And left the grave site to the moss.

I wish to thank the war horse

That is this body.

She does what I ask her to do.

She runs headlong into battles,

Bearing up against whatever onslaught

Into which I would dare urge her.

She will act in direct defiance

Of all her instincts,

Simply because I command it.

She will ignore self-preservation

And run towards canon fire,

With a tap of my heels.

She is stronger than I,

For any weakness is my own.

She is ever at the ready to carry me,

Whatever the campaign.

I’ve started composing poems in my dreams,

But they shatter upon waking and are unusable.

My arms are laden with gifts in the other world,

But through the portal they cannot pass,

And my hands are empty when I arrive on this side.

But no matter;

I remember the cascade of words,

Not the words but the cascade,

Trickling from above, beyond,

Into my mind like water seeping into a cave below ground.

Minerals are left on rocks, and form structures

In Time.