The Poetry Marathon

You know there is light,  legit and honorary, shining. In the same wave, there is light, legit and honorary, deafening.

Beyond the tactile and the projectile, there is a faith that light is attracted to light. A quasi-satellite of it leaves deep craters of belief enshrined in light.

It often looks like a hole that is both reflective and penetrative. You could walk through it or see yourself in it, depending on your locus .

Either way, you know it is light alright.

*A smaller celestial object that shares its orbit with a larger celestial object

That grain of rice that hangs from the corner of his lips

I wipe

Bludgeoning the promises of possibilities

That grain of rice that hangs from the corner of the lips

I smudge

Killing the possibilities of transformation

That grain of rice that hangs from the corner of the lips

I do nothing

The man with no teeth keeps looking at me, through me, into the fields where

That grain of rice is soaking to be born.

” …all of the past and all of the future, …meet and forever meet, at one single point, now.”

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav (173)

A terrace of shiuli die at the feet, cajoling a scent out of the remorse

a rainbow at your navel waits to be navigated through the lens that falsifies distance, giving out little truths in spurts, imagining the continuum dissecting your delta of dreams: an uproar later there will be blinding light, a shift of horizons, cries so tender as

A terrace of shiuli dying at the feet, cajoling a scent out of the remorse

waddling through the benificient waters that break open life, you will become; from a transient banal staccato of pain will flow the nuggets of life here in the now as your eyes make meaning, your mouth echoing your past, your fingers and toes graspig and letting go

A terrace of shiuli that had died at the feet, no longer cajoling a scent out of the remorse

* shiuli: a flower

I often imagine a warmth drenching me , specially when dusk dawns in this neighbourhood of innumerable weeping willows.

I know my mother more than she knew hers, she says. There is a dam somewhere I feel, holding back a reservoir of memories, bound by a silent oath, never to be spilled.

I often imagine the crows’ feet on her skin growing wings into those of the crows that live here, a couple of thousands of kilometers and a generation apart.  I often imagine her as a towering figure bending down to help my little palms hold on to some dreams.

“Wenn ich ein Chance bekomme, bin ich bereit.”

– Was macht man mit einer Chance?, Kobi Yamada

When the distance of the night seeps in,

I get a nudge from you telling me you don’t want to be alone after you die. I tell you of

A chance that galaxies have families by their side as they burn up or burn out. I tell you quietly

I will be there too, a few light years across when you are

Ready to be a star.

I have previously participated in 1 poetry half-marathon  and 1 poetry full marathon. Looking forward to this year’s poetry full marathon 😀

Let’s see how words form their tapestry in the span of a day.

Dear Caitlin, Jacob and the amazing bunch of spirited writers at the table,

I am deleting all my poetry posts from the poetry full marathon 2020. i hovered over the trash button indecisively for three days, till i had the confidence of letting my poems go beyond the secured sanctuary of this blog. While Caitlin and Jacob birthed another poetry marathon, Annie and Amanda nurtured it for half of the time and now Shloka is here to immortalize it in an anthology. fellow travellers in this journey always gave a shoulder to rest tired thoughts. more fellow travellers of poetry shared their ubiquitous experiences of reading others’ poems. i have been enriched in more ways than one. but now i must walk alone, with a dream of publishing this set of poems, written in remembrance of my maternal grandmother who died of self-immolation and whom i knew so little; this set of poems celebrating three generations of women, my grandmother, my mother and me, who stand tall together, irrespective of their personal her-stories.

i take each one of you together in this journey, for the poems were born in your company, under one grand chandelier of purpose- to create poetry.

with warm regards and hope that you all continue to thrive in poetry

greetings from Austria

Susmita

p.s. there could have been a “CONCLUSION” in the Categories section. Just thinking out loud, you see.

Last year it was a skeptical approach.

I had registered  for the Poetry Half Marathon,  12 poems in 12 hours. I was pretty sure I was going to fail. Being sure of failure took away the sting of a possible incomplete marathon. At the end of 12 straight hours of writing poetry, like my fellow marathoners I was exhausted. More than that, I was awed at the possibilities that participating in the half marathon opened up.

It is that awe and inspiration that gives me the courage to participate in the full marathon, 24 straight hours of creating poetry. How am I equipped for it? Firstly, keeping myself hydrated with plenty of water as the temperatures touch 30 degrees this weekend in Graz,Austria.  Secondly, I plan to keep the inspiration flowing with my life’s bible, Letters to Theo by Vincent Van Gogh, in arms length. Thirdly, coffee. Fourthly, I plan to document my thoughts when I am not writing that hour’s poem, so that i can share them later with others. And finally, write as my thoughts bleed.

in frozen wonderlands

little succulent turtles

grace the window sills

white and plain

the green effusing the room

with a gentle breath

forgetting

the depths of life

are often grasped in plastic hugs

the succulents have dreams

the turtles they weave

will bear the gene of retention

and freedom,

acing lies.