The Poetry Marathon

There are people that nobody talks to.

People like Allison, Greta, and Stan.

Allison lost both her arms in a car wreck. Losing arms isn’t like losing a leg. Wheelchair-bound is a common disability. Not easy to live with but regularly seen. Armless girls, well, nobody talks to these.

Having outgrown her girlish figure, skin’s luster gone, replaced with wrinkling. Greta doesn’t know how to exist in her body anymore. The fears run deep, who will I be when nobody talks to me?

Stan’s heard voices his whole life. They come to him whispered, but not from another world. The thoughts are from those around him, anyone he touches, who then thinks a word. Nobody touches Stan.

There are people that nobody talks to.

Like Allison, Greta, and Stan.

* Poem promoted by randomly drawn Storymatic cards.

As evening turns to night,

the fireflies come out to play,

as do children, their mason jars in hand.

But in my distopian world,

firefly-hunting kids are a mystery,

because it’s the children that glow in Steampunkland.

(Prompt: Choose 5 words.)

To never need to eat again or drink or ingest oxygen. No death required, of any kind, to feed any, all life forms.

It was the day consumption died.

Many freaked out, how would they make a living or what would they do with their weekends, if shopping was no longer an option.

This was the day consumers cried.

To give and take is all we know. How do we function if not with that goal in mind? What do we do? Where do we go? How do we live?

Without this all-consuming consumption.

Whether blessing or curse, we’ve yet to determine. Even Mother Earth and Father Time can’t seem to find their bearings. Even it seems…

They were born for consuming.

What is this world, what is our purpose, if consumption actually were to die? Might we die too or live on for other purposes: connection, contemplation, or something better.

I say, “die, consumerism, die.”

When I’m writing, I get lost in myself, lost in the moment, lost in the story, lost in passionate imagination.

Right-hand controls the wielded weapon, while the left hangs on for dear life, keeping sanity intact for us all.

Infinite are the possible stories, characters, settings, and images, to set them all free at once, is how I fill my pages.

Tender are the moments when a protagonist dies or the heroine meets the man of her dreams, during his birth.

Infectious is the drug of spirited discovery, when the muse plays her music, in my mind, and I dance to the rhythm.

Never can I go back from this life I’ve established, created, molded, and now relish more than I ever thought I would.

Grateful is the emotion that springs forth every day that I wake up to a blank page and declare, “I am a writer.”

Woke up, fell down, exited sideways.

A new memoir every five years.

My second grade teacher was right.

Rather sing than stay to chat.

Someone had to pay the bills.

Didn’t fit in then, still don’t.

I love my lady…and bacon.

Buried gold long ago, can’t find.

Later-life serendity led to Authorland.

A man, a plan, hot damn.

* Found poem. Randomly grabbed a book from my shelf, opened it, and found a jewel. 🙂

Here, shadow and light

Revealed in my heart’s forest

Now, breeze through the trees

i don’t know how i got here

don’t know how i’ll get back home

this weight is just too heavy

i’ll soon be broken and alone

her funeral, not the place for this confession

but, if not here, then where, or when

i have to relieve myself of this furtive knowledge

before I become a monster, not her friend

god, kali, buddha, can any higher power hear me

please help me rid myself of this toxin

deep, dark secret that I cannot carry

tight-lipped, don’t think I’ll make it till the end

when she died, i swore complete allegiance

but now reality has set so far in

i’m sorry, eliza, i just can’t do it

i confess that she and i were more than friends

* Another Storymatic inspired poem.

Low rumbling, shuffling footfalls, gigantic feet. Something huge, moving toward them. Into the shadows, as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.

Twelve feet tall, skin a dull, granite gray. Lumpy body, like a boulder, its small bald head perched on top. Legs thick as tree trunks. Flat, horny feet.

The troll peered inside.

Making up its tiny mind.

Then slouched into the room.

* Elimination poem from passage in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.

Swaying lightly in the breeze,

hang her tendrils.

Ivy, green, they reach all the

way to the dusty, forest floor.

Her mighty oak branches,

dressed in mosses and ferns

are beautiful, no doubt, but

it’s her verdant hair that enamors me more.

We don’t fight anymore

but we should. I miss the

passionate heavy breathing,

fire in our bellies, struggle to keep

ourselves, our love alive. Why did we

stop fighting? Just quit. Gave up. Let go.

Please fight with me again.

Push my buttons, say cruel things,

trying to rouse a response. I need you

to fight with me, be with me, engage me.

i know we’re old and tired, been married way

too long. But without love’s fight, I fear we might

divorce, or worse, disappear.