The Poetry Marathon

CONTENT WARNING: S**c!de & mental health

SILHOUETTE OF TWO FIGURES IN THE FOG

so we take a jumping off point with an image of a bridge

there was a time when I would have walked off for the familiarity

that’s some dark humor like dark chocolate to cut another flavor

so books are safer than other people but I got tired of being safe

and if you won’t accept ADHD as my excuse to skim the text

well OK Boomer I hope the stand-in will serve you for minimum wage

we’re sick because we’re too smart to be well in a world like this

in a way I was addicted mostly to danger and to the thought

that I could die without having to mean it or even feel sure

I even used to say it wasn’t that I wanted to die per se

I just wanted to sleep forever away from my own pain

But when I was on the bridge and I called Ben he brought me home

and when Ben was done and he called me when he was ready to fall

it turned out I didn’t know any of the right magic words after all

because my spells originated only in my mind

and the construction of love is indifferent to reason

both of us begging, let me be lonely but not invisible

in my dreams the highway loops into a freeform rollercoaster

where I’m sure now there’s work left to do, at least between the two of us

                                   grief is only a vehicle for the ones who survive

RETINAL SCAN GALAXY

an entire life lived in reverse might include a detail like finding your sight

                                    before you even knew you were missing it

oddly enough no one knows their world’s not fuzzy til they see its edges

I remember gasping in wonder at the individuated leaves on autumn trees

I remember pointing with delight at an ordinary sparrow on a branch

an entire world had just unfolded so far away from my fingertips

where only physicists and astronomers could grasp the complexity of my joy

stars and atoms receding into an infinite mandala of mess and meaning

like the fruit or flowers which had just been impressions of color 

                                                                                                                    on a far-away tabletop

monet and lilies for an ordinary suburbia through my nearsighted eyes

so sometimes in the dark or while driving I still practice with my hands

the sight that only my fingertips and palms can understand

how each object holds its edges a certain way, with a certain firmness

or softness, how the pieces of a lighter fit together and the metal is smoother

how a lighter feels nothing like mascara, how mascara feels nothing like a pen

which feels nothing like lipgloss, in spite of being only an assortment of plastic tubes

how each of these are known first to the hand without the eye’s mediation

how our eyes teach us an arbitrary sensation for every object we hold

how a pack of cigarettes is never mistaken for a wallet or vice versa

one delight devoid of color folded in the firmament of the body’s baggage

a sphere alone to ten thousand uses

overlooked in a tragically literal sense

DHARMA DUMBSAINT

present in reverent witness to the opportunities of life

where I have said no, I have no regrets

my visceral intuition another language I learned in the dark

so where there were paths, I explored them

so where doorways appeared, I ventured through

the YES of my sacred surrender pulling my forward

(when the Irish bless your back with wind, this is what they mean)

not a knowing but an unknowing from the very root

where bliss becomes the space between who knows and show me

where faith is the space between your pain and what you do with it

so do you too hear that song which opens every rusted lock?

when you feel your own chains falling away will that be enough?

AFTER-SCHOOL REALITY TELEVISION

they’re out roving again

among the steel beam firs

seeking a real moss forest

or anywhere else without watchers

there’s nowhere silent left now

except headphones and screens

nowhere private and unseen

except for somebody’s blocked list

there’s nowhere free to be

maybe a beach or park

to loiter on or off a bus line

faux news facepalms and says these kids are plastic

only caricatures only cardboard only screen-mediated

only diffuse long-forgotten SNL characters and rude cartoons

reproducing duplicates in 3D printing through cultural osmosis

but as I watch them swapping Pokemon at the corner-store gym

lingering just long enough to live while the streetlight camera takes note

I wonder what necessary hardness is provided by falsity

what fictile smile would armor my own young teeth

ONE DRUNK VOICEMAIL FROM ARCANA XIII

if they don’t see me in a rainbow they don’t know me

if they don’t feel me in the grass beneath their feet they don’t know themselves

if they don’t recognize me in the phoenix they only know their fear

I made all the mountains and fields out of growth and decay

all greenness fed from bodies corroded to dirt in my loving hands

crushing cling to it crumbling faster into another lesson let go

darling my wish is that you come here and sit beside me

marvel with me at this beautiful agonizing reality

surrender to experience

defeat me through acceptance

FLOWER-BOX IN THE OVERTON WINDOW

there’s a faerie in that flower and it’s perfectly obvious to me

I won’t be surprised if you don’t see, it’s been thirty-three years of this crap

fertilize as we say at the zonk league roll that vanna and land it like a legend

thankfully nowadays the weird witch is a brand and not even a budget brand at that

so if someone says charlatan I can say no bootleg fam just as advertised ask the plants

crystals hanging from everything and tetris my own art above herb-brushed countertops

my accumulating mind one crow bending tools for any fellow as destiny requests of me

the pizza box is empty and was empty yesterday, ah so, such is life

you’re such a pessimist you’d only find a four-leaf clover rhapsody in blue

one flower seems more like an accident than an archetype being frank

some of this is faulty memory and some darkened stairs with the lights gone out

italian ice in a box at my feet with a secret message be spoontaneous

which gave me the sense of fumbling for my keys in a horror movie and I wasn’t a fan

a caravan of merchant treasures and ancient action figures and one perfect spiderweb

counting stairs with a hand on the wall remembering which doors have rugs for tripping on

nobody asked if vault boy would stand near godzilla and it was honestly a little rude

closing my eyes and opening them and discovering no difference

our nightmares contain monsters but the monsters’ nightmares feature corporate scheduling

since I’ll only tolerate a bad ending when I already know it word for word

so I wrote my own story as a movie script and someone signed michael bay to direct

yeah and I will watch through my fingers because I need my own hand to remind me I’m real

swinging with the kicks and locks and looping backwards in a pencil figment

like some lines are too soft

like I can’t trust myself to sketch a circle

PERPETUAL REPLICATOR

           so in choosing a color the eye and I merge seamless

           seeming in a secret art of water and witness

where the brush is a forest ranger watching the wilds

where my towering idealization crumbles an uncommitted skyscraper

           where we bear the proof of pain and paint 

                                                                                          and testify

           I set the palette aside for sewing

   I thread a cloud on my needle to mend my socks

just call me a typical aquarius

           the sky-castles construct themselves

night in a periwinkle dress twinkling twilight

dusts dusk on the ivy across my highest turret

           the beat of the world spread out with the darkness

footsteps align with a trillion pulsing veins in one silent symphony

QUANTUM SOLSTICE

cast along the last streak of daylight

on the longest night of the arcing year

a small crystal sun shimmering in the frozen void

longing for another hearth to call safe home

the stars stretch again against their longing

these galaxies intertwined across lips and eyes

words that spark across screens like static

hearts hammer thundering a dark chime

what is old is released into the welcoming void

spiraling back into ageless infinity

what is new is born from this primordial darkness

unwinding the quartz inside an unmade wristwatch

EAT CAKE CHIC

let me give you some advice, honey, on the house

YOLO, you know, you’re only as strong as the drinks you mix,

the tables you dance on and the friends you party with. 

live for the nights you’ll never remember with the friends

you’ll never forget, Live, Laugh, Love! 

you’ll find love when you stop looking.

you have to look through the rain to see the rainbow.

you can tell I know, from this wind-tousled city light view,

how hard an ordinary face is

and an ordinary life and how unbearable

when the selfie needs a filter

and the floor’s not instagrammable

which is why I’m here! to show you the wise secrets

of any valedictorian or life coach with a cocktail rooftop pool

so shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land

among the stars or the stones and structures somewhere below

the lights dazzle my eyes and I’m perfectly picturesque

so just keep calm and carry on like I do

I can see everyone’s hours from up here

and to me they look the same

ANY HORIZON YOU LIKE

any sense of ancestral journey begins here

with lifting, with life, with a sense of purpose

adventure beckoning the bright dawn protagonist

there was a house once with balloons like this

up and out from the personal to sense around the world

and to some extent it’s now a mountainous hot air basket

peeking from a higher peak of ice-capped hydrogen

we within any story climbing to claim wonder

rising through cloudy tides to a new daybreak

oceans of birds and currents sing for electric storms

no climax without a crisis so surrender to tension

every story moves this way

upward til the breath ends