The Poetry Marathon

In one week it’s July the 4
The world is fine, I throw open the doors
Start a celebration of a different kind
Opening the house, heart and mind
Building the life I had dreamed
Long before it was lost to quarantine
Joyous marking of independence
From oppression, from history from poverty’s menace
Finally it would mean something
Beyond the noise of mortars erupting
I’ve had freedom’s riches all my life
Come over and share what’s mine
Tell me of the wrongs and plight
Let you anger burn into the night
It’s but 7 days, so close it would seem
But the personal revolution is but a fantasy
Typed onto the screen

Mixed Tape

Some days without reason
I’m transported back
To the time of butterflies
Two weeks in Mexico
Waiting for night
To close out the world
Beyond discs of black padded foam
90 minutes of magnetic tape
It’s every note, it’s every word
Carefully curated
To tell me I’m yours
I wish I could remember
All the songs of our obsolescence

The night in the Garden
All life’s energy
Crossed the space between you and me
The touch of your finger
Singed onto my shoulder
Igniting my world of possibilities
The key, the missing piece, the unspoken complete
There in front me
I opened the book
Turned every page for you to look
To see
To reveal
My every atom rearranged
But what I felt that day
And those that followed
I knew truth but once
Let heart and soul bleed out
But never again
The closed poem
Of the Unrequited

My favorite ride
From inside
An aluminum bird
Cutting across the sky
I know the every contour
As the wheat trickles out
To the wrinkles that presage
The rise of the Rockies
A brown expanse
Virtually nothingness
Before the thunderous front
Heaves up
Standing watch over a tundra plane
The forest blankets the Bob
Shimmering lakes dapple the crags
Until the fall in rocks rounds
Tumbling down into the valley
Half filled with the pristine waters
Of my childhood
The contrails line the Big Sky
As we follow the river down the Divide
And out
Following the trails of Lewis and Clark
Picking the way through a panhandle
Past the lone explosion of lights on the Palouse
Then all falls flat and drive for miles
Save the wide river
Cutting a huge crevice
On its meander to the pacific
White windmills pop up
Little spinning sticks on dry hills
Catching the breath of the sleeping giant
And his pointy tooth north neighbors
Looming on the Horizon
Shooting up in the distance
Lighting the way in the evening sky
With their crowns of white
Looking down at the spectacular sight
Terrain so close but impossibly rugged and strange
Two tones to announce
Take your seat
I pay them no mind
My face is pressed to plastic
Tracing the lines
The history of my life
Seen from the sky
On the approach and descent
Clearing the Cascades and bending
Over the explosion of lights
The darkened fingers of water
A ring of green rising round
I can smell the rain
Before the wheels touch the ground

1. She knows me

Last Line for Tayo

These stories

We have heard them before

The places remain

Only the names have changed

It seems quite steady

Always, already

Does something sound different

This time around?

Like the facsimile has faded

The ink ran dry

Things dropped off

The end of the page

Is there more?

Something I can write

That awakens

Opens the space

Clears the path

For Spider Woman

Her Ceremony

For the fatigued

Utop, IA

At the center, the heart

Let’s set the scene

The sacred space

Of in between

A colorful hilltop village

Erected on ashes

Of the past’s flatness

Showing that flexibility

Cultural Agility

Economic Mobility

Can be built up

On the soils of farmers’ humility

A cooperative land

Without need for demands

A simpler place

From the future, not the past

When the nation is great

There is no again

We are charting a course

Righting the wrongs

Building the Ark

This time

Let everyone in

We wake together after the night
Rested after searching this life
Sunlight, sunlight

Now that I’ve found my voice, I can sing on high
Now that I can feel my teeth, I use them soul to feed

Now that I can stretch my legs, I can run for miles and miles
Yes now that I have my feet under, I can carry you carry

Dancing circles wild and free spirited along by the sunlight, sunlight

Oh I am following the guide, looking up sunlight, sunlight

My eyes have dried they are open wide
Open to let all wash inside

And now that my hands have worked oh they can heal, heal
Those hands are not mine their yours, build what’s yours, lift what’s yours

Oh I am following the guide
Sunlight, sunlight
Dancing circles, wild and free
Sunlight sunlight

What a strange and prescient thing

This prompt number nine

From years ago with many words that ring

Of just this moment in time

Why would the word mask appear

To capture the alienation and outrage

Of any time but here

From bygones when Zoom

Was a word fast and futuristic

Not evocative of perpetual technical doom

Few words resonate more than lethargy today

Our minds and bodies exhausted

When energy and joy seems passe

Our spirits consumed by malaise

Then came the fire

Meted by the Heat

Waking the ire

Moving throngs to the street.

Perhaps next year we can reprise

Cottages, porridge and fireflies

Until then pass another bottle

I am headed to the treeline, thoughtful