The Poetry Marathon

The black and white television screen flashes to a bald man
The color of his suit is a bright blue and with a blink of his eye,
I fall forward into the glass of my Hennessy colored table

Purple and turquoise fog clouds my eyes
While clarinet music screams at my ears
My body feels stretched like a rubber band

I fly through a foggy tunnel with a bald eagle at my side
She looks directly into my eyes without a glance ahead
Through the noise, whispers reach me without hesitation

Terror occupies every cell in my little human body but the thrill is too great
I swim across the fiery wind and reach the penultimate gate on the mountain
There I find the answers to my endless searches, but then my alarm goes off.

An element or certainly two
Floating past one another
In the vast watery landscape
Interacting through electrons

Chemicals that form complex attractions
Each second, numerous connections
That lead to large, diverse compounds
A marvelous broth to nourish the future

Life will arrive soon
Maybe in a billion years
But till then, we’re together
In this quiet solar system

What should we do to pass the time?
Maybe we can become polarized
I’ll be immensely different from your makeup
But I know that we could still be compatible

Perhaps we can even float around others
Form a circle of friends that will allow us
To discover our physical properties
And find others to interact with

There’s plenty of mixtures in the ocean
And perhaps we aren’t meant to be
But if you ever feel that you need a bond
I’ll be in a corner of the sea waiting for you

The brick laden road of the 12th Enclave
Guides me to the pop-up stall.
I haven’t been here in 5 years,
Yet I know the way
Like a conquistador through a jungle

I turn the corner
And approach the sitting man.
I hand him my sweaty money,
And in return, I am greeted with
4 breads and two pots of rich stew.

I could close my eyes on the journey back
And hop over each missing brick and crack
Without troubling my heart.
The dung from the cows is a pungent smell.
It embraces my nose as I head back to my grandma.

I push open the metal gates to the compound,
Take off my shoes at the door,
And walk towards her with my feet on the cold tile floor.
I hand her the warm parcel of breakfast and the change.
For my arduous voyage, I am reimbursed in antique kisses.

How were they so Great?
Did they study harder than me?
Did they work harder than me?
What made them so capable of Intelligence?

These questions haunted me
As I turned over the pages
Of the autobiography of Marie Curie
And her husband, the famous scientists.

Why couldn’t I accomplish something like them?
Would I ever be known for any Achievement?
Would I ever be recognized the world over?
How did they do what they did?

Time was running out
Lunch was almost over
I had to read quickly
Or I would be late to class

What if I never achieved such Mastery?
Maybe I’m not meant to be so Bright?
Why can’t I discover radioactive elements?
Maybe, I just need to focus on the light.

The sun of that same day going down,
Dusk was saluted by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights.
Dinner and bedtime were always difficult to kill,
The night after the dance further tarnished by the peevishness of dissipation
There were no letters for either of the two young men.
As every other person, practically, had received two or three plump letters from England,
Which they were now engaged in reading.
The animals had been fed. Their silence reminded him of the silence in the lion-house,
When each beast holds a lump of raw meant its paws
Some, hippopotamuses
Some, canary birds
Some, swine
Some, parrots
And some, loathsome reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep
The intermittent sounds—now a cough, horrible wheezing or throat clearing were just, he declared,
What you hear if you stand in the lion-house when the bones are being mauled
He fixed his attention more closely upon his fellow-creatures.
He was too far from them, however, to hear what they were saying,
But it pleased him to construct little theories about them from their gestures and appearance.

Jeez brother, why are you so sad?

We get it, you’re growing up
We get it, it’s strange and weird
We get it, you’re leaving but why?
Why are you sad?

You’re about to enter that part of the Indie movie
Where the character sits by the window and just
Looks at the surrounding landscape while a dope
Soundtrack play in the back, so why are you sad?

You can do anything you want now.
You can go out to parties and sing
You can dress as cool as you are
Oh no, again? Why are you sad?

Listen to me as I have already been through the pain
I have been tried and tested and have pulled through
Don’t sit around and twiddle your silly thumbs like me
Go out, enjoy life, and do things with people or else
The question may just be, “Why was he so sad?”

A desert sunrise is a heavenly event
The clouds part and the moonbeams fade away
The fog recedes into the concrete
A hush takes hold as the sun nears the sandy docks

The motel manager stirs the coffee
And opens a jar of jam for the oven burnt toast
The sun floats above the dune shelves
And strikes the man’s brow with a fiery hiss

“Damn, it’s gonna be a hot day”

Under the bridge,
Beside the river,
The penniless kids play using a stick for a king’s sword
While the mother goes around collecting all she can hoard

Under the bridge,
Beside the river,
A stranger from the rotten vegetable market join them for dinner
No food, no clothes, but could this bearded man be their breadwinner?

Under the bridge,
Beside the river,
He takes the sweet, poor kids around Paris and shows them the city
They enter a shop, look around, but the security shows them no pity

Under the bridge,
Beside the river,
The old man gets a job and promises to provide for the kids like a father
The mother doesn’t want him near them and considers him to be a bother

Under the bridge,
Beside the river,
The weathered man saves the young, war-torn family from a frosty night
The family accept his as one of their own, their guardian, their white knight.

She, alone, was ready for the apocalypse.
She was well equipped with weapons.
She was designed for survival.

She had no family ties
No one to slow her pace down.
She had everything she needed for years

But the raspberry, orange jam for her PB&J sandwiches.

In the pavilion, there are many people
All new faces but without the new smell
I want to reach across and grab someone and say hello and know them
But in the end, I know I will just walk past all of you without a whisper

As I said before, there are always people
But today, I saw someone with a purple purse
Now an accessory such as that belongs on the runways in Milan or Rome
But on your godlike shoulder, it looked to be made of crude, lifeless paper

I wanted to go closer but my shirt wasn’t right
There are many days when an outfit is a letdown
I knew that I couldn’t approach your picturesque form without a prominent plan
So I rummaged in my closet, prepared something for the next day, and fantasized

The next day, I searched the entire cemented pavilion
But you weren’t there, until I saw you buying flowers
I began to walk, then trot, and then sprint towards you in anticipation but then I saw him
He crawled up from behind you, held you in his bulging arms, and kissed your rosy cheeks

That night, my tears gathered on my baby blue shirt and turned it navy
I cut up my jet black pants and the loafers, I gave to the homeless man
My visions for our trips, our small family, and our red-brick house all faded away without a hello
You did nothing wrong and if it is meant to be, my eyes will once again be graced by your purse