The Poetry Marathon

POEM 05

It’s as naked as you think Gary is in that “soaker tub.” Tilly his girlfriend gifted him that pitiful little black lamp and that tiny meditating Buddha, both gifts of love.

Gary is stoked by the white starkness of that bathroom and the empty glass bottles that Tilly no longer had need of.

The house is barely furnished yet, but it’s clean and sleek with angular newness and a massive kidney shaped swimming pool to boot.

It rests on a hilltop amidst a Multitude of iron gates and BMWs of the wealthy, you know people with bank–loot.

Gary’s nearest neighbor sips his coffee on his floating balcony dressed in Armani. But, hey Gary’s a “Text Wizard,” he owns no designer wear.

But he got Tilly a “must-have-celebrities-own-it” green handbag that she carries everywhere.

Tilly has catalogs with furniture particular and peculiar, just right for Gary’s new place.

She already got him a king sized Maserati frame bed—but bathing or fully dressed that “soaker tub” is still Gary’s sweet space.

POEM 04

Scorched, massive wooden bodies, tall, majestic like the Cedars of Lebanon. No match for fire though. Fed by the slightest breeze it comes red and filled with smoke

Bulging like a mushroom cloud, a blazing tongue lapping up the distance, tearing through valleys with crimson destruction, crossing canyons and scaling hills and

Mountains veiled in a gray and white fog that chokes the sight and breath of everything it approaches, sending wildlife,  any life scurrying for cover.

On some Sumatran highland or the like, it blazes through the planets oldest tropical forest. A lightening spark set dry brush smoldering; pleasant winds produced the

flame and set the blaze that scorched the beauty and scarred the face.

POEM 03

Oh those poor stalked birds! Oh those poor stalked birds! Oh those poor stalked birds!

How they must suppose at camera lens and googly eyed binoculars trained on their every flight; magnifying or snapping up their sweet feathered sight.

High and low, invading their privacy, tracing their nests and perches for game or sport or fancy pastime.

Starlings fly in murmurated protest. Small Sparrows regret their pry. A thrush cocks his little brown head at a woman in bright pink. “Interesting feathers” he likely

thinks. Her great round eyes do look odd following, following his every flap or blink or nod.

Oh those tragic winged creatures, trying to elude the bird watchers hunt!

POEM 02

Reflected in the glass of the observation deck, it was like a fire on the horizon. That setting sun spoke all of my dread. A storm threatened in the clouds above the

vessel. They looked like crooked rows in a plowed field, yet dark and golden. Will this storm at sea bring a new fear in me? After all I was promised contentment, a oneness

with the watery world. Will the burgeoning night cover the ominous view?

I slipped away to let my fear seep from me, if it would, to let it drown in dark waters. Oh to see land again, to smell the earth.

My dinner started to rise, my head swam for shore. All the glass, the clear icy glass around me doubling the sight of the mounting waves. In all the warmth of the Caribbean, a chill gripped me in its frigid hold.

A flash of lightening zigzagged the navy sky. One, two, three, four a rumble of thunder shakes in the distance. The ship slices throw the black waters sprinting away

from the tempest.

A deck for observing is no solace as the wind is rocking the boat like a cradle. My insides lurch upward again. I stumble back into his arms, his comfort. He presses

two small pills into my palm. This was his idea, cruising away from it all.

Ahh how beautiful are the remains of the setting sun seen through a calming, narcotic haze.

POEM 01

My first apartment and me fifty years old with too much stuff for this tiny enclosure. My heart aches for the house, my house that I lavished years and money and love

on. I miss its coziness. But sometimes comfort is so fleeting and useless. I’ve come to relish the solitude of this musty enclave. The quiet is welcomed after twenty years of Justin’s gargling and spitting.

Strangely I can’t think of any precious moments with him on this move-in day. My Ex, there’s no pleasure in such a claim, but marriages fizzle and people give out, give

up and move on.

I thought I’d reside in a plush house, my house, at fifty. Possessions are relinquished, dissolved, so resolute. All the baubles and trinkets gathered through vibrant years

of  joy and pain with just a smattering of regret, could not fit into this moldy crumbling building. It smells of years of other people, even with the peeling wallpaper having  been replaced.

The tree outside the cloudy paned window has been crippled, painted black to stop its thriving. So nothing thrives here?

Is that the Phoenix perched on the building next to mine? Is it poised to escape the ashes and mount the pale blue sky with thinning clouds to witness the flight? No its

just a metal sculpture of a crane rusted and dead after years of weather and rain.

The bathroom is remarkably bright and white though.; it, will be my refuge.

Hello, I’m Valarie Kirkwood and I have been writing since I read the poem “Who has seen the Wind,” in second grade, ages ago. My nom de plume is V.J. Kirkwood. My poems have found their way into two college English department journals, the Kansas State University “Discoverer” and the Cameron University’s “Rose.” The short story is my main genre, but poetry has my heart. I love the rhythm of poetry, the rhyme of the movement.

I am looking forward to the marathon to see if it draws out my best.

I want to wish everyone the best and Happy marathoning to all.