The Poetry Marathon

Their life’s lines entangle with yours
You and I
The margins between
there is no knowing
Where one ends
the other begins
metaphors abound
but always fall short of the reality
that is
two become one
limbs intertwined
we finish each others…
thoughts, feelings, sentences
secret languages
knowing looks, a universe of two

It seems a rare thing in this world to find
(but only at first glance, look deeper and it’s all around you)
someone who so completely understands you
And you, they
beyond family, beyond ‘marriage’, beyond legal definition

No one can put a price to it, it is not for sale
The more one tries to buy it, the more loathsome it becomes
To the one it is being purchased from
It cannot ever be bought, if tried, the other will pray
for you to set them free
even to the point of wishing for one
or both to die

It is not able to be programmed
It cannot be commanded or trained
For a short time, people can become confused
They can hate so much that they think they’ve found it
But… they will uncover the truth
and when they awaken their anger will be vicious for having been
Tricked

This is the height of what humans, gods, goddesses, animals, plants and even
Scientists have found to their chagrin
Planets! and atoms!
Desire more than anything else to dance
With another in their orbit and never let them go!
All things are living and they desire to…
Entangle, merge, unite, become with another

As a little child I danced with trees
Kissed the flowers in their beds
On their dainty heads
Got pollen on my nose
Not knowing this was an act of entangling
But then I knew there would be
people to put in my orbit
And I would be in the orbit of many
Other people too
This is the dance of entanglement

It sometimes makes children
And other times makes acts
Of creation
Mountains
Streams
Stories
A Poem

Dance with me, Universe, dance with me!

Jovial
He is
It is his defining trait
Often laughing, smiling
Or filled with thunder and lightning
He is Olympian in nature
While being cuddly as a fluffy button
He is the diction definition
of Jovial in all senses
And part of why I adore him

Ardent
In all he does
It is in everything he does
From how he showers those he loves
In inescapable affection
Or devestating, angry tantrums
Bounding, through fields of green
He holds nothing back to come galloping
When he sees you at greeting
How he weeps at every parting
And each dawn he greets life with joy renewed!

Killed
Death is a swinging doorway for this loving maniac
He comes and goes from this world with an ease
That leaves we mortals gasping with shock
Only to see his easy smile again and hear him sing again
He throws himself on pyres, leaves us mourning, despairing
Then walks back in the room, wearing a different hat and suit
And asks us why we’re weeping, ‘Hey, baby, Death ain’t so bad.’

Ecstasy
Is in his eyes, his presence, his touch
He’s the only father I’ve ever known
Correction: the Truest I’ve ever known
If I despair when he leaves, it is ecstasy when he returns
To bring me back from the pain
Only he seems to know
With easy grace, he throws his hat into he room
and with me, he knows,
It will never be returned
He always has a place to hang his hat with me,
Jovial, Ardent, Killed filled and giving of Ecstasy

My joy in this brilliant morning
Is tempered by many things
The earliness of my waking
My eyes folding shut
Even while my fingers
Find
Each
Key…stroke
The heat of a summer
Come on too early
Burnt leaves on a plum tree
(how can that be?)
An idea of the light
Sparkling off the lake
Licking ice cream
Tempered by more adult responsibilities
A promise to do this
Go here
Do that
Most of all
Stifled
By the threat of toxic heat

So
Instead, I lay down my head
Go back to bed
And dream of the clean blue lake
That really exists only now in my dreams
The truth a sadly diminished comparison
To the one of my memory
And get a few more hours sleep

These changes
Keep coming up on me
I don’t know anything for sure
Less everyday
Today’s world isn’t the same
As yesterday’s
Are we adapting?
No, we are reacting
Spread out like dust
I was part of their labyrinth
How could I ever be hidden in it?
We’re all white noise
In the spiral arms
Of the galaxy

Red Demon in the Dark
VCS

You come to me at night
but thought you haunt them
You are not the man of my dream
You are the the demon I feared
Long ago
When I was a child
And I served in the a world of light
That you turned dark
Now you come to me again
You always have an excuse
For a man who claims immortality
You’ve claimed to be dying more
Than the average mortal
You fear to die alone
You tremble in the shadows
Claiming the mantle of a feeble
Old
Shambling
Drooling
Thing
Rather than face the truth
Where is your fierce gaze now?
Your claims in Might Makes Right?
Where are your whips and chains?
Hidden, only hidden until the spotlight
Of scrutiny I have cast on you passes away
Nothing about you is real
The pain you caused was hard won
Running to assure each servant was too busy
Chasing after their fear of you
To talk to one another
If we would have faced down our demon
You, who still appears in my night terrors
All lies would be exposed
Your glamours would have faded
Still, I hear the whisper of my dead mother
Crackling on a long disconnected phone line,
“his powers are fading”
She whispers from the darkness
The trembling terror in her voice lets me know her lie
She wishes me to come back, she needs me,
Not to rejoice in his defeat but to die underneath
His crushing force with her.
Putting the phone down
With a sigh
Like the rasping of the autumn wind
In dead willow leaves
In his old man’s mantle
He still lays body’s round about him
All who betrayed him are at risk
I have survived betraying him more than once
We do battle he and I
Dealing blows, he meant for death
Me, meant for defense, but it feels to him like
something worse and better than death: betrayal
“Ah, at last, a worthy adversary’, he breaths in relief
Knowing he has found his true heir
I feel sick at his pride in me
Standing against him
Surviving his blows
He feels this makes me
As evil as he
I pray he is wrong
I feel it makes me a survivor
When I see the heap of bodies on which he stands
I can’t help but wonder:
And why do we have the same blue eyes?
The same bottom lip?
Most of all;
What am I, that I still live?

A Certain Blue
Virginia Carraway Stark

It all started with the Empress Napoleon
She wore a dress of a particular hue
Of a very particular blue
And it made a splash
No one remembers the dress
But if you know a thing or two
And you saw that hue of blue
You would know exactly what I meant
No one remembers the empress
Or the dress
Or, sadly, even the painter,
But you would remember in a flash
The bag or box
That were branded after her forever
That’s the sort of world we live in
Our brands last long after our paintings
Our images
Our lifetimes
Or our names
If we’re lucky, our namesake is a color
That no one remembers
We wore first
Or why it was chosen to be so damn cool.

Cross Your Arms, Kiss Your Elbows
Virginia Carraway Stark

If you don’t give it a name
It never belongs to you
And you never belong to it
It’s a sort of magic
That makes you feel safe
As safe as safe can be
If when you were a baby
And your mother crossed her arms
Above your cradle
Kissed each of your elbows
And your knees too
And promised
That every day you’d be safe
And you’d never be lost
You’d never have a problem
Finding a name for everything
And everything a name
And what a happy little baby
You would be
If your mother had only
Crossed her arms
Kissed your elbows and your knees
And told you
What a good life
You would have

Land of Haven and Fated Death
Virginia Carraway Stark

Spades played on spades
Dominoes crash
On the square by the sea
Where white means death
Beauty is a tomb
And creation is a cruel fate
They say nothing is impossible
Is it merely a cruel riddle to mean
That nothing can be excluded
From this world of crushing pain?
Waves and wind
Three chosen to prove that all is safe
A haven amidst the spade and crashing dominoes
Crossed golden swords
Laughable pointless, a golden sword
But less funny, if it runs you through
Their metal is strong enough to pierce flesh the once
Three is two
The swords scrape the fat into a copper pot
Where saffron and roses are mingled
With honey over the heat
To make an exotic delight
And then there was only one
Golden doors closed
White porcelain tiles cover the walls,
Edged with elegant scrolling blue
High above head height
Over seeing all
The beaten copper pot
Would have been big enough to hold
All three girls whole
But not all was wanted
From the ancient man who stirs the pot
With the ancient stirring spoon
The mountains block the world from one side
The sea on the other
And only one last girl
Singing with all her heart
Is left to prove this is a haven
Heavy lights hang overhead
From spider’s webs
That tremble at her song
Nothing is left for her
When the last delicate line of silk
Is destined to fail
Her song crushed
Along with her beauty
In the tomb built for a queen
Spades on spades

Intermezzo
Virginia Carraway Stark

Intertwined
In luminous black and white
They were determined to create a legend
Appropriate a myth
Anything is fair in love and war
Or so those who do such things will say
If they don’t those pangs of guilt
Will hurt them in the night
Jump off the cliffs
Into the breakwaters
Say a prayer and hope
You don’t feel evil jaws around
Your thighs
This is the real world
Of the city of white
Intermezzo
It brings us back
To our duet of love
Looking at each other
From across a river
Longing for each other
All the while we don’t know
Who made up the story we play in
Where is the house?
Where is the water’s edge?
Why can’t we play together?
Why must there ever be a war
To interrupt the piece we play?

A Little Thing
Virginia Carraway Stark

It was only a little thing
To put fingers to keyboard
Pen to paper
Such a little thing
To say the things in my head
I never thought they’d mean
So much
To anyone else
And every time
I hear
The magic phrase:
You wrote the words
I needed to hear
Or read
Or say
I’m so happy
I did that little thing
And happier still
I shared it with the world