The Poetry Marathon

Until the last day

I will swing for the fences,

tack hard into the wind, and

climb to the top of each mountain,

Where surely there will be more.

Until the last day

I will hold my head high,

stand tall, and drink the last drop,

Filling my days with wonder

and joys meant to last

until the last day.

I want to wave a victorious flag

Give inspiration to the young,

and consolation to the old,

holding nothing back at all

until the last day.

Antiquarians saw art in two dimensions,without

perspective depth. Similarly the world around them.

The earth can only be flat, they said.

They sought confirmation in the Holy Word,

and even the church blessed this notion.

(Who were priests, after all, but men of only two dimensions?)

Nay-sayers set bravely out to find the edge,

the place where two dimensional maps cautioned there were dragons.

Human eyes are made to view in 3-D.

They sailed three dimensional ships and visited three dimensional lands,

and never came to the place where they actually fell off.

(Or if they did, they didn’t notice. We will never know.)

Today we perceive the earth and other celestial bodies

in 3-D and know that the universe has no ending

that can ever be reached. At least for human eyes.

Grasshoppers, beetles, fish, horses and deer might tell another story.

We can stare off into the universe as ancient astronomers did

And know our spherical earth is surrounded by other spheres.

If it were not, and someone unexpectedly discovered that

our world is flat, who wouldn’t drop everything and rush

out to the edge to look? We would still see stars and planets, but

as saucers floating out and under and over, becoming almost invisible

if they tilt on their sides. We could watch them slide in a cascade

into black holes, unsure if dragons or the lost third dimension would appear.

(NOTE: I did not like the prompt given, so I wrote something different. It still needs a lot of work.)

Rejection

I

All life is a rejection of what went before.

We must grow and change.

To stand still in one place is to die before death.

In every choice lies a path of rejection.

II

Beauty is uncovered, a bud wrapped tenderly in a leaf,

it opens and presents its fragrance and color,

then withers and dries and falls to the ground.

The flower rejects the bud, the seed rejects the flower.

III

Rejection is a flavor of living.

One we must taste and put aside, or swallow whole.

To do or be done to. No one wants to stand alone.

Rejection makes way for the new.

IV

We must endure what we cannot reject.

Broken hearts, growing old, failures and fears.

Dreams and wishes propel us.

Sometimes good parents or education lift us.

V

Life flows from rejection to rejection,

and hope to hope. We want to know, we want to

be loved. Need for acceptance is learned from birth.

Seeking a soul mate motivates our actions.

VI

We wallow in youth and squander our gifts

on things we didn’t set out to do.

Our tank empties. We can no longer keep pace.

There is a point where we start to reject life.

VII

The corner is turned, not with flash and squealing wheels,

as imagined, but in the quiet, profound way the deaf must hear.

One day an honest face stares at us from the mirror

and without words says what we always dreaded.

VIII

The child rejects the infant, the man rejects the boy.

The old man laughs at what the young man doesn’t know

and the spirit laughs at the old man frozen in the mirror.

The future is still veiled.

IX

Rejection builds character, the wise used to say.

It creates the stones in the path of life we walk.

It frames the bottom and the top points of life.

It reveals the sum of who we become.

X

In every choice lies a path of rejection.

The flower rejects the bud, the seed rejects the flower.

Rejection makes way for the new.

We must endure what we cannot reject.

There is a point where we even start to reject life.

The corner is turned in a quiet, profound way,

but the future remains veiled.

The point where we start to reject life

reveals the sum of who we have become.

THIS STILL NEEDS LOTS OF WORK!!

Anger. Rage. All around people training to fight or defend.

Awkward martial arts. Beautiful faces, roiling with ego and fear.

Beautiful bodies with angular limbs, exposing uncertainty

in proportion to the size of their weapons.

Brandishing arms of war with snarls of terror

to frighten away their insecurity.

What they really want is to dance.

To be held by love and to love.

Ironically showing a face to scare away dreams and wishes.

they long to disarm and float on the soft bed of hope.

To be cracked open, raised in the light that heals wounds,

and wrapped in the arms of truth. Secure and at peace.

To understand that they are enough, and accepted.

To know the love that melts hearts, and to rise like a bird

trilling its pure and sincere song to the welcoming universe.

Life is a highway. Time is a river. Got the idea? Climb on!

Elephants can fly (somewhere)

We smell rain and something rotten in Denmark.

We touch a nerve and embrace the wind.

We see an ant and feel its bite.

We taste love when the season turns to spring.

I hear Beethoven and see the revolutions of wheels in his motifs.

Abraham loved to drive down to Ein Gedi.

And elephants can’t really fly anywhere.

But if they could, they would probably love to visit the Alta Plana Desert.

Not.

Everyone in the room hated the new Bond movie, so it must be bad.

“Say, who dat dar? Whar is you? Slap ma cat silly ef I didn’ hear sumf’n.”

The lacey shoulders of hope.

Fruit flies like a banana. Time flies like an arrow.

No way I’d ever tell my Mama, but I smoked a cigarette in her closet sitting under her pink satin dress when I was 10.

He called her “Katie-poo”, and she came running with a grin

The storm clouds will rise and blacken the skies in symbols only the devil can read.

Holy nonsense.

The sandstone shapes stand silently in the moody dusk, orange and brown like giant muffins waiting to dance.

Honi soit qui mal y pense

The stones shrugged, then lumbered to their feet and began a slow, sad waltz.

Each decade is a shock of revelation.

True, by looking back we know we grow.

We age, we laugh, we cry, we grieve,

and the racing river of time does not cease.

Wild hairs, fine lines that turned to wrinkles,

the sagging body, the weakening grip.

The old mirror is a silent and harsh critic,

no matter what spotlight illuminates our way.

In my mind, all life is still before me, but

The mirror bares the brutal truth.

“You are old, Father William” Alice said

in Wonderland. He did not seem to care,

But the young girl I was only yesterday

Is shocked to see all her white hair.

Only yesterday we were orphans.

Disconnected names on a tree of barren branches.

Only empty limbs within reach.

Arms too short, fingers too ignorant

to find their way up to the lap she once offered,

soft bread baked with love,

the warm blanket of home in her clear eyes.

Stumbling across her long-forgotten face,

my heart blooms in a shock of colors.

I see my mother, my sisters in the shape

of her round cheeks and dark curls.

Her unexpected wry smile reaches down from the past,

Suddenly strong hands grip our fingers

and she pulls us all close to her heart.

Orphans no more.

Today she drapes around us like a cloak. Ours.

Looking forward to this! 🙂 Have a rewarding and satisfying Marathon everyone.

My family was never really religious.
We were a mixed family, Catholic and Assembly of God.
Both had strict dogmas that prevented them
from marrying outside their faiths, so, of course,
that is what Mom and Dad wanted to do.
They succeeded. The Catholics won, though. My dad
attended catechism classes so he could marry my mother.
I only learned that recently. They were married at the church,
not in the church. They married in the priest’s rectory,
and only my mother’s brother and his wife attended to witness.

I used to say I was raised miscellaneous protestant. Going to church
was a big effort for my parents. They wanted us to go, yet neither
of them was particularly religious. What is it about the Catholic
church that makes so many young people turn away?
They wouldn’t let us go to Catholic church, but they let us go
to every protestant church any of our friends invited us to.
Vacation Bible School, summer camp, all holidays were spent
going to church with someone else. Until I hit thirteen.

A minister at a non-denominational chapel I had attended
wanted to baptize me. I was afraid to tell my parents until the morning
of the event. They refused to let me go. That cut it for me and churches.
Even when my mother had bouts of going to the Methodist Church or
the Presbyterian Church, I refused. I discovered I had opinions of my own.
Too many of the pastors I talked to couldn’t answer my questions, they
simply said, “You have to accept it on faith.” That is when I knew
those people were no smarter than me, and didn’t have all the answers.

It jaded me. I decided to study everything from anybody.
Later when I married, I converted to Catholicism and had a Catholic
wedding. Years later, I studied Sufism. When I married again, I converted to
Judaism. My husbands felt it was important for me to be like them,
so I played along. I always saw the truth behind all religions, and I studied
every one of them deeply, from their own scriptures. It never bothered me
to convert. I saw the unity behind all the forms. The same truth
illuminates them all. I studied Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism.
There are isms for so-called non-believers, too, like Agnosticism.
Pantheism. Scientology. Rosicrucianism. Universalism.

Today I am happy to let people be what they want to be, believe what they
choose to believe. I accept the annoying southern behavior or assuming
that everyone is a Christian. Every doctor’s nurse I see, every grocery clerk,
even in fast food drive-throughs or bank lines they smile and nod and say
“have a blessed day.” They see my white skin and friendly smile, and assume
I am like them. It used to baffle me why they would do that.
Then I gave up worrying about it. Today I am happy to hear someone say
“I’ll pray for you” or “Praise Jesus”. I don’t actually care, but I always thank them
and say “I need all the prayers I can get.” That usually satisfies them, and
it doesn’t commit me. I say it sincerely. It makes my life simpler, and in truth,
don’t we all need all the blessings we can get?  And so it is. Amen.

I
Born in my parents’ hometown.
April is the month of bluebonnets.Many pictures of Mom in bluebonnet fields,
None of me. My Mamaw lived there, and she loved me.

II
We were poor. We moved a lot, but it wasn’t hard.
We spent most weekends camping and fishing on the beach.
I am confident and unafraid.
My third grade teacher saw me for the genius I am
And put me in charge of things.
I liked being in charge of things.

III
Dad drank and smoked. He worked evenings
and weekends. He started taking his frustrations out on me
with his hand, switch or belt. I couldn’t protect the others.
They got it, too. But I was the main target.
It wasn’t tough love, it was meanness born of frustration.
But it hurt the same, regardless of the name.

IV
Music saved me. I was good at it. My heart soared.
I played in the orchestra, I played in the band.
In high school I was a majorette and Drum Major.
Those are high profile jobs in Texas schools.
Life was finally tipping my way!

V
My sisters are better with remembering
family stories and names. I can meet a stranger briefly
and remember their name a year later. But I can’t remember
who went to the beach that time we had a singalong, or
what everyone ate at Dad’s favorite restaurant on
some anniversary or birthday. Does it really matter?
My sisters and my mother can! That’s enough.

VI
The day I learned to diagram sentences was the day I knew
one day I would write. Mrs. Raley stood there, holding her chalk,
talking about predicate adjectives, and suddenly a veil dropped.
I understood parts of speech and how they depend upon each other.
I still remember how it felt to know that I knew. I knew English.
I really knew it. No one could ever take that away from me.