The Poetry Marathon

Here’s to the friends who’ve been lost along the way

to silence, to fury, to sleep,

and to the lessons we remember today

some that we laugh at, some which make us weep

For those who had held us in our times of need

but vanished as soon morning landed,

gone like a ghost who had died with the seed

the distance between us expanded

And to the bastards who drove us straight mad,

can’t regret half the words that I’ve said

at some point you mattered through happy and sad,

but life’s better without you instead

This one’s for those who were forced to let go,

through ending of cycles to peace

If I could be sure you know how I still miss you so,

I might feel something better, at least

Here’s to the friends that we’ve lost along the way,

who’ve helped, hurt, and loved without cost

in spite of the frustrating ache of heartbreaking

without you, I know I’d be lost

(Hour 14)

(or, The Menagerie pt. 3)

It started with a cornsnake

named for a park back in Ashland

who escaped his collapsed tank and

vanished into the unknown.

Quite a few nights were spent lining the kitchen walls with flour

In hopes of finding a trace of Lythian,

Though no hint of him dead or living ever surfaced

The reptile life nabbed me quickly,

One moment pondering the archaic looking creature once labeled extinct

The next, I’m rearranging tank space with what little I have to spare.

Cornsnake, crestie, and python to start,

And then the dragons: the desert oranges my father brough home,

And the water lizard, Orchid green and just as fragile from the home

He’d been neglected at beforehand.

The leos top the reptiles off, with Blaze playing Mama hen;

She and Sundew spend their days piled atop each other,

In patient wait for little Ruby White to get large enough to join them.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any large tanks available?

(Hour 13)

Yes, of course

Well, sometimes

But also no,

never at all

I’m tired of faking the smile,

Of pretending and eggshell-walking over your

Quarter-century of doing the easiest

While I suffer the consequences on the other side

So no, I’m foul

Almost always

And every of the time

But yeah, I’m okay

(Hour 12) 

They were told to leave the land alone, but children never listen.

They touted their banners, blared their horns, and stamped their horses hooves until they wearied.

When the earth groaned and spewed her dark humors, they took but a single heartbeat to declare it a blessing and consign her to sacrilege for the cost of a pretty penny.

Now hungry hands reach at broken bones and fly-struck flesh with nothing left to comfort.

Now the midnight moon creeps closer, a doppleganger painted upon waves hiding a ledger centuries old. The shore glitters with her sharp silver kisses.

They were told to leave the land alone, but children never listen.

(Hour 11)

The tired stalks me relentlessly

with a smirk that warns

she’s been gracious enough to spare me

but only for so much longer

(Hour 10)

I first spotted the time somewhen around 4:30 and denied myself the chance to sleep on

after years of relative nothing, the eager roar of my brain would not be ignored

to my surprise, the rust fell away with a yawn and the craft jumped back to my fingers

warm

and familiar

and

unfurling

flexible

as a wordsmith ought to be

(Hour 9)

(or, The Menagerie pt. 2)

My early memories are few and far between

but I remember being tiny and excited

to gawk snakes and bugs and other critters

some lady brought to my pre-K class

to teach us about animals.

I think there was a fennec fox,

but mostly I was fascinated by the spindly-legged tarantulas,

and the giant yellow-and-white python that voided itself on my mom’s favorite shirt.

My dad spent my fourteenth summer

tidying the stoop of our front porch.

It wasn’t so bad but for a couple of spiders,

big-bellied and proliferate,

becoming a nuisance in need of eviction.

I watched Dad, fearless of the world as he so seemed,

and must have said something to offset him.

He plucked the nearest spider from its nest and tossed it at my face.

Eight years I was a Spider Slayer of the Most Fearful Order.

For my second half of college I moved to small-town Oregon

where the weather was wild and the creatures wilder.

I was reminded how to fall in love with the little things

with their unknowable thoughts and simple purposes,

and I, Spider Slayer, after for so long having frozen stiff against the eight-legged

finally melted to understand them as victims of a father’s poor choice, just like me.

Today I am Mother of Jumpers.

Clover and Sorrel admire each other from their separate homes,

friendly if not somewhat grumpy when bothered like the rest of us.

Ghost is a more difficult little guy, having disappeared

into the window for three days before reemerging like a certain well-worshipped-someone,

dusty, confused, and clutching to my finger like a newborn babe.

I collect their little molted hats in a cup as I watch them grow, careful not to let them disappear at a careless breath.

(Hour 8)

She’s a wind-up toy at the end of her reel,

pushing and puffing with dismal results

and keeling over with muscles of lead.

“Just give me a moment before trying to wind me up again, if you would,”

she pleads,

“and perhaps I’ll last just a little longer next time.”

There’s always a next time.

(Hour 7)

Once upon a time I was a coyote,

racing careless along the chaparral,

howling true and strong with my pack.

And then the bond was severed

and the coyote died.

Once upon a time I was a hawk,

carving rainshine out of thunderstorms,

pushed ever upward by the draft of my rage.

And then the storms broke away,

but so did the hawk.

Once upon a time I was a pigeon,

swinging happy on a golden perch, beloved,

praised for my function and potential.

And then the practicality faded,

and now the pigeon has as well.

Once upon a time I might have been myself,

but I’d not be able to tell you when.

(Hour 6)

There’s a particular poison in personhood,

knowing the antagonists of our ancestry

swept away the sacred stewardship

carefully cultivated by said sorry savages

The woodland withered while the waters

ran dry down to the roots;

now the tallgrass ghosts blister and burn,

but the poisoned people

drowned themselves in deafness.

(Hour 5)