The Poetry Marathon

Gardening

The witch sat at her table.
Her paints organized carefully.
She dipped her brush into a palette of sunlight
And on the paper traced some tiny buds.

She added a bright green pigment
That she had snatched, just this morning
From the glance of dawn off a passing beetle
And added slender leaves, a strong stem.

She let it dry, on the plastic rack
With just a little magic breeze.
Then closed her eyes and brushed the paper with her hands.
She found the stem, and gently pulled it free.

She set the new flower gently down
In a vase of mountain water.
She would plant it in her garden soon. And as she turned –
SPLASH!
Her robe caught on the pot of brushes,

Inky water dashed the desk
Blotchy sunlight soaked into the paper
In a great wild burst of colour – three pages deep!
The witch bit her lip. And then, she smiled.

She let it dry, on the plastic rack
With just a little magic breeze.
Then closed her eyes and brushed the paper with her hands.
She found the great bright wild flower, and gently pulled it free.

The Consummation of the Word

The first and the last

The beginning and the end

The Old and New Testaments harnessed

Fundamentally, alone— to intend

 

The Word divided into Twain

Two books separated

Joined in marriage— they do contain

An androgynous word extracted

 

Sealed within its own spirit

Crucified Words bonded

Found to consummate

Life and death, which are both imbedded

 

 

January 2nd

I once askedy sister to play
a card game while mom was away;
but her laptop, it beckoned
and as it was jan’ry second
she blamed it on introvert day.

Hour 9 – The Daily Dance

The echoes of my weeping surround me
as I awake inside my cave.
The tear in space behind me whispers
a siren song towards my grave.

I’ve got to go to the city now:
I’m told I must be brave.
So I dance the daily dance of life,
upon the edge of razor blades.

Nightly, I return to my cavern weary and alone:
wondering if from myself, I will be saved.

Hour 11 – Etheria Redux (image prompt)

When I turned 20 I received

My most powerful feeling

A warm yellow of joy and spring

From which I get no break.

You’d think me glad,

and far from mad,

But of course! I haven’t any choice.

The darkened sky can’t make me cry

But gives me plenty of work.

Some not so “lucky” need my joy

To get through their day.

Flowers in bloom

Distilling a mood in time

Before I send it it their way.

But I ask you, my dear,

If all you feel is joy

how can your head be clear?

My feeling are dim, and I

I’m limited to acting

Upon the feeling’s whim.

The solution lies in a secret

The middling colors won’t ever know

nor will the children who feel for free

Oh! There’s the door,

a knock awaiting me!

At last, hooray, it has arrived.

My case of anxiet-tea.

Hour 10

Feeling like the lord of the rings

 

I need air, I need water and confidence.

Why is life so hard sometimes that I feel

as if the entire world was on my shoulders,

as if I had to throw the ring of power into the lava?

Do you know the feeling? And how to get rid of it?

Hour 11: Skyscraper

Piercing the clouds

Like a needle

Scraping the sky

Beating on heaven’s door

Spreading shadow

the first step when falling in love

she packs yellow in her pockets
in case she has the chance
to scatter sunshine
like butter on sourdough toast
watching it spread like the wildfires in the woods

the lemony hue needles its way through the linen
soaking into her skin
where her periwinkle freckles welcome it;
opposites on the color wheel
spinning together
complimenting complements

this is what falling in love looks like
not practical or prepared with gumboots and an umbrella
but capricious,
skipping along
singing a new and pleasant canary-like song

there’s a new beat in her heart today
for she met a forest ranger
who is not a wolf
and is not afraid of her penchant to burn
and who drinks sunshine
like she carries in her pockets,
the kind you can’t get at any old storefront
and certainly not on a day with clouds

this is not the love of fairy tales
where the kiss is shared at the top of a skyscraper,
no
this is the love that leaves a trail of daisies in its wake
flowered crumbs to find her way into the forest
not out
where she checks her pockets and finds
yellow exactly where she put it
dripping now like honey from her fingers
for
she is her own forest ranger
in her own forest
scattering sunshine because she can

Smile

There’s something about you

that makes me smile no matter where you are

you could be lost in a thought at a stoplight

or pondering the meaning of life

Whatever it be about… whoever you are singing to right now,

i bet they love the song

 

i hope it makes you smile

 

Hour 11 – Image Reaction

“Don’t use the funnies for your painting. I want to clip them out later.”

“Can you imagine that girl didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“Do you think I could be pregnant and not know it?”

“Do you think you could be pregnant and not know it?”

I thought the answer was no.
But here i am, brush loaded with paint.
So hungry.
So bloated.
So pained.

All these years you’ve been gone,
Your clipped funnies fading in their album,
And still my belly grows
With the dreams planted.

Are these the labor pains
To awaken me from my engorged ignorance?
In my heedless pursuits,
Wiping my brushes first on business,
Then on obituaries,
Have I built a child
Or a bubble of gas?