The Poetry Marathon

Do You Know What Love Is?

I love everything about you, but I can’t stand your attitude.
I know we can make it forever and a day, but does it have to be today?
I know we said until death do us part, but is that your death or mine?
Love is patient and love is kind although sometimes we may forget what that really means.
It may not be as perfect as perfect can be, but love won’t fail if you trust and believe.

Real love will always find a way to make things work even when your partner is being a jerk.
Love doesn’t always fit into a nice comfortable mold, but it’s ready to step in when you don’t know.

Just when you feel like all hope is gone a little drop of love will keep you holding on.
You have to count up the cost each and every day Because real love will always find a way.

Snowfall (Hour 10)

White, cold, silent.

Floating from the sky.

Jack Frost usually strikes at night.

His is an eerie, beautiful silence.

Flakes catch light and shine back proudly.

Almost gravity-defying in their slow descent from above.

Stick around for a while. Stay and play.

Wash the world in white, ushering in

a new start, on a new day, in a new year.

Hour 10: Ode to an Endless Summer

You have only winds birthed in the desert,

A desert so mighty it birthed a religion

A sun that glows over each inch of your

Despondent, glowing, always bright land

No escape in an oasis, not even a mirage

The long shadows merely slaves to the sun

The might of your summers,

Brings worshippers to the desert,

Settle among sandy winds,

Build homes on scorching lands

What spirits live here, I know not

But saints have travelled here from far and wide

And the summers have kept their shrines alive.

Play Acting Messiah’s Death

Her Wedding Day

Her Wedding Day

 

Dressed in a smooth satin

And a kiara cum Marry Slessor hybrid headgear

With a train sparingly laced with flower throws

She walked up beside her father

In steps delicate and slow.

It was her wedding day

 

When earlier it shone, it was sunshine bright

When later it rained, it was blessed showers

Spirits were high, true joy flowed

There was honey in the rock

There was flowered hope.

It was a true-joy filled day

On this

Her Wedding Day

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

Our Christmas memories show that we were happy,

We grew up with the most loving story we knew, being that of Christmas –

of a baby born to fulfill a promise made eons ago to

universal ancestors I cannot possibly know at all.

In my lifetime, whether it was easy or hard, we always had Mass and

Gifts that showed caring a commitment to

Share loving care – with well chosen gifts — for all.

After all, that baby was GOD’s son coming to us – a

Bit unworthy to be sure, but often trying to be good.

And starting with Midnight Mass gave us a very special night!

By Nancy Ann Smith

 

This is a “Golden Shovel poem” meaning it took a line (or more) from an admired poem and

uses the words of that line, (in the same order) as the last words for each line of the poem.

A Midnight Clear

POEM 10

Christmas, The Mass of Christ. So sacred, so Holy, so full of His light.

The Bethlehem star stood still in the night and Angels both arch and choir members took heavenly flight.

We celebrate and scuffle to cling to beliefs, to hold onto traditions, to merry and bright.

Oh carols song by human tongues and Angels playing harps that night.

Where shepherds found that holy ground. The Holy Family’s plight.

The men were wise who followed the light that hung like an ornament in their sight.

Old Herod was sly but couldn’t be right to find that sleeping baby that King of delight.

The soldiers sent forth would lose at every turn, hoping to take His dear life.

If only they knew that his journey was true, that He came for them too

Today at Christmas time it seems the fighting times out. The gifts that we bring and the carols we sing really leaves us no doubt..

For the Lights that line the streets and shine from every house say better than any words, this is the most joyous time of the year repeated by each Christmas bell that

Is heard.

Holy Daze

the pagan world gone

these new age holy days feast

on their old world corpse

 

 

Hour 10_Winter in Miami

Let me say this upfront: I’m from the Northeast of the US
and everything about Miami in December
feels wrong.
Palm trees and halter tops
(do people still wear these?)
just shouldn’t be a winter thing.

Working this boat
with Captain Contemptible
does not arouse holiday cheer.
Still faithfully
3 sails a day
and a sunset cruise
(no different from the other sails
but with the mystique of changing light
the name changes, so too the price)
we put on our best keep-our-jobs
happy faces
for the tourists.

The crew live on land
except for me –
I bunk on another boat
on Key Biscayne –
So there’s none of the camaraderie
of shared living and working:
We do not share our lives;
we do not share so much as a meal.
When the work is done
we scatter –

My birthday in early December passes
(mercifully)
without notice, without mention
Miami is awash in Christmas
And in its ostentatious way
the city erects displays
blasts music 

strings lights.

I grew up with Chanukkah
now not so much a celebration
not a necessary affiliation
but something deeper
a link to ancestors
something that holds me –
The light of Chanukkah
it is this that speaks to me
The light that grows over eight days
from a single light
into a blaze.

I think of this as I step out
onto halyards
as I trim sails
as I answer tourists’ questions.

And then, I see it
one night on a sunset cruise:
there, facing the water
a huge ridiculous menorah –
the shamash and first two nights’ lights burning (electrically) bright
Each night after that I look for it
as its kitchy-flame grows
Each night I imagine I have set it alight
and when the menorah comes into view
I murmur the prayers
which for some odd reason
I have not forgotten

I know these lights have been set before me
in blessing
That there is no one to thank;
no one to join me in prayer
does not matter.
For centuries these prayers
have been uttered
and they continue still.
For six successive nights
on this watery bucket
I continue my joyful prayer.
Silent to my crew,
it is my secret
with eternity.
Prayer, this night here
and the world over.

10th Hour – Escapees

A herd of forty cows
They made their escape
In the streets of LA

Green pastures, prairies come to mind
When we think about
A herd of forty cows

But these forty were at
A slaughterhouse when
They made their escape

And they weren’t going back
So deputies shot them
In the streets of LA

(Cascade format)