The Poetry Marathon

Hour 18

Listen to a story ’bout a man named Black Tim Villines

a big man living as a hermit in the hills above Bullfrog Hollow

in the days when one black man in the county was one too many.

In the only surviving picture of him, he is wearing overalls with one strap off and

a shapeless hat like the one worn by the father in The Beverly Hillbillies mashed down on his head.

It came to pass that Black Tim, lonely as he was, was holed up in the hills for a reason.

He believed in the legend of the Dover Lights, which spoke of Spanish conquistadors traversing the country who died one by one in the Ozark hills laden down with the spoils of their looting.

Because they were suspicious of each other, they buried their gold and baubles down in the valley with the intention of returning in their spirit state to retrieve the treasures.

Ever since, swinging lights, said to be the oil lamps belonging to the dead soldiers, can be seen on clear and cold nights. One of the lights is red, and that light is said to belong to Black Tim who supposedly died while trying to follow the others’ lights

or maybe he was killed by the conquistadors for getting a little too close to their treasures.

 

 

Prompt 18 – Unfolding Clandestine Drama

Image Courtesy of Pixabay

 

Within a small white chapel, bathed in the soft, diffused light of forgiveness, a clandestine drama unfolds. A cloaked person, draped in robes of sanctity, stands before his prey, a vulnerable soul seeking solace within these hallowed walls.

Your power of seduction, shadowed by utter deceit and vindictive ploy, weaves its enchanting web. Words, like incense, rise in intoxicating tendrils, wrapping around the unsuspecting heart, luring it into the dark corners of desire.

To shatter a deathly heart, your emotional reward. Playful with them, agony’s toy. You, the orchestrator of this cruel dance, manipulate the strings of longing and vulnerability, a maestro in this symphony of betrayal.

But why such vile conspiracy? To what ends do you embark?

What vile techniques you employ!

The echoes of your sinister motives reverberate through the chapel’s sacred silence, a question left unanswered, hidden beneath the mask of divine devotion.

In the shadowed corners of this sacred space, the boundaries between salvation and temptation blur. The cloaked person’s seduction, veiled in the garments of faith, is a dark narrative etched in the margins of sacred texts—a story of deceit and the corruptible human heart.

small white chapel—

a sanctuary of secrets,

deception’s echo

Antoinette LeRoux © 2023

Hour 6: Reality?

I was hurtling headlong into a bottomless bit
Chased by dark, form-shifting shadows
A rumbling shriek of endless agony emanates
from the deepest craters of my inner being
I come to a bone-rattling stop
My hoodie has snarled on a dying branch
Headless wonders floating on cotton candy limbs
surround me chanting in a cacophony of voices
An icy finger extends its gnarled touch to my heart
which by the way stopped pumping moments ago
A haunting melody soulfully stirs my tortured soul
A waif wrapped in an electric blue lightning
twirls in a slow-paced dance of death
my rational brain struggles in vain to make sense
its enmeshed gears crashing in deafening silence
What is real? what is imagined?
What is true? what is false?

Haunted Home (back and forth nonets) – Hour 18, Prompt 18

Home

haunted

a whisper

wafts against skin

tendrils of white, within

a scent mirrors death, old

shivering begins in mold

a flash, something dark lay beyond

something brittle and twisted, lurks on

deeper, a feeling of fear hangs

alone, the heart triple bangs

dread, it’s covered in red

mouth gapes, eyes awake

a last mistake

your soul, will

haunt this

space.

 

– Sandra Johnson, 9-3-2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The care coordinator

Slugs slithering up the front door
8 cats meowing for more
Mosquitos dancing for a bloody cure
And my feet are on the floor
Tired of standing
Strong I will be
Life is demanding
It’s so hard to see
I am fragile
Handle with care
I can feel
Even if it’s not there
Deeply empathetic
I’ll touch your soul
No time to regret it
Just reaching the goal
The goal is to love
And to be loved
Soaring above
The part that’s rough
Take my hand
I’ll take you there
The magical land
Free of despair

Poem 18

Wakefulness is not entirely

eyes open, clear participation

response of the soul.

It is a love letter that is painstakingly

unraveled and rediscovered.

Lovely, pearlescent, and as bright as 

the sunken star.

Lord of the Flyswatter

Hour Seventeen

I am convinced
flies have genetic memory
to the swatter-
dashing through the air
landing upon
naked skin crawling
a constant hum of buzzing
afflicting my quiet.

I pick up the swatter
and the nerve-grinding melody ceases.
I scan the room and cajole them
out from hiding,
eyes narrowed in annoyance
and after a few moments of pause,
I set it down and go about my way.

Preoccupied with my current task,
I forget their existence
and venture further off into my own world
when it so happens to flirt about,
bouncing like a pinball
off surfaces and my being
in an angry squabble of
buzzing interfere to the depths of my thought-
an annoying static-
and disappears.

I bat them off and shrug them away
shooting daggers from my eyes
my features contorted by
my grievance.
I pick up the swatter
and they disperse-
the army of black flies
going AWOL in their defense.

I set it down slowly,
mindful of their presence
and threat to concentration.
One lands upon the table in front of me
zipping along zig-zagged lines
teasing me with it’s curious presence.
I hold tight the handle and slowly raise
holding it aloft like Anne Wilkes
as their number one fan
and blessed is the silence.

The Ravens on the Fence – Hour 18

Some of the best times Mom and I had

as she aged were picking up our weekly groceries

curbside and having hamburgers at Burger King.

It started during Covid.

 

She uses a walker to get around now,

and getting into and out of the car

has become a fairly major ordeal.

Luckily the car is comfortable and cool.

 

They built a new emergency health clinic

right in front of where we park for the groceries,

and we normally have a 10 minute wait.

Grackels, ravens and crows fly over to the fence

 

And look at us with their strange eyes

and head tilts. I read that crows remember

faces, so maybe they are being sociable

with us, and don’t understand our rudeness.

.

Perhaps I should get out sometime

and feed them something.

I do at Burger King. Mom loves the

Bacon King sandwich with its double meat.

 

Crows are omnivores, so we can break off

bits of the hamburger meat

and throw them out the window.

Ravens will grab the meat, too, and dart away.

 

I like to share what I eat with wild life.

Mom, not so much.

She’s of the old fashioned school of thought

when it comes to wild animals and their place.

 

The burger loving crows seem very unafraid.

They fly instantly to the fence by the car

and tilt their heads as if wondering

when the inevitable snacks will start.

 

They and the ravens are pretty saucy about walking

right up to the door, like they would like

an invitation to join us in the car

for lunch. Perhaps they do recognize us.

 

It’s a time of extended drought now.

Maybe I should start carrying a little dish

for water to help the birds wash down the meat.

Seems like the responsible thing to do.

 

 

Hour 18-Disembodied

He didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

They don’t teach disembodiment in school,

or church, in University classrooms,

or in 12 step meetings.

His parents never said a word.

At first he didn’t know anything had happened.

The truth began to present itself

pretty quickly.

Walls that could be moved through.

Friends and family who didn’t answer.

The change was abrupt.

The adapting took much longer.

Flying, interacting.

Avoiding the evil ones.

Helping the young ones.

Making friends only to have them disappear.

There’s a learning curve.

He wished there was a class to attend.

Flying was clunky when you didn’t know how.

Not having a body was a struggle.

The transformation hard to maneuver.

The future increasingly uncertain.

It was much harder being disembodied,

than it looks in the movies.

 

 

 

 

 

24 Hour Poetry Marathon Poem 18: A Tribute to Margaret Atwood “The Noodle”