The Poetry Marathon

I’m a monster #18

Spectres of monsters past
Shades of Jabberwok
And Babaduk
Visit me in the wee hours
Old monsters spent and tired
Who’ve long since lost
Their frightening power
But another monster rises up
From the depths to take their place
Rapacious and malevolent
With distilled malice and ill intent
And an all too familiar face.
I can only see him by candlelight
In the mirror past midnight
I’m deathly afraid of who he might be
Because his face looks just like me
He whispers never to fear monsters again
Those monsters who look just like men
And tells me a secret as if with glee
The most frightening thing in all the dark
Isn’t him, it’s me.

H18.P18

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I feel your breath in my air

In my empty bed, my empty room

Your scent reachs me from beoynd

A mix of hunger, rose and mint

Crawling up my nostrils

Into my memories, pulling out tears

Dreams and nightmares crowd my body

My heart thumping, sense strung on nerves

Waiting for you to appear

Crow hour/prompt 18

Crow

creative problem-solver, undaunted by human encroachment,
she uses traffic lights to crack her nuts and gather them only when traffic is stopped,
prophetic symbol of transformation, soaring on wings of freedom
linking the living and the dead, with gratitude.

messenger of Lord Yama, ruler of death and justice. beware should one harm the crow, for she will remember.
time has come for healing and respect for what you might have taken for granted. the karma mirror reflects one’s destiny. each day a gift until your final resting.

Weight, Hour Eighteen

Weight

A family trip across the whole of the United States
when I was six years old
at one point in our journey brought us to an ancient pueblo,
once subterranean but now open to the sky.

It no longer had a name,
nor a living people to dwell within,
its ancestral walls were broken, sunlight streaming through,
yet it inspired the anthropologist I would one day be.

I approached it cautiously with my mother,
carefully traversing the rock strewn terrain
as best my small limbs could manage
until we found the entrance.

We stepped inside, and my childish chatter was stilled,
a respectful hush maintained merely by its gravity,
though my young mind could not yet consciously comprehend
its meaning, I felt the weight of centuries of humanity in this small space.

Voices of the past seemed to keen on the wind
that piled desert grit up its sides ever more with each passing year,
and the combined souls of thousands spoke to my own,
an awareness I carry in memory to this day.

Hour 18 – A Spectral Soul

In twilight’s realm, where shadows play

A ghostly figure fades away

A specter from a distant past

In whispers, memories steadfast.

 

A wisp of life, once bound to earth

Now wanders, seeking second birth

In spectral form, it haunts the night

A spirit caught between the light

 

With eyes that hold eternal pain

A ghost relives its earthly chain

A tale of love, or vengeance sworn

In death, its purpose still reborn

 

It drifts through time, a silent wraith

Invisible to life’s bright faith

A reminder of what once was real

A haunting presence, time can’t heal

 

Though death has claimed its mortal frame

The ghost endures, a lingering flame

In the cosmic dance of fate’s grand host

A spectral soul, a timeless ghost.

 

© Divya Venkateswaran

Hour 20 “Renaissance Fair…”

Hour 20

9/3/2023

 

“Renaissance Fair…”

 

The Garb …hell yeah, ’tis the Garb

and the “steel’ of yesteryear

outside,

inside

heart and whim.

 

It means a different world

earned respect and civility.

Rule of Law and responsibility.

Making with pride

Living in the moment

existing beyond our sad norms

and reaching for echoes of freedom.

 

We wander the times

’til the new “thens” become our “nows”

and yes, we DO miss the smiles we leave behind

…as we exit the parking lots.

 

Chris

(C) Chris Twyford 9/3/2023

“Banned Book”

Hour Eighteen: Haunting

This library book must be long overdue, because I remember when you took it out years ago,

Too ashamed to take it back? I’ll carry it for you. No? Why not? Don’t touch it?Don’t open it, don’t look in its center. Well I just did, so there.

You’re kidding! Come back here!

My ears aren’t ringing, I’m hearing an internal song, never heard it before, but it goes on and on “It’s only a book. It’s only a book. My fingers are cramping, it’s only a book. It’s only a book, my chair just shook, it’s only a book, it’s only a book. My fingers are cramping, and my arm is taking the shape of a hook. Oh, it’s one of those banned books. DMW

Hour 18 – Ghostie-Ghost, Come Out Tonight

Ghostie-Ghost, Come Out Tonight!

Arms linked
We marched around the yard
Shouting and shivering
In fear, in the dark

One o’clock – no ghost!
Two o’clock – no ghost!
Three o’clock – no ghost!

Somewhere in the bushes
Or around the next bend
A companion waited
To jump out and scare us

Ten o’clock – no ghost!
Eleven o’clock – no ghost!
Twelve o’clock – Ghostie-Ghost! Come out tonight!

Having played both roles
I now wonder which was scarier:
Looking for the “ghost” in the midst of a gang
Or waiting to make the scare – alone

Hour 18: Pitcher Plant

A pitcher plant attracts its prey

With the smell of sweet nectar

And bright, beautiful colors

So the naive insect

Falls through a trapdoor

Into a pool of fluids

And there it is broken down

 

Your smile

Your laugh

Your honey-sweet words

All nectar calling to me

Ignoring the slippery pitfall

Until I was neck deep in your poison

“Whelve”

I run across an abandoned place,
On a signed erased by rain across the road.
The house stand still despite it aged,
The squeaking sounds and random cracks
Breaks the silence.
The old house speaks its language.
It tells a story of an orhpanage
On how this place used to be a saving grace
Of kids who’s been abandoned by life
Or people’s escspe from a knife.
One day, they said one burned the
And all this place was burn down.
Some kids were trapped
Their screams and shouts
Remains in an eerie quietness of the place.
People whelve on the story
But i kept it as a mystery.
An unforgotten memory
Haunting me,
Once more.

 

Text Prompt : Write a poem about a haunting, real or imagined, detailed, abstract.

 

#POETRYMARATHON2023 #HOUR18 #24HRSCATEGORY