The Poetry Marathon

1904

Waking up from a deep slumber

I checked the time – 9:40 

And so I stood up 

Stretching my arms and legs 

Until I heard the crack from my back 

The X mark reads June 26, 2021

Today is the day, 

To put an end to this nightmare

I discarded my PJ’s 

To the mirror, I stared 

The dark circle of shining bags below my eyes 

Quickly to the shower, I ran

Leaving with my rain boots and my working clothes 

Onto the shores by the river I crept

A grumpy road with a shovel at hand

Ready to dig and dig 

To dig up the places I’ve seen 

And dreamt of in my dream 

Although it sometimes comes

In flickering flashes and annoying trances

Of sparkling revelation and detailed memories 

What will I find? 

What treasure will it be?

I lifted my face to the moon 

The full moon glowing from the night sky 

What will I find? Indeed

And so I went, as if in a dream

To the palm tree 

That has the moon on its peak 

To my knees, I knelt

Spreading my hands bringing up sands 

I got the shovel 

To the dirt, I poked and poked

Dug and digged

Eureka!

Alas! a little wooden battered box

With a tiny keyhole on its edges

Gladly I grabbed the box and  shovel 

Off I ran into my house 

Staring at the box in silence 

And from my neck, I removed the key 

The one my father had once given me before he died 

Click, it opened 

There I found a letter all letter

 

Dear, you,

 For if you find this letter let it be known to you that it’s time to leave for you have gone around in a circle like Sisyphus if you don’t act accordingly there will you go one repeatedly, repeatedly I say I sent this in the year of 1904. You think I am lying let it be known unto you that when you open this letter on a day as this June 26 2021 find the clue, find your way it’s all in the house. You need to get out of there your life isn’t of Sisyphus it is yours. 

Dear, you need to realize that you are me get out of that funk you or me.

 

And so it happened I fainted.

21~5

Down~

Down~~

Down~~~

~In the ground~~~

~~~A blast from the past~~

~~A diamond was found~

Oh, how it sparkled!

Oh, how it shined!

~So happy to find~

This lost earring of mine!

The Fifth Hours’ Dimension

“Hey man when you’re singing it, it’s your song.” Townes Van Sandt

up,
down,
sideways,
time
tiny looping superstrings
shadows ripple on the river that only fish can see
all the while we feel the tidal pull of time
and when you’re singing it, it’s your song.

Sky blue

I wanted to be a Cosmonaut

because Yuri Gagarin is a more melodious name

than John Glenn, because the Soviet

artists depicted outer space like poetry

rather than like science. 

The first woman in space,

also a Cosmonaut, 

coincidentally romantically named

Valentina. She radioed down 

from her solo flight: “It is I, Seagull! Everything is fine. 

I see the horizon; it’s a sky blue with a dark strip.” 

Hour 5, Prompt 1: Time Capsule

What would I learn

if I listened closely to the Earth?

If I laid down, first lowering myself

onto hands and knees,

prostrating myself 

until my stomach and soft cheek 

kiss the ground? 

If I press one ear 

into the grass,

would I hear the business

of the creatures who live there 

and learn what it’s like to see

a single drop of rain fall

from the tip of a bright green leaf?

If I sunk my hands into moist, cool soil

could I coerce it to give way

in handfuls of rich, thick blackness?

 

Tell me of the lives that have walked this land

of the ones who baked bread and bricks

who hunted and read the stars

followed herds and rushing rivers to the ocean.

Show me their stories 

sing to me the rhythms and prayers

of those who slept and fought 

and fucked and worked

and hurt and strived

and felt and laughed

And played. 

 

One day, my bones will join them

in sleep well beneath the surface 

of modern life.

For now, I excavate–

listening to the voices 

that rattle and whisper 

inside my own skeleton

And see that I am the time capsule.

How to Create a Happy Place

Pondering how one would create a “happy place” and

find respite from the onslaught of stressful arrows shot at us.

Twenty-four hours a day I am exposed to

an environment affected by people, elements, inventions,

animals domestic and wild.

Perhaps it would be in a hot-air balloon, drifting on soft breezes

over the rolling hills and emerald green pastures of Tennessee.

Perhaps it would be wiggling my toes in soft

white sand of a Caribbean island.

Perhaps it would be face down, towel-draped, receiving

a healing massage from the love of my life.

More than likely it includes listening to harp guitars while

swinging in a wide hammock under a pair of sweet maples,

soft breeze blowing across my brow as I write to the music.

Nevertheless, I know there will be stressors to affect even that place.

This writer thinks turning inward to listen to the

Voice of my Creator will be most successful as a “Happy Place”

 

Time Capsule (Hour 5)

Unearthed in the backyard, a Folger’s coffee tin containing:

One rusted bicycle bell,

A cracked New Kids on the Block cassette,

Two pink and yellow friendship bracelets,

Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers,

Folded lined-paper hearts and triangles,

A faded polaroid of two girls wearing neon,

hair in ponytails with scrunchies,

arms wrapped around each other,

smiling silver.

 

 

 

Poem 04 – Memento Mori

Death came knocking last night, sat beside me
All scythe and cloak and darkness
Myself wading through existence
Swimming, even, adrift perhaps

Struggling to accept beauty for some time
I viewed him with curiosity
And maybe a little bit of contempt
“You took my Makaze from me, you know”

They grinned a toothsome grin, wryly provided a retort
“Life is a gift, you know”
There was a long pause; you see
I wasn’t so sure, with its repetitious days

Silhoutted memories of love and passion
Danced in the voids of my mind
Punctuations of pain and a struggle for meaning
“It is what you make of it, and it’s for the living.”

We sat together in silence, again, for some time
“So I guess this is good bye?”
“For now”, they intoned, standing up
“I prefer au revoir,” he said.*

* – credit to Sir Terry Pratchett, adapted final line in “Mort”

SQUIRRELLY

SQUIRRELLY

We climb to earth, upside down, heads first, tails up, bushy and last – like a flag proclaiming its territory, here, coming, watch! as our feet touch the earth, and we’re dashing, bounding, nearly bouncing, but softly, so lightly you could be forgiven for thinking we’re hovering, resplendently, traveling the the air’s currents across the lawn, then bam, up up another tree, mouths first, acorns as proud heralds.

prompt 3 – repetition

if you tell yourself often enough, all of it can be true

from waist size to waste sizing up the spaces

open to spill into

and take over

until the next moments cannot be contained

in over-flowing graves

filled with secrets everyone knew

 

if you tell yourself often enough, all of it can be true

in between the silences after confessions

of horrors even God couldn’t see

under the black and white curtains of righteousness –

or hate

sometimes I can’t keep them straight

or separated into columns on lying ledgers

stained with Indian ink

on the fingers of all those who count copper pennies

kept in porcelain so the other piggies couldn’t see how

if you tell yourself often enough all of it can be true when

all of them get to press their hard noses against the soft cheek of Christ

whispering those truths told often enough

all of it can be yourself, too.

(c) r. l. elke