The Poetry Marathon

The Capsule (Prompt 5, 1PM)

Digging in the garden, ready to plant new roses down.

My shovel made a clank, I knelt to see what made the sound.

A small metal box rested there, the length and width of my size eight shoe.

I lifted it out with a smile, whispering, “who buried you?”

 

The lid opened after a few raps from the shovel through and through.

There was a faded picture, a young family smiling brave,

Letters filled the rest of the box, a glimpse into time past.

A childish scrawl when it began, it developed throughout the years.

A few tear stained letters, the writer could not stop the tears.

 

My cheeks wet too as I read the tragedies that struck them down one by one,

A family no more, or were they, I searched upon my phone.

Perhaps I could find one that remained, and help these letters find a home.

 

 

Digital Daze (Hour Three, A Tricube)

Flags unraised,

envelopes

unopened,

 

letters left

unwritten.

Perched upon

 

highest pole,

mailbox now

sits empty.

 

 

(A tricube is composed of three stanzas of three lines each, and each line is made up of just three syllables. I used the writing prompt from Hour One — to write a poem about the end of anything — and used the end of the post office/snail mail era as my subject matter.)

Hour 5 – messy

don’t forget the clutter budget
life is slapdash and loud
pans clatter and you cry at night
sometimes you want to scream
discordant songs are still music
entropy always bites back
smoothing skirts and countertops
will end in wrinkled skin
tears don’t help complexions
but crying can be cathartic
sing every song at once
smile when you can
let yourself be messy
no one’s ever really grown-up
it’s just a silly child’s world
built on legos and elmer’s glue
anyone who says differently is just
playing pretend at perfection
dance like you’re bad at it
but you still want to live

One Worded Oracle

 

Sternly perched upon mine heart

One word echoed unbendingly

True— I said as it would depart

Its one worded reply— almost knowingly

 

For the future made haste

With what was already known

For this one—word embraced

It’s predictability and its only answer found—

 

Lying in the core of my bosom— my left breast

Unyielding— unlike the heavens abode

For it— I said, it always confessed

The very same answer that it had foreshadowed

 

For words then from my own heart

Transformed desiring—its reply

For then when my question was found to depart

Those most truthful words were then the prophecy—

 

Nirvana

Relax, Jack, at day’s end there’s no more strife or duty.

Fill the tub, grab some wine, and jump into the Jacuzzi.

If you wish to merely chill or lift those petty thoughts aloft.

Put your Bosch head phones on and listen to Rachmaninov.

 

Add some Dr. Teal’s Epsom salt and lavender bubble bath

Should tonight you desire to seek elusive Nirvana’s path.

Now dim the bathroom lights, turning them way down low

And bask in the rainbow of an aroma therapy light’s glow.

Soaring – HOUR FIVE

 

Soaring

(Inspired by my painting, SOARING)

 

Above the azure waters

along the granite shores

you soar with screeching, gurgling calls

your feathers glistening white

 

We watch your graceful swoops and dives

With envy in our hearts

to join you in your air ballet

to float above the earth

 

It is man’s dream to be like you

to rise above his plights

to lift on thermals in the sky

away from all his strife

 

Though humankind has found the means

we must depend on mechanical wings

encased in boxes or lifted by kites

not content with earthbound feet

The Last Few Decades

mainlining internet
watch out for brain zaps
automated processes
never trust that
hysteria,
autosave, theta waves,
seconds
till the next craze
what do you dream?
tap now to find it
crunching the numbers
that pulverize, grind it
to powder that pushes
the new drugs through
proteins and neurons
that plead
for more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more

Hour Five

Time Capsule

Years ago, Blue Peter showed a generation
How to make our own time capsules,
Bury them in a shoebox in the back garden,
Filled with stickers, teddy bears,
Action figures and Lego.
Erasers that smelt of bananas,
And pens in multi colours.
Marbles, conkers and skipping rope,
That filled our childhood days.

Years later, what would people think
Of a cardboard box in the ground?
Would pens still be used, marbles exist?
Just thirty years on, how times have changed.
Typing on phones, text speak,
A games online in a cloud –
Social media to keep us all connected.

But Lego has grown and grown,
If we send a mini-figure to the future,
Will they still have a place,
Thirty years from now?

Relics of the Future

The cache in casket buried

Exhumed as a signpost

of immeasurable information

 

Aha! Relics of the future

iPad

iPhone

iPod

iMate

iTV

 

We, the future, are now in the present

Modern army will cultivate

Another capsule

For another farmer

For another rain

2021 #5 – Time

Memories long lost.
Photographs of a simpler time.
A time when a dollar
would get you a lot more.

People were more active,
spending time outside.
Having conversations
with people's faces.

Cross country travel
taking days not hours.
Hard work the norm,
lazy being the minority.

Families lived much closer,
sometimes sharing a living space.
Businesses were family owned,
with good service a necessity.

Oh, the good old days!
Where have you gone?
Buried as this time capsule,
I suppose.