The Poetry Marathon

4 Waffle Stompers

Soles of rubber

Able to make waffles

Should one walk across

A layer of batter then

Dip just enough on to a

Hot cast iron pan

 

A day’s work in stompers

Presents at home in the kitchen

Leaving small squares of

Soil molded in patterns

Sweeping the floor

Becomes a meditation

 

High work boots

Laces tied almost to the top

Then wrapped around

ankles for support

Left in the mudroom

Brought into service at morning

 

Useful beyond the job

Once retired an object

To be considered as art

For Alaskans no better planter

Can be found holding

Bright greens and yellows

 

After he was gone

She kept them in the barn

Painted splattered mismatched laces

The occasional hole in leather

Looking at them was enough

Her soul waited for the flowers

Love

Like gossamer silk
Like honey unfiltered
Like jam in doughnut
Like air refreshing
Like mist at dawn
Like red rose petals
Like sweetness, beauty and goodness combined

Beyond the Voice

I try to smile back,
but I’m so flustered
that I frown at him instead.(Nicola Yoon)
Beyond his understanding
His little mind in turmoil
For lack of words
He cannot say.
His expression
An anguished scream of frustration
The only way he can communicate.
Sign his first language
It’s hard to find a way to say
Everything his little mind
Tries to convey.
Where did autism come from
Anyway!
Beyond the words he cannot say
“I love you”
Those three little words
That make my day.

Rebelí

Hour 4 (2021)

Cloaked in fog
I wander through the woods
where time seems to slow down
and almost reverse.
I feel young again.
I feel free at last.
The weight of city lights
just melts away.
I can breathe.
I wonder if I should even go back.
The city didn’t call to me
like the woods do.
The city screams.
The forest whispers.
I only have ears for one
and yet, I hear both.
So, I wander and I wonder
in woodland wanderlust.
Trying to find home.

To Be Loved

To be loved

to feel cared about

to know love

to listen

and hear love

That’s life with love.

Viva La Vida

Because nobody else will.

Those nostalgic days of yesteryear forever

seared into my memory have become

indelible symbols of the ornate uniqueness of

existence.

 

How many times did we play soccer during lunchtime

or go ice skating without any skates?

Commandeering the slide for our own glorious purpose

and swinging up to endless heights.

Dunking on our own hopes and dreams and

carving our own niche in a world that could never comprehend what it truly means to be alive.

 

Through the summits and bases,

we never lost that childlike wonder that defines us.

Because it’s eternal.

Because we were out there searching for a meaning

that was right in front of us the entire time.

Ingredients – 4 of 24

Is your woman made of glass?
If you put your hand through her,
do you bleed out with shards of her
in your wrist? Perhaps a window
to look out and see your luxury,
or a decanter from which
you drink your death.

Is your woman made of wood?
If you slice her and peel off the bark,
do you have a set of stools
for all of your drunk friends?
Perhaps best paired with a table
made out of your first wife.

Is your woman made of silver?
Is she the world’s best conduit,
making a socket or a locket
equally dangerous for your hands?
A thoughtful gift if boxed
and included with a portrait
in a matching silver frame.

Is your woman made of mint?
Does she pair with mojitos
and lamb? Does she freshen
the back of your throat?
Green in this life,
the mild astringent.

Alchemy

He takes my ores
Smelts them within
The blast furnace of my core
The rod reddened from
The heat of fever dreams
Quenching the tip
In the expanse of my waters
Enclosed within his earth.
Boiling over to subside to warmth.
How love changes
From soft to hard
From fervent to calm
And from there to gone
Hammering away at my own
Failed attempts
At metallurgy
Yet somehow he found a way
To turn my iron gall heart
To gold
And write away with the soft metal
Poetry to line my heart.
I find myself grinding away at stone
To sharpen my iron edges
But he has plans to mold me
Within his soft alchemist hands
molding his love between them
And thus I wake still in the ground
Waiting for the pick to mine my iron core
To take me in pieces
smelt them together
And fashion himself a heart of gold-
to match his own.
Until the day the gilded sunlight
Strikes and polishes my surface, he finds me
And I know the truth in time
someday
“He is coming, and I am here.”*

*The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

To Quit–or Not to Quit

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, by Jenny Lawson, gifted to me by HL Contreras, also an author.

“Because quitting might be easier, but it won’t be better.”

 

It won’t be better, I tell myself again,

as I pour the diet dressing—and ignore the ice cream cake.

It might be easier, I remind myself,

pedaling past the point of sweat—for another 2 minutes.

Nothing will taste as good as healthy feels.

Nothing will feel as good as buying smaller clothes.

 

It won’t be better, my inner voice chides,

As I edit one more time—and kill off ‘my darlings’.

It might be easier, I remind myself,

Finding just the right word—and birthing a line that says more with less.

Nothing will read as good as well-written.

Nothing will feel as good as well-read.

 

It won’t be better, wanting to quit,

As I keep weeding the flower bed—making room for new roots.

It might be easier, but…

ignoring the lawnmonster—leaving the meadow for the pollinators.

Nothing will bloom without nurturing.

Nothing is nurtured without effort.

 

Listen to the whispers.

Better is better.

Quitting is not easier.

Apart

You are my darkness
clothed in red
I am you rain
clothed in green

You yell
I silence
Both filled with pain
Both dust and cries
Not the distance

The gap
will keep us forever
Apart