The Poetry Marathon

03 – Feels Within Do

Heavy weight

Heavy feels

Feels channeled

Feels the bar

Bar cold and knurling digs

Bar clutched, safe in hands

Hands now calloused and worn

Hands steady, energy calm

Calm the storm raging inside

Calm the darkness that I hide

Hide with a smile and a wink and shrug

Hide all the times I wish to see blood

Blood on hands while children weep

Blood of the holy as they slaughter the sheep

Sheep in the pen, trusting and new

Sheep in my head bleating their fear

Fear here is tested

Fear here is real

Real as in terror of limits unknown

Real as in terror of what is below
Below the surface waters churn

Below the conscious a fire burns

Burns the embers, soul alight

Burns the demons that haunt the night

Night vast, dark and deep

Night breaks through what I need

Need explosive power now

Need calls forth the demon here

Here is the time and

Here is the place 30

Place the burden of years on my back

Place my feet steady, ready to attack

Attack the doubts and the dread and the like

Attack with speed and conscious mind

Mind your body

Mind your soul

Soul is rough and trodden and fights

Soul cries out as beauty unfolds

Unfolds with understanding anew

Unfolds to reveal the powerful you 40

You who have beaten the odds to be here

You who never knew when to quit

Quit to save yourself the pain

Quit because you’re afraid of making a name

Name they’ll remember and

Name they’ll use to hold you to what they want you to do

Do what feels good and do what feels right

Do what brings your body to light

Light..

Right..

There Like Atticus – Hour 4

When you were a child

and the wind howled

and the trees rustled

and the dark was scary,

who did you seek out for comfort?

Were they there like Atticus?

He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

 

(Last line from “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, 1960)

Farewell Brownie Banshee

Fly then…
but you don’t fly, little one…
little brown one…
little brownie in my house.

Go count the Safeway clearance grains.
scattered yesterday
to keep you away.

No more crushing of paper
or pounding my drum.

Don’t scurry more
across this fake wood floor.

I came in from the rain!

They made it rain too many times a day
with their hoses with noses
spewing nasty water…
Plus the Mother’s rain that night
I crushed your big paper
between the sofas;
and rattled dirty dishes.

Tried to help, I did!

Not my fault!

Rain, rain! Every day! Rain!
Wet, wet, wet! All the time, wet!
My grass, mushy with sponge rotted roots!

My tree, you see, you see, is dying
from the snot of that dead
rubber snake and its metal noses!

You see the death of it!
Leaves, bare branches, lichen, and moss!
But one! Just one pink flower
this gale season!
A sole fallen blossom.

I taught the snake a new lesson,
little brown one.
The grass will find root.
And your tree will revive.

You found me safe, and
thought you might help;
but I, knowing your type,
and knowing few others of my kind
are so kindly toward yours,
need a quieter home when my guests arrive.

Your bumps in the night,
bad odors when you rage,
odd mews and music,
might scare them away.

So, go, dear Brownie Banshee…
little one who came
just to escape the rain.

Sighted Grace —-Hour 4

The line,”For I see myself with His grace.”
Credit:Thomas Merton

For so long I didn’t know who I was or if the Universe even cared
Years of folly, mistakes racked up
Lost in sin
Either searching for I was
Or escaping from who I am
Only the mistakes glaring
Built a cage of shame
Lost and impoverished conversation with Divine Creator
Only summoned when in crisis
Occasionally shout outs of gratitudes
Blinded for years to Grace
Now with clarity and presence
Looking back and even today
Not only knowing that
God works in mysterious ways,
For I see myself through His Grace

I’ve never even been to Ohio

“He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.”
– Sherwood Anderson, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’

I think whenever you leave a place
you should do so on a rainy day
never a sunny one as those
color perceptions inaccurately

Rainy days give you a better sense
of reality; rain is always going to fall
you are always going to get wet
you just need to be prepared for rain

As a young child, on long car trips
with my parents I would kneel on the
backset, elbows perched on rear dash
as I watched the road, our trip, recede

My mother would admonish me, only
half-joking, to turn around, see where
I was going, not where I had been
it was sound, yet impractical advice

For where I was had been adventurous
which piqued my curiosity for whatever
lay ahead, my expectations most always
lived up to, as I saw everything as new

Rainy days, in particular, gave me a sense of
the rhythm of life; sunny days, cloudy days
times of a few sprinkles of annoyance
days when the downpours washed away…

Traveling in the car also had the advantage
of metrical accompaniment of the wipers
on our boat-sized Plymouth Fury, then on
rainy days at home, I longed for same

I think whenever you leave a place
you should do so on a rainy day
leave the sunshine to its promises
cleanse all with rain on the road

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Cleansing Night

(for hour 4—last-line prompt)

 

Cleansing Night

 

Amid the eruption of the righteous

and night-lighting fires,

their anger finally stokes to overboiling.

A brick crashes through the mechanic’s window

and the traitor is pulled to the street

to pay for his sins;

not only hiding some bigot’s car

but repairing it for the dirty-dollar bribe

to release the carbon-pouting menace

back on the world.

Some triggers cannot be borne.

No matter the perpetrator’s race or creed.

Tom’s shop will hide menace no more.

His magnanimous judges allow him to watch,

allow him to repent and offer alms,

and pray for calm when the morning comes.

 

 

“And pray for calm when the morning comes.” is the last line of Problems in Annady’s Core, book 3 of the Dragons in Space Series by Sandy Lender.

 

Hello everyone!

Hi – my name is Tammie /zhao. l o l , it came out like that so I thought I’d leave it. This way the algorithm might lose again, ha!

I’m finding myself venturing into different pockets of the world – because there are so many!! (and yet, we all settle for celebrating when women’s clothing DOES have pockets)

So here I am.

I am a creative and civic entrepreneur who is in business to be out of business. I believe all the work we are doing present day should have the intention of resolving societal, political, environmental, psychological, industrial etc issues. Otherwise, the work isn’t worth it. Too many of us are working useless jobs making minimal wages and salaries that complement the roaring scarcity mindset that serves no one.

It is essential that we move out of survival mode and into a thriving mindset. It is essential to create opportunities, to share the wealth, to redistribute, re-funnel, to take action in lessening the gap however we can as individuals, because we need to be honest and recognize the government is a piece of shit that has never been here for the non-white and the non-rich.

I’m trying to leave a legacy I can be proud of on this Earth. I hope you are all too.

prompt #4: last line (Dickens’ Carol)

“God bless us, everyone!”

 

 

So the master said (as did the Master

if you believe in him/it/her/them…)

We echo it with the fall of snowflakes.

 

But we don’t, of course.

Bless, I mean. We say that we believe

(although our actions don’t concur).

 

We rape. We steal. We murder children.

None of this rare. None of it new.

Blessings make the news, in fact.

 

So rare are they a 2-carat Arkansas diamond

that we are struck as if by a glimmering

of fireflies, rising from a damp grave.

 

I want more blessings. Not for me

but for the children who are separated

from their homes, from their lives.

 

For the women recoiling in fear

the men beaten into straight submission

those who wear strength like a torn mask.

 

Please, God/Great Spirit/Universe/Gaia

Bless us.

Everyone.

Control. #thepoetrymarathon #prompthourfour

“Possibly with a blank sheet of paper enclosed, by way of explanation.” Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J.D.Salinger.

Tomorrow

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I said.

“No, you won’t,” she said.

“Yes, I will.” “No, you won’t.”

“I always do!” “You never do!”

“You said that yesterday.”

“”Yes I did.”

“But today is today NOT tomorrow! Tomorrow is tomorrow!”

“Are we clear?”