The Poetry Marathon

Hour Four: Could the Truth be so simple? so Terrible?

“Could the Truth be so simple? So terrible?” Tim O’Brien asks,

finally, and the answer is a foregone conclusion, no secrets to hide.

Did he whisk her away to the lake of the woods or in it?

She was his world, he admits. So how could she vanish at his hands,

on his watch when no one was watching, secluded as they were?

She peeled back the veil, her first mistake, and the last of her seen.

 

It could have been the war, the memories, the love, the lost babies,

bayonet babies hanging on the clothes line in a weaver’s yard.

O’Brien’s tale, a mosaic of mown down wives and children in heat,

asks us to remember what he himself cannot forget, wants to dream

away in the river of Lethe, where souls drift loosed from lives lived.

The Sorcerer only giggled at the legions of corpses lining field streams.

Where is he now? Where is she then?  In the Lake of the Woods.

Katsup

Sometimes

A tomato

Gives you ketchup.

And it’s ripe,

And juicy,

And farmers

Use it for

Sauce

I eat

On

Chicken fingers.

And here we are

Stupid

On a catch up

Afternoon.

What to do on a weird day

When your day is weird

Eat a slice of pie,

He said

 

But I don’t have any pie,

I said

 

Take look at a book,

He said

 

But all words make me sleepy,

I said

 

Do something worth doing,

He said

 

But doing something isn’t something,

I said

 

Then what, he asked, do you do on a weird day?

 

I do, I said, something weird.

 

Hour Four

A Little Better

Finding hope in the small wins,
As we strive to be better, do better,
Coming together in love and kindness
We can make someone smile,
Changing their days in ways unknown.

You may not change the world,
But the world is full of little things,
And every little helps,
Knowing we can all make a difference
For a brighter time to come.

Hour 3: The Girl in the Mirror

I hate the girl I see in the mirror

She stares back, I hate her more

Her incomplete story of tarnished desire,

Her tangled mess of thoughts set on fire

 

I hate the girl I see in the mirror

A hate that is light, so light that it creeps in slowly,

Through each crevice, each crack in her mind

And chips away at the girl hidden behind,

The hate, the loathing, peeking through hopes declined

 

I hate the girl I see in the mirror

And she hates me more because I let her forget, forget how to love herself

And remind her only that time traps her in an image of hate,

A resentment I spend years to create

Because it’s easier to hate the girl in the mirror, than let her love who casts the reflection

Another Day (prompt 4, Noon, Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell)

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell did write.

Many readers over the book would delight.

Others waited for the story to come to movie screen,

Where Clark Gable would appear as a dream.

Another day given, choices to be had.

To be angry, to be happy, to be joyful, to be sad.

Some days it may be hard to get out of bed.

A struggle to find ways for in life to get ahead.

Another day to put one foot ahead of the other,

To share kindness, to choose to love one another.

The past can remind us of where we’ve been.

Another day comes for where we can make change,

Tomorrow’s a chance to be different, to hope once again.

A Long Run at Dawn – Hour Two

A long run at dawn begins with a purpose
Where sunlight and courage last meet
Smiles through the tears, as feet hit the pavement
For all those that accepted defeat
Each sunbeam from Heaven, a gift from beyond
With angels carrying the runner with grace
Hope, struggle, faith and of course, bravery
The runner finds strength in his pace
As the morning goes forward
The sun beats down hard
Blistering on the runner below
And yet, he goes onward as if it was winter
Dedication for those now passed on
They were babies and daughters
Nieces, nephews and sons
Each a grandchild or a loving friend
Innocents in this world, dealt the toughest of fates
That battled gallantly til the end
This run at dawn, unlike so many before
Held purpose much greater than life
For this time, the journey meant oh so much more
As he ran for the kids, dealt the strife
Of battling cancer when only in youth
Babies stacked up against a life’s fight
Each step that he took, a journey of truth
To bring each unwell child the light

HOUR 5 Revelation’s Rhapsody

Revelation’s Rhapsody

Accessing his blemished mind, hearing his symphony,
Symphony of words desirous to bring a despot’s pursuit,
Pursuit of one who leads his fallen comrades in misery,
Misery replacing the spoils of war’s victory, faux militia, lead guerilla.

Dyer-Bolique expresses himself, a guarded desire,
Desire drifts into words depicting the major’s fake incarnations,
Incarnations post absence without leave, we commence,
Commence to plot against the scourge of the country.

He speaks, my Dyer-Bolique, and I make my observation,
Observation of his own guarded soldier offering civility,
Civility akin to a passion, incoherent to society,
Society ailing, our uncompassionate guillotine hefty.

The target, veritable thug for hire, identified and chosen,
Chosen as deserving in an undeserving world, subject to it,
It waits beyond nonchalantly, serving its own purpose,
Purpose or pleasure, it matters not for he has sinned.

‘What method?’ I query to his vicious and manipulative self,
Self that must trust, but cannot be trusted, she to his he,
He, the only one who understands, contemplates suffering,
Suffering and its method, I await his decision.

The target set,
The sacrifice found,
Our elation to come,
Our corruption soon fed.

There’s no such thing as an easy job: Book by Kikuko Tsumura, translated by Polly Barton

Is the unnamed narrator also, inevitably, 

An unreliable one? Reader, you only know 

the world that she lays out like cards 

on the table before you. Who knows what 

she hides? Certain ruptures, 

Tuesday afternoon traffic jams,

the inevitable boredom of 3 or 4 a.m.

The story begins at sunrise, she says, 

imploring you to “hope like anything 

it would turn out alright.”

Hour 4 image haiku

a photo of an
image, green rises above
what is night inked dreams