The Poetry Marathon

Welcoming Woods – HOUR ONE

WELCOMING WOODS

(based on my painting, Welcoming Woods)

 

The forest beckons me today

to come and wander and weave

my way through paths of sun-speckled, twisted roots

and sheltering boughs

 

A raven’s shrill call invites me

Deeper,

deeper into his

sacred space

 

Feathered residents

wary of my presence

cry out

hoots and twitters

coos and shrieks –

Are you friend or foe?

 

I settle on the stump

of an ancient oak

its rings of life still solid, strong

 

I close my eyes

Whispering boughs rustle overhead

A gentle breeze kisses my cheek

 

I inhale

The scent of rich moist earth

and fresh pine fills my senses

 

My heart rate slows

to the forest’s rhythm

I am one with the life around me

 

 

 

 

 

 

And So It Begins

And so it begins or so it ends

Clarity, confusion, chaos

All, on your World View, depends

Your World view depends on all you’ve seen,

What you’ve read, and where you’ve been

Are your roots dug deep in words or planted in

The chaos of sin?

Perhaps your roots yanked up just as fresh growth could begin

–Just as life’s understanding desired to expand,

Perhaps your World view moved no further

Than the three-hundred-sixty degrees to be seen from your

Native soil and the exact spot you where were born

Perhaps wanderlust took you far and wide

Allowing you to cast preconceived, and elder taught ideals aside

Wiring so different for creatives and strategists causing divides,

Healing requires putting opinions aside

Your truth is yours to own, and mine is my own,

The foundation, for which, will one day be known

And the consequences individually we own.

 

Hour 1: A Glass Marble

Ralph maintained a humongous
Heap out back.
Not crap. Useful items.
Chaotic to every eye but his.
He could put his finger on
Anything you’d need,
Including an old galvanized trough.

Five-year-old me,
Dropped a glass marble
Into that trough.
It landed with a tink,
Rolled along the bottom,
Randomly,
Making a feeble hollow rumble,

Then stopped.

No one heard but me,
And I quickly lost interest,
Leaving to investigate
Other crannies
Of Ralph’s impressive pile.

Alone

POEM 01

My first apartment and me fifty years old with too much stuff for this tiny enclosure. My heart aches for the house, my house that I lavished years and money and love

on. I miss its coziness. But sometimes comfort is so fleeting and useless. I’ve come to relish the solitude of this musty enclave. The quiet is welcomed after twenty years of Justin’s gargling and spitting.

Strangely I can’t think of any precious moments with him on this move-in day. My Ex, there’s no pleasure in such a claim, but marriages fizzle and people give out, give

up and move on.

I thought I’d reside in a plush house, my house, at fifty. Possessions are relinquished, dissolved, so resolute. All the baubles and trinkets gathered through vibrant years

of  joy and pain with just a smattering of regret, could not fit into this moldy crumbling building. It smells of years of other people, even with the peeling wallpaper having  been replaced.

The tree outside the cloudy paned window has been crippled, painted black to stop its thriving. So nothing thrives here?

Is that the Phoenix perched on the building next to mine? Is it poised to escape the ashes and mount the pale blue sky with thinning clouds to witness the flight? No its

just a metal sculpture of a crane rusted and dead after years of weather and rain.

The bathroom is remarkably bright and white though.; it, will be my refuge.

 

 

The circle’s endings and beginnings (reverse poem)

Endings.

Peace and quiet.

They’re anything but,

The raging storm that breaks through a ship.

They’re the grand culmination that completes your journey.

I would be lying if I ever dared to say to you that,

I hate them with my whole heart.

I adore them so.

I look in the mirror as I lie that,

Endings are just chaos and fire reigning the town,

Bringing the circle to a close.

But a circle does not end,

But a circle does not begin,

Sketching the first dot of the circle.

Mishaps and everyone finding their footing.

I’d be lying if I say that beginnings are only,

Small gasps of surprise and happiness.

They’re taxing and eating through your soul.

They aren’t just the first thing that comes to mind that,

They’re the adrenaline keeping you young.

Leaving your comfort space you call home.

They’re anything but,

Peace and quiet.

Beginnings.

NOW READ IT BACKWARDS! It’s a reverse poem.

~thryaksha 

Care En(d)

Here’s to getting that last bit

About how we were the better men

Losing not to the dark swell

Of hate and fear

But to the shining goal of being right

Even if we were wrong all along

We were right in our persistent notion

Self-righteous in the face of self-sacrifice

We were better men because we faced fear

Without pause and without care

Without care

We faced death and coughed

Hour 1 in 2021

Yay it’s a new year time for some new poems!! We will see how many I title XD

Hour 1

Endings

 

I heard it when they said “hello”

Felt the goodbye waiting in each sound

I tasted it in the tea I drank

The flavor of them leaving

I read it in a letter finished with love

Curved letters and a period to make note

I shouted it in joy before knowing

Sensed something was off but didn’t know

Constellation

Constellation

 

There are no stars

to define me

anymore.

HOUR 2 The Manifestation in Reflection

The reflection of my own fiend insatiable

Poem 1: Three Secrets, All Firsts

Three Secrets, All Firsts

I met Daryl McKnight in a shack at the dump on my last day

in Greeley. The moving truck was already packed with our home.

What does it say that my first kiss was a goodbye kiss?

Should I have seen the omen? What did I want to give away

besides the awkward press of our lips? I barely remember

the kiss, but can still picture the Black Widow

close by in the corner of the shed. I’d never seen a Black Widow before.

It took years before I realized how dangerous love is.

The first time I had sex, Glen and I were at a friend’s apartment

in El Paso’s east side. We went upstairs to Baron’s room

and took a shower. Together. Naked. I can’t remember how we ended up

under that stream of water, but I remember the shock

of his penis – the first I’d seen, and this one I confronted

up close and in person. Do all young women find

a penis a freaky animal at first? The first time

I got married, the invitation said we’d marry

“under the desert sky” — it was January, and the willow tree in our yard

was barren of leaf, so I tied a hundred colored ribbons to the branches.

The breeze lifted lifted them slightly above us. No matter how much

we decorate what is barren, that doesn’t bring it to life. I stood apart

on the patio after the ceremony and thought I just made a big mistake.

Please don’t tell anyone I shared this. No one needs to know

I started my marriage with regrets.