The Poetry Marathon

Intro

Hi folks!

My name is Alex Aimee Kist and I am thrilled to join the Poetry Marathon for the first time this year. I am joining from SoCal, though I am originally from Salem, MA. The past year and a half, while difficult in an abundance of ways, has given me the freedom and confidence to pursue growth in my writing. This is certainly the type of challenge I need to push myself.

I have a few poems being published soon, I will drop the info in a later post. I cannot wait to see what everyone has to share.

Do you remember.

Do you remember those days

Where we would share a coded gaze

Filled with secrets only we could understand

And others couldn’t comprehend

 

Do you remember a time

When we could read between the lines

And know when the other was feeling down

Through the smile we’d see a frown

 

Do you remember once

When being together would enhance

All the fun and joy we had

Because it was moments we shared

 

Do you remember when

You were my friend

Do you remember those days

Before we went our separate ways

Goodbye

 

Beautiful reasons,

Wondrous mindsets 

Blooming insight

Inducting memorials 

Marking beginnings 

Making territories 

All in attempts and impromptu 

Fast-paced thoughts

Enormous headaches 

Unrelating schemes 

Piercing schedules 

Shedding task 

Managing to dos

Insomic nights 

Weary eyes 

Increasing medications 

Non-stop caffeine

Fizzing sights breaking darkness

The Gift of an Oklahoma Summer Rain

The Gift of an Oklahoma Summer Rain

 

Starts with claps of thunder,

cracks of lightening,

shock and awe at dawn.

Rain in sheets pelts the roof,

water blows sideways at walls and windows.

Easy to pretend we’re vacationing

in Haiti during a brief hurricane.

Niagara Falls on the front porch

from the leaky downspout.

Plants soak up moisture,

cracks in parched dirt absorb liquid

like expensive skin cream,

becoming smooth again.

One lone bird chirps out,

“Can’t take much more of this!”

Raindrops slow, other birds chime in,

“Holy shit! What was that?”

Clouds pass, sky lightens.

Birds shout, “Let’s eat!”

We hear trickling sounds,

intermittent drops hit puddles and leaves.

Storm brings cooler temperatures.

Can sit outside awhile before

sun bakes us again in the summer kiln,

worried our glazes will crack,

risking second degree burns,

from touching the steering wheel,

making grass dry and crispy,

clothes and hair droopy and soggy.

 

Omen

I keep returning my eye to the bare, multi-pronged tree stump,
whose status as a living object is questionable
near where the metal Phoenix is working hard to gain
enough momentum to leave a place
without a lick of greenery to soothe the soul
and where the 12 pane windows still intact reflect
the whiteness of the nearby building and the mostly
dark hues of close by structures while the clouds
without the sharpness of the angled lines below it
are dissolving into the steel grey sky
and making their way stage left before
everything beneath it unravels

Apocalyptic Endings – hour 1

Apocalyptic endings
Mass extinction all the way
People think they’re rarities
But they happen every day
Within the souls of people
Passing on the street
You wouldn’t know to look at them
It could be anyone you meet
The kid who sells you coffee
Whose smile can’t touch his eyes
The old man in the pouring rain
Holding a cardboard sign
The chick who’s always cracking jokes
With a laugh that’s never real
The counselor helping everyone
Who’s forgotten how to feel
The point is, you can never know
What’s on another’s mind
What apocalypse they’re dealing with
So remember to be kind.
~Mandy Kocsis©2021~

Hour One, An Ending

Post Cursive

My hand flows with ease across the page,
connected rhythmic hills and valleys,
a mountain chain on a page linking hand and mind
from this present day
at my kitchen table
in the middle of my life
to a childhood classroom,
chalk dust in my nostrils
and thick, lined tablets and a stubby pencil
in a blonde pony-tailed little girl’s splayed fingers,
new tools awkwardly grasped while
furtively licking the acrid, freshly sharpened tip,
then scrawling for the first time the shapes
that would later come to define me.

Long years would pass,
years splintered, flayed, and broken
by circumstance and randomly cruel tragedy
beyond the child, girl, woman’s control,
but
smoothed, straightened, and sutured
by lines on a page,
flowing from mind to hand.

I watch the fuzzy, near transparently blonde
head of my grandson
bent over his work
at my kitchen table,
small splayed fingers grasping
his black digital tablet,
images, ideas, and thoughts of others
inserted between his mind and hand,
and I mourn a loss
he does not yet feel.

 

 

Labour

The gloom and doom,

With ink splattered on their face

And elbows covered in grease

Firelight sparkling behind their eyes

A myriad of emotions and colours

Peel the blackness tied on their eyes

Peel the death and hunger

Peel their shredded clothes

Bruised and cut and bleeding and burnt

The rust of their blood

And steel of their veins

Pulsating, boiling, spilling

Hot red blood

And running to their blood shot eyes

And bloody parched lips

Lips scarlet with alcohol

Knuckles purple with want

And crying tears of hunger

 Streaked with blood.

1. Some Things Ending

“Talk about something ending.” He started.

“That’s broad” I thought.
Phone plan
My lease
I don’t know… everything ends…

Buying diapers
formula, babyfood
sippy cups
those little puffy crackers
with bananas on the tube…

back to school clothes
new backpack, lunchbox, fresh pencils
yellow boxed crayons with the built in sharpener on the back

Santa stuff!     Santa stuff…

acne creams
soapsgelsscrubsmasks video games
more food than you ever thought
one human could consume
noteworthy tennis shoes

That first car.

college tuition
off campus housing
packages from home of even still more food

his part: the tux;
the last most food he will ever ask you for.

“Maybe these are more inevitables
than endings,”
I ponder to my empty except me room, “though they do end.”

She liked pink blankets after he went over, and eating only nonmeals

non utencil meals

finger foods

but not wings. Wings were their thing.
Everything was their thing
until everything ended… inevitably.

Sixty one years of endings together
five more for her alone.
Five more of diapers
formulas
sippy cups
little puffy crackers
with fish on the carton

sophisticated coloring books

malomars

Malomarsmalomarsmalomars…

White Lilies

That spot right next to him
with the view they chose together.

A Life Past

This morning a life is past.
Looking back on joy, on passion,
On loss, on ache,
We see reflections of times
In the ever moving waters.
The ripples changing scenes
Shifting currents of dreams.
Some rocks are polished,
Others ground to sand.
Lapping waves quenching dry land.
Cupped hands reach out,
Grasping a drink for one.
It’s quickly gone
For this life is now done.