The Poetry Marathon

7 / A Viator

A Viator

 

My friend Anya brings down flies with Windex

But whatever happened to Amelia remains a mystery.

Aviator, aviatrix: what do we call her and Bessie Coleman?

Although I am a feminist, Sully Sullenberger III

 

Is my favorite aviator because he made me cry:

My friend Anya brings down flies with Windex

But I was wiped out on the elliptical at the gym,

watching the overhead TVs as he landed on the Hudson.

 

We’d all like to think we are aviators when it comes

To love, sex, morality, money, and driving—but,

My friend, Anya brings down flies with Windex:

Your polarizing confidence is insufficient armor.

 

The sky is a highway to the danger zone, Kenny says,

And nobody can deny Tom & Joe look great in aviators.

Politics, paparazzi, scientology: something comes for us all.

My friend Anya brings down flies with Windex.

 

 

(“Viator” prompt)

Hour 13-2023: What We See

What We See

I see you.

You see me and everything in between.

Spiders are everywhere.

Avocado leaves make undulating shadows.

Ten to be exact.

Like a perfect hand of bananas, they sit contently on their stalk.

Mint scented geranium tiny flowers are also in bloom.

Lavender edges the side in a pot of simple blue and white Chinese porcelain that you thought once perfect for a solo strawberry that did not make it past spring.

Adjacent below standing tall are two ginger pots adorned with two lions as if hand dipped in a finish of forest green like a hard-shelled dairy queen cherry or chocolate dollop treats.

These two pieces once inspired me inside my home and now I think like me they long to spend the second half of life outside, to be weathered by the elements and surrounded in greenery with fresh air and raindrops.

Perennials bloom now in September. Can this be attributed to the rare super blue moon?

A baby cries or was it a cat? It is hard to tell. Yet you can’t wait to have your own, a baby that is.

You might be allergic to cats and dogs. You respect them like the sea and keep your distance and admire them from a far. Yet, only in the sea will disregard inhibition and go all in.

You remember that the right person can alter your entire thought process on subjects like this when the  love is just so.

Still I wonder.

So grateful to bathe in the sun especially when instrumental covers of popular songs build up the cadence as you write in the background.

You can’t remember the last time you allowed the hair on your legs to grow without boundary unlike the smooth skin under your arms that caress your favorite body pare the shoulders.

The mind can not wander on thoughts of him as you must write and your silent reward his to hear him voice and he yours.

Finger crossed.

 

Hour 23

A world that is not this one 

Does not come with rainbows and butterflies 

Everywhere I go.  

A world that is not this one  

Does not need magic and witches 

And princesses and fairytales.  

A world that is not this one 

Does not come with peaceful territorial disputes 

And no weapons and no war.  

A world that is not this one  

Does not want to be painless,  

An imbalanced utopia.  

The world that is not this one 

Simply has me living with my heart on my sleeve 

Never fearing regret or living in excuses or  

Being surprised when the pain goes away.  

Tax Day

Tax Day

 

once a year

their taxes are due

 

they come to me

receipts all askew

 

forms galore

they’re not sure

 

can I claim this

how about that

 

no sir, you cannot claim

your cat

 

aren’t’ my crumb crunchers

worth a bit more

 

please, help me tax lady

I’m paycheck poor

the path

the path

 

the path

she ponders

glimmering before her

 

she must step through the shadows

of doubt

clutching her fear

 

glimpsing, on what

could be

words on poetry

 

Hour 22: Poem About Pizza

Life is like a box of pizza 

You never know which piece 

Will burn the roof of your mouth.

Hour 20: Ritual

My life is a ritual,  

Living each moment in precise, calculated strokes 

to avoid veering towards a path of misguided sanity.  

 

6 / Hipster Hiker Haiku

Hipster Hiker Haiku

 

Name-brand everything:

green hat pants coat bag pack &

meticulous beard

 

(response to image prompt)

Hour 21

Running away from that  

Which no longer serves me 

Is the same as turning away  

From everything I know to be true 

And I can never stop running.  

Hour 19: Autumn

My skin is made of smoke 

Floating among an abyss of stars 

Falling from trees with hues of crimson and maroon,  

white rays reflected in glittering  

Waves, a sea of unknown tranquility.