The Poetry Marathon

Hour 1 -They All Say…(Image prompt)

When I rise from the ashes

just a box of matches

With flames on my lashes

Thingsll be better

no more scars no more gashes

Flying along while somebody bashes

Everything I’ve said

Everything I’ve done

But I’ve won

Haven’t I?

That’s just it

They’re full of shit

And isn’t it

Funny how even now

Clear skies can quickly turn gray

Filling me, meeting my dismay

memories of the past in my way

Of the days when I had no say

Pulled apart day by day

but that’s gotta be over

You have to die to be reborn

Live with things you’ve always sworn

Not to forget about

I still feel tired, look so worn

Heavy, tearstained, forlorn

Forgetting the past, it ain’t me

Don’t care about the wings, I ain’t free.

And I’ll be pulled down when the sun sets

Just the shadow to a Phoenix

Ashes in the wind.

Hour One, 2021

Hour One of 2021 Marathon

In January 2021 I began the journey
hundreds of miles trekking in pilgrimage
to a virtual Santiago amid the small houses
of my safe community where invisible threats
came into the very air we breathed.

An e-route with guideposts and imagined sunflowers
along with hundreds of miles opened before me
as I walked darkest mornings
when the owl perched in my front yard
harmonized with the train whistle miles away.

The road continued
as I walked tired in the afternoons
following students’ queries and fears and hopes
their zoomed voices echoing odd harmonies
with birds and barks of surrounding houses.

A few evenings I walked a few more steps
as the sun shone upon iced winter roads,
muddy spring parks, and now summer’s opening fields.
Today no harmonies come from increasing traffic,
crowded stores, drowned out animals’ cries, my heart.

One hundred final on this pilgrimage
now open before me, and the ultimate arrival
will take me back to my classrooms, into the chaos,
buildings and streets busier and filled with people
clamoring with unsettled nerves and angst.

My journey has been sad.
Steps upon steps were designed for intentional peace.
Discovering stillness full of painful, tender unknowns,
I’m older and wizened from the pivots and strains.
Miles remain as I finish this journey.

Escape

Escape
Between the mute mansions
light and shade plays out
letting an unknown prisoner
escape in the alley
and sore up to the sky

Hour 1

@varenyas

Sad but Needed

I knew it was coming.

Everyone did.

Fluttering leaves showed the way.

Flowers bloomed in place.

The moon cycled.

Nevermore blessed.

I needed to see it through.

Icarus’s Shadow

I saw the shadow of Icarus on the wall
Did he know he was not the first to fall
Hubris… pride… arrogance… hardly new concepts

He stretched his fingers up high
Trying so hard to touch the sky
To touch something far beyond his precepts

He was young and he would live forever
With wings they fashion of wax and feather
No knowing the gods are jealous of their creation

They sit in the sky on iron thrones
Imprisoned by their own gravestones
And wishing that they could also reach for ascension

Wax will melt and men with fall
Forgetting that it comes to us all
And certain that we will be immortal

As he fell down, I saw his shadow
Black on the fields in the valley so low
Unprepared… unwilling… unaware… of the cost

Fruition -Haiku (Hour 1)

Fruition -Haiku 

By: LuvMiFreely

(Hour 1)

 

Never left without

What is meant for you will come

You will smile again

The beginning #thepoetrymarathon #prompthourone

It was a beginning of sorts

Only I had no idea where I was going

Or where the roads would lead.

Uncharted lands, the tiny path

That twist and turned upon itself

Into the woods in the mist-ridden

Hills where you once walked.

I heard not the birds singing

Nor the clanging doom of death

As it loomed into your bedroom

Tripping over our toes, I only felt

Your hand as it left mine, forever.

 

Death, when it came was a relief,

It was etched upon the peace in your face

As lines were forever erased

Along with your smile, the gold of your voice

It was no ending, as I said

It was only the beginning

Of a lifetime spent without you

A lifetime spent listening for a voice…

…that only I can hear.

How Many Did That Make Now?

A laughter,

carefree, happy, unrestrained,

used to ring out

in bustling halls.

It never reached many others

before getting lost

in the crowd

of similar sounds.

But it was there.

Now it’s not.

The bustling seems quieter somehow…

 

how many did that make now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem 1 Hour 1 Image Prompt 1 In My Dreams By Ingrid Exner

In my Dreams I Soar-

Phoenix-like I rise above,

buildings reaching toward,

Sky dotted with clouds.

Delicate wings flap-

Lifting—Propelling—Soaring

through space.

 

Dreamy clouds dance

with me as I,

Breathe freely—

for the first time!

Clouds gently pass,

Space clears—

Openness appears!

 

I am Born Again

in this space

of Being!

Once cushioned by Clouds,

My Vision now cleared-

I stop—pause—inhale and,

Breathe that Breath,

long overdue!

 

Filled with Breath and Knowing,

I fly back down into

that clouded space

Holding onto —

Memories.

Ingrid Exner, 2021 Half Marathon

 

Hour One – A Tanaga

Twenty-four in twenty-four

Can we do it? Wait and see!

Through the lyric diction door

Go trekking each hour! Agree?

 

I tried to write a tanaga.