The Poetry Marathon

So this is how it ends

Mitch Brown

#1

The signs were all there, but no one saw
Feelings hurt, emotions raw
The timing perfect, the gaping maw
The planning perfect, with just one flaw

So into the darkened future I head
Full of promise, yet full of dread
Thoughts of revenge run through my head
Thoughts that someone ends up dead

But in the end, cold reason prevails
Though things were tough on my poor nails
I see what was, and where led the trails
Start always again, when one thing fails

So the end of all good things
The end of promises and rings
The completion of a life that sings
We’ll just see what tomorrow brings

Yemenia

Her look suggested I’d asked her to move to Yemen “I’m not throwing this out.” She placed it gently on a nearby table. “I’m keeping it”. “It’ll melt, brainiac.”

Rose plopped nearly busing tray back on the rack. I love you, Mike, but I worry about you. This tea belongs to Daniel Otis, Daniel Otis.

That’s going in the freezer. And I don’t care if they make a pay for this glass, also. She laugh, while she writes on a piece of paper.

Announcing,

Just how disturbed they are. Doubles the portions. Depart us from them all. Leads us, and along with something much more deeper to stand up to.

Little do they know.

Daniel Otis.

Will always be apart of this family celebrity tea. Give away. Working tomorrow. Sipping on iced peppermint tea. Stars and Celebrities.

 

 

 

Hour 1: Resiliency

This morning I opened my eyes.

I stretched…

I smiled…

Freedom!

A beautiful day with the rooster crowing

His perfectly obnoxious cry.

A new day.

A new start.

To the “best summer ever.”

The last year has been chaotic.

School in pandemic times.

Isolation…

Zooms…

Worry…

Yesterday morning I opened my eyes.

Bittersweet emotions…

Saying goodbye…

The end of a crazy year.

The Sun’s Dinner

The sun is making

it’s dinner.

It is yet not

done through

as everything in the tagine

is moving slowly

from that distance.

Philip V. Coombs 9-10pm.

Hour 1: My Personal Hell

Hell is not a place
It is a heart
One that beats too many times a minute
At the thought of you.

It’s telling myself to be calm
When this stupid muscle goes crazy
Just at the sight of you.

Hell was never a place
No, it was always a person

And fear… With no end.

Fear of losing, myself, of being unable to let go.

My personal hell consists of this fear
And of memories of you.

The source of it all, you know
Just a sight and I can’t help
Feeling the need to run and hide.

Hell is not a place
It is you
All that you did not do and it is a heart
That still beats for you.

Moving (Hour 1)

My home is filled with totes and boxes
packed for tomorrow’s move.

Some of life’s moves are joyful and adventurous.
This one is not.
Forced out by a rent increase
from a place that I have loved,
I feel displaced.

Tomorrow I will unpack,
start resettling,
learning new routines.

And life will go on.

Hour 1 – Ending (Text Prompt)

Hillside dark, water calm

A single lantern floating

Veil shredded, flowers dead

A sudden, rotten, bloating

Bride alive, Corpse husband

A shovel with sticky coating

Crunching earth, shifting waves

A victim left ungloating.

Crime unseen, story untold

The lantern no longer floating.

Endings

Endings

 

It’s the beginning, but it might as well be the end–

the days are long and hot—the mind sliding toward the edge.

When I think of my ending I think of the sky, the way

it turn to dusk and the color fades. That may sound

depressing, but it isn’t meant to be. Last night while lying

in the moonlight, faces flashed before my eyes—no one

I knew, but if felt otherworldly. Perhaps I was seeing through

the veil to the other side. It’s a small thing, really…losing

the body to age or sickness, as the soul is vast, all encompassing

of time and space.  When I think of aliens, that’s what

I imagine, moving from here to there in a flash. My soul

travels on a thought, and we all know how thoughts work—

racing about randomly, all willy-nilly. Last night, the dreamlike

faces I saw weren’t all friendly. I’ve heard that when you transition,

you should go past the unfriendly visions, ignore insects and

vermin, but not because you’re afraid. Just go on past–they

are mere distractions. Ignore them like any ending, because

you are almost at the beginning, where you want to be.

Introduction

Less than 12 hours before I begin my very first poetry half marathon. Looking forward to it! I suspect this will be more challenging than the “Pulitzer Remix” and the “Oulipost” since these two were daily challenges and there were 24 hours to ruminate over each poem. I will begin my half marathon at 4am Kenyan time so I hope the peace and quiet and stillness will make my first hours very fruitful. Wishing all my fellow marathoners the very best!

Struggling

Struggling (prompt 1) ~

 

My beloved struggles hourly, his life

parsed laboured breath by laboured breath.

I listen/don’t listen, struggling myself

wondering how long how long how long

Like a heartbeat I hear it, the refrain:

how long        how long        how long

3 a.m., and I listen, struggling

to separate the generator’s shush of air

in out  in out  in out

from his own knife edge breath

that oh so very slowly severs

all these years of threads