The Poetry Marathon

Prompt #5 Death (2014 Prompt)

Death is the theme of many poems and the preoccupation of many poets. Still after all this time poets are churning out new and intriguing approaches to death in poetry.

The goal of this prompt is to write a poem about death. The death you write about could be imagined, personified, personal, true, or false. The details of this prompt are entirely up to you.

 

The idea of dying scares me.
It haunts me in my dreams and nightmares
It feels so final and certain.

Where do we go from there?
Heaven?
or hell?
or do we just disintegrate into the soil?

I am not ready to die…
I am never going to be ready for death

A certain uncomfortable feeling
settles over me as I struggle to
grapple with what death personally means to me.
Expressing my emotions about death
is somehow very difficult as I am at a loss for words.
I haven’t acknowledged death
or even its eventuality.

I’ll try as hard as I can
to write something on death
I guess..

Death is
-Devoted and patient.

Death is
-a welcomed relief to the suffering.

Death is
-a one way street.

Death is
-the celebration of life.

Death is
-sometimes so sudden

Death
only takes, it never gives.

Prompt #4 A step closer to self-healing (Personal random prompt)

Shame
Red faced- the person in the mirror
that doesn’t even meet your eyes.
Your insides are knotting up
Strip yourself of the unpleasant feeling.
Accept it and acknowledge it,
but don’t empower your shame.
Get over your shame.

Guilt
You feel responsible,
Maybe you are,
but maybe it was out of your hands.
This trip that you have set on is
an unending and unforgiving one,
You have to learn to forgive yourself.

Regret
Your heart is so full of it.
It is in everything that you do.
It’s poisoning your core
You end up becoming
calculative and controlling
-a prisoner to his/her regrets.

Shame, Guilt and Regret
hinder the search for self healing.
Blinding the vision to the obvious.

Let go and
Forgive yourself
Pick up the pieces
It’s time to move on
a step closer to self healing.

 

Guessing game

Opened a box.

There was a fox.

I thought it would be socks.

This rocks.

Prompt #3 Love (My own random prompt)

To Love someone
dearer than your life
is a beautiful but reckless feeling.

To trust your heart
in the hands of your lover,
you surrender to the eventual consequence
of its demise or the birth of something beautiful.

Either way, you have to
walk on fire and
bare your soul out,
speak your truth and
follow your heart however frightening
it may be to discover whether
your love has the potential to bloom or
is it going to rot away.

You have to go down that
scary road towards
the eye of the storm
-hand in hand with your partner
at some point of your relationship.
And you either come out stronger than ever
or you don’t come walking out of the storm together.

You grow together
You inspire each other
You bring out the best in each other.
You belong together.

Darling, the way you inspire me.
I am mad for you.
Your quiet ways and idiosyncrasies
your silly habits and your passions,
I indulge them all.

The way your calm washes over me
as we deal with our storms
hand in hand -a testament of our love.

You embrace my weird
and call it wonderful.
You make me feel beautiful from the inside.
It’s frightening- but I have never felt more alive, empowered and vulnerable all at the same time.

I am glad my heart
chose you to fall in love with.
I am glad that it still gravitates towards you.
You’ve become my heart’s compass.

 

9am- the last one!!

Happy
Nice
Polite
Perfect
Quiet

See the masks I wear
when I don’t want you to see
the REAL ME?

Everything I do to hide what goes on
behind closed doors

So many different ones
specifically designed to hide myself
from you

I’m afraid that you won’t like the real me.
that you won’t love the real me
Deep down inside I wanna scream at you
tell you

SEE THE REAL ME DAMN YOU

see that I am NOT happy
or perfect
I am sad
and I am imperfect.

I want you to accept me
but how can that happen
when you choose not to see
the real me

8am

there comes a time-
When it doesn’t comfort-
doesn’t help-
doesn’t work anymore
There comes a time when
you know-
It’s time to move on
time to stop
time to put the past behind you
There comes a time
when someone comes
into your life
and inspires youto stop
This is your time to stop
to put it away to change
to move onto say-
I AM FREE!

Thank you!

Well, I finished way back at 9 p.m.ish EDT. This was a fun experience. As I worked on the last couple of poems I was glad that I was nearly done. I couldn’t have made it through the night. Congratulations to all who did.

I hope I’m on an email list or some sort of communication so that as events occur, I’ll get the word. I’ll always watch Facebook just in case.

I saw some notes about printing our own certificates, so I’m going to look around and see if I can find such thing.

 

Karen B. Call

Prompt #2 (Hour#2 2014) Random Selection

Write a poem in five parts. The sections can be numbered or named but they must all be clearly separated from each other within the poem as a whole.

Fear is my Familiar excuse
In my days of darkness,
I sought comfort in fear.
I got used to living in that
space of wretchedness.
I built my castle on that familiar excuse.

Remedies
Do everything with love,
gratitude and hope in your heart.
Train your eyes to view the world
with kindness and compassion.
-this is my mother’s remedy to living well.

Readiness
The break dawn is a new beginning
a world of possibilities awaits me.
I am ready for the day.
I am ready for a new challenge.
I am ready to grow.

Uninspired –
my words so uninspired
my thoughts are tortured in a cave of emptiness
that reverberates desperate hopelessness.
I feel so uninspired –
Ah shit… it’s writer’s block again.

Fatality of feeling
She sang me a lullaby,
deadbeat hearts who once were alive
and felt everything so intensely.
they died of over-feeling.
Victims to the fatality of feelings.

 

7am

The words that I just can’t say
Are the ones that would let you
in and leave me exposed
the one way that I am truly
vulnerable

The only thing that scares me
right now
the glint of metal
the sharp edge painful to the
touch
the edge coated with the red
paint of my body

As you can well guess
I’m returning to the signs of
the addiction
The want- no- need- to cut
to feel the pain
that little burning that signifies
the opening of the skin
to let the blood run free

Damn

Not a moment, second, an hour
goes by where I don’t think about
doing it.
Where I don’t think the irrational
thoughts again
All I want to do right now is die
I just want to be free

6am

For Christ was born this day
And extended the most beautiful
Gift to you and I

It didn’t come wrapped
in pretty paper and bows
It came wrapped in his blood
In his sweat and in his tears

On this day, when Jesus
Knocks on your door
Will you let him in
Or slam the door in his face

I pray, you would open the door
Even if you already know him
Not because it’s right or proper
but because you want him to come in

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas
and happy new year

Remember:

If he knocks- Answer
If he calls- Listen
If he is silent- Seek him