The Poetry Marathon

It’s the most dead time of the year (18th hour) prompt

Outside, empty, still branches

snapping

too brittle and too frigid to last.

Meanwhile, indoors

a massive tree decor takes over your room.

We light our every possessions to serve as a contrast

to the stone, get in your bones cold.

We fill our cups with heated chocolates and bourbon too.

We sing songs of yore, watch movies of compassion

try to keep our spirits bright, light, and high

for tomorrow will fasten

(much faster than expected).

We cry, we laugh, we shed our angsts away

we tell tales of ghosts and reindeer.

As we try to fill our souls with brand new goodies.

It’s the most deadest time of the year.

Oh well, at least there are cookies.

 

 

20~7 Season of The Kiss

Misty Whispers

Of my mind~

Reach my lips

When they touch yours…

 

So far away

And yet~

Always with me…

 

Scratchy face

So full of kisses!

I sigh a deep sigh~

Remembering your ‘MissUs…

18. Big Time Sensuality… Synesthia Summer Holiday

The story I want to tell is one I do not know how it ends because it is the story of my life. Some may want to tie up all the loose ends and have everything neat and complete. I tried that and will probably die trying to make the cut, yet in the meantime I take pleasure in the little unknowns that come my way.

The truth is there is so much in between that we miss.  So many moments not captured on film or in picture form. A touch, a laugh, a kind word, or even a kiss. Trust me in this era of technology I’ve tried to capture every clip and I have been questioned for this quip.  I wish I had a baby of my own to love and hold, so I was not judged for my documentarian ways.  The good and the bad I try not discard if I can help it.  Everything has its place and so much can be recycled or given away. Yet those shots we question whether candid or posed are vital when we are trying to capture life in all its glory and its pain. It is what makes us human. We make mistakes and we learn.  I feel we need to document it all so we do not repeat what we detest, or what causes unrest. Perhaps this is my fascination with museums and photography on a whole.

My words, your doodles, I will collect them all.  Can I find a new occupation that will pay me for my attention to detail?  Each time I reread a paragraph  or look at art, I find something new. A nuance, a Deja-vu, a change of tone. I don’t like watching movies more than once, but sampling a book or music I don’t mind a second chance.

Like fashion, why can’t I comment on the whole picture that I see?  I hear the message, but there is so much more to the story.

Let me stage the set and set the tone. I see it all in full color code. Technicolor or black and white there is more to see than meets the eyes. If  only I was truly multilingual.  I would relish in the nuance of tone and dialect. The words, the thoughts, the feel, the notion, the inside and the outside, the positive and negative, the contour and the gesture.

For some it may be information overload, but for me I have the eyes of a hummingbird seeing colors unknown to man and like a dragonfly I see things in multiple dimensions of depth and form. 3D is not the norm 5D is the form that I recognize. Can’t wait to uncover more than meets the eye. Touch, taste, sound, texture, sight, and intuition all speak to me. I sense more than the surface that you present to me. I listen with ears that you don’t see, my hands and eyes see parts that a microscope and telescope cannot catch.  I see life in a plant and I see the image in the stone. I seek depth beyond the perception of the surface that is created to create dissonance. I see the vibrations that most miss. Give me a chance to tune into the frequency that is beyond most human perception.

 

Dad’s Presents

Fresh pine
And the scent of a wood-burning fire I would build

Baked nuts and cookies
And fresh-baked breads Mom set aside for breakfast

The silence of the morning was my favorite thing
Then, the glitter of white fairy-lights sparkling upon the tree
The plethora of gifts spilling out far into the room
Assured me all was well with Dad and Mom, who were up late, playing Santa

Fat stockings hung upon the mantle
Each tagged for us to find
And all I wanted, through my youth
Was this quiet, alone-time

The best part of this Christmas morn
Was knowing we would see
Mom sitting, tired, in a chair
And Dad beside the tree

He was almost sad, when he would find he’d reached the last few gifts
And I was sad to know, each time, how far from them I must have drifted
It wasn’t that I wanted much
It wasn’t that I was greedy
But every box I opened was the reinforced belief
That even here, amidst a family so large, I was only known by Stacey

I’d set aside the boxes and help clean up all the wrappings
Relinquish my joy to Christmas lunch, with the expected trappings
Cheese and crackers, nuts, preserves and vegetables galore
All my favorite foods and snacks I could munch on and adore
While in the family room, all day, Dad played his favorite Christmas songs
And all I wanted in the world was Dad’s presence, all day long

a forgiveness [hour 18]

it’s a cliche that everyone has a crazy uncle
and maybe it’s true; it was for us.
my crazy uncle was the uncle we knew best
and who we adored more than all the others.
he held sleepovers for me and my siblings
in the apartment (whose rent my parents paid)
and watched walker: texas ranger too late into the night
and agreed that yes chuck norris was hot

some things have changed.

there are–
i will not call them unforgivable. i shall not call them sins; they weren’t.
there were fuck-ups that hurt my family but not me.
the apartment he abandoned without warning
(our family he abandoned without warning)
(twice)
the time he tried to kill himself, which–
for whom is that forgiveness owed; to whom is that an offense?

mine is a small complaint but it is one that
i have not laid to rest.

(i was not there when his body was laid to rest either.
i visited his grave the year after
with my sister and my mother and her sisters;
my father and uncles an uneasy half-circle around us.)

perhaps this poem is the time.

: it’s okay that you promised you would dance with me at my bat-mitzvah
and didn’t.
it was a precious promise
and i think–i think if you had known it was so precious–
i think if i had known how precious it was, and reminded you–
you would have danced with me.

but both of us circulated through the party
like smiles and plates of appetizers
in the swirling crowd of middle school friends
and the two sides of our out-of-town family who had never come together to meet,
with my mother and father happily, insistently, politically out of wedlock

it’s okay that you promised me a dance
and that i thought i would feel like a princess
(more because of the spotlight of your attention
than the way you would have made me whirl across the floor).

it’s okay, younger-me, that you did not ask,
it’s okay, younger-me, that you nursed your hurt and pride
instead of your bravery.

it’s okay, the uncle i had who maybe is like everyone’s crazy uncle:
the kind who do their best and take what pills they can and
live their lives with those they love until it hurts too much;
it’s okay that you danced with so many people but not me.

our out-of-town family came for the bat mitzvah.
you were already there.
your leaving hurt worse than theirs did
(and yes: many times in many ways).

if i could make my hurt into a precious thing
i would make it a snow globe.
i would shake it until the two figures dancing
were surrounded by glitter (which we spent so long cleaning up)
and twirling slowly in a prescribed circle (the dance didn’t have to be good)

i can take the promise and keep that;
i can take the memory i wish i had, and hold it;
i can say: he wanted to dance with me at my bat mitzvah,
he loved me; he thought i was special, too.

Poetry

Some call it poetry, others a woke of art but you call it life, you don’t just see it as images or words you feel the presence like your heart is burning like you were created for this many a times i have been moved to question what poetry is??

But as i get older i feel the passion knowing that it’s not just a way of life, it’s who we are, how we relate, how we were born

I understand it brings more joy than pain

Poetry is life, it’s an embodiment of hope and we pray it continues to be so and we the poets shouldn’t lose focus of our goal and decide to speak lies just for some mint notes

Tick Tock Holiday Clock

Tick Tock clock dead

No-one checks what the kids watch

on TV when on their  own

Ring Ring Phone Broken

Doesn’t take any time to stare out into space

so you can do it as much as you like

you will never be late

 

It’s the usual story parents fighting

Gas lighting each other

It’s so common it would feel strange if

There wasn’t a row first thing in the morning

And of course, the beginning of the disappearing

uMhlanga* Rocks or was it Sands?

It no longer matters,

it was catastrophic regardless

 

You’ll love Christmas on the beach

They promised

and we as kids agreed with

whatever was presented upon the table

Traditions and promises weren’t kept in our family

Survival was to be flexible enough to spin on a quarter

and keep smiling far longer than you oughta.

 

Tick Tock clock dead

No one checks on who talks to

the kids on the beach

Ring ring phone broken

Doesn’t take a shrink to analyse

they’re telling lies to us to them again

 

Presents opened on a hotel floor

lack the panache and grandeur

of discoveries at home. In amongst the ordinary,

parcels brightly wrapped,

even as large as a finger nail

would be pronounced magic.

 

There’s  no room to play so toys are packed away

and it’s down to the beach for a holiday

of watching long walks and disappearances

While we played in the surf watching

the adults play tag

 

Tick Tock clock dead

No one checks on who gives out

the memories to the kids to keep

Ring ring phone broken

They had to be so much more

inventive before we attached to technology.

 

(*Pronounced UM-SHLANG-A, in South Africa)

Kennedy Center:

You were that girl; one for whom

someone as insanely in love as I could, fly

halfway across the face of the earth,

take the longer way home,

circumnavigate the world.

That afternoon standing facing a granite wall, looking at

your caramel eyes, you over my shoulder gazing at the 

meandering Potomac.

Years later you recalling that brief interlude – a vacation of sorts,

commented how I missed the beautiful sight.

And me, shaking my head slowly, my gaze locking yours, smiling and saying, ‘No’.

# 18 A Divine Intervention

I began my journey from galaxy Mildorn,

Their purple beaches had been on my list far too long,

but I paid the price with boil-ridden skin

for not carrying JellyProtect to fight its Neuar sun.

I continued my journey, albeit tad painfully,

Prodding along to the Meteor County,

The showers were spectacular, the view magnificent,

Glad I did it, it sure was fun!

Next was the luxurious Sentare for me,

Sipping on Shremark Pina coladas for free,

Swimming with the giant rasterfoons,

The gorgeous yellow ocean reflecting nine hundred and twenty six moons.

En route to Dexark, I was unfortunately swindled,

By a swine so gross and heavily wrinkled,

He took away everything save my cretamin rolls,

And made a swift exit through a hidden black hole.

With resources dwindled, I returned, cutting my trip short,

Which was just as well, for I was in for a shock.

The colony I had built for my college project,

A part of it had become completely wrecked.

It had an infestation, my, it had grown!

Ugh! Humans! I should have known!

Now I have to work on my planet all over again,

Clean up, rebuild, add more trees and some fresh rain.

Yawn! I’ll do it tomorrow, I’m too tired today,

Let the pesky pests live one more day.

 

-Prachi S

Let Joy

Joy rings with ecstatic bloom

Infecting all on its path

Joy conquers pain

Its fertile realm

Remains a tranquilizer of hearts and lives…

Joy triggers the sweetened bits of living…

 

Let’s pursue joy with unrelenting passion!