The Poetry Marathon

Stroller parks
Evil eyes
Parents’ barks
Children cries
Crowded places
Gluttonous bites
Staring faces
Long-line rides
Not coming back
Till I know
It won’t be packed
Like a sold out show.

The girls may have been 4 and 7; their mamie was in town,

winter, Christmas Eve, 2003.

We had live lobsters swimming in a pot most of the day.

Jordyn watched the claws open and close slowly.

“What does a lobster eat?”

I had to look it up.

And when 7 o’clock rolled, my mother in law filled a great big pot with water,

turned up the flame high, and salted the water.

I kept the children entertained with decorating dessert.

At lightening speed, before we could recover, she tosses the lobsters in,

quickly takes them out and slams them onto a platter, stabs them

down the middle, with a butcher’s knife, one, two, three, four,

crack, split, crack, split, crack, split, crack split, her hair tossed back.

I turned my head to look at them, their little mouths agape, eyes

wide open in disbelief and dismay, stilled by the violence

they had never seen before; a Christmas they always remember.

Add a few more dollars to the therapy jar–and more.

Our cups runneth over with wine, vodka, and mead

We ingest as much as the rest as confessions begin to breed.

Emptying our chalice will tend to fill our greed.

The drinks have filled us with regret and befuddled pleads

for someone to hold her hair as she heaves.

Snowflakes fell last night
Cold, uncaring, a slurry
Today we woke up hopeless
Then out the window we saw them.
Mom was grouchy, dad was gone,
she didn’t tell us to get dressed.

Other than the driveways and roads
the ground was white with snow
Trees looked bleak and black
We drank hot cocoa for breakfast
and when it was warmer out we sang with joy
outside wearing our winter best.

Then evening came and dad returned
to ruin all our fun.
He came from work with uniform
And salt buckets by the ton.
He melted all our snowmen
and angles one by one.

That’s why I hate Snow Days.

You spun me from dawn to dusk

the soundtrack to my unrelenting,

tragically nasal angst 

nursing me with thunderous drums 

to soothe my infinite sadness

Loud through flimsy headphones

tethered to a yellow and black

CD player stuffed into the pocket

of my gaudily embroidered 

and oversized black JNCOs

Hoping the high and soaring riff 

of a crunchy guitar would glance the ear

of someone nearby who had been cradled 

in the arms of sleep and wept 

to the same melodies by starlight

Footsteps

Hallways refrain from ceramic tiles
checker-boarded black and white
down academic paths, windowless,
board after board postered with events,
classes on arts and culture, tutors for hire.

Footfalls echo down hospital halls
walls painted a reserved color
that should be called hospital green,
silent nurse shoes rush to find the visitor,
to hush the intruder, wrong floor wrong hours.

Footprints across my forehead
stamped up and down, circled around
like tire treads tattooed – bad woes
bad karma, too bad for you
keep going I say, keep on walking
as I pass you by.

~ J R Turek
June 28, 2020
Hour 18

I love you, I swear

Then why won’t you hold my hand,

tight with fingers intertwined.

Then why won’t you show your parents

that we flirt daily, lover’s minds

Then why do you say you’ll leave next

time a pretty girl says your name

Then why do you hold onto my heart

knowing you’ll only let it go

Christmas sucks.

I loved Christmas as a kid.

I was conditioned to hate it.

Angry men.

Possessive men.

Tantrums with blown out candles and spit on my car.

Joy only with permission.

I don’t want to remember the past.

Not at this hour.

Prompt 18. Hour 18.

He met me in my dreams, by the river, where the crickets still remembered us, 

I lay in his arms, the moon, how she revered us, 

Life, oh she begs me to stop humming his song, 

He stayed with me, long after he was gone