24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
A faint mist of vaporous emotion wettens the eyes
The surface shudders as sublayers are drawn
never looking more fragile,
A titan of warmth and strength.
leaving deformed shelter and drenched disappointment.
Too many, too close.
unexpected diabolus ex machina.
drawing the eldritch sigil that’s come to mean “sleep”.
Plunging to the bottom like a doomed plane
But their ghosts remain with us, fragments of plot or detail,
lost opportunities.
My sleep broke,
Not with the alarm,
But with the chirping birds,
I got up,
As they sang the song of dawn.
Ready to embark on a new journey.
Without any luggage,
This time no guilt or barrier can stop me…
Death be common for the rat in the trap.
Death be common for the soldier with a broken bootstrap.
Death be common for predator and prey.
Death be common in a world of decay.
The price of your life is not without a tag,
Our bodies and spirit are not meant to drag.
If there ever a moment, when you must decide,
Trust in MacBeth for the moment he vied:
“And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold! Enough!’
Human is the moment, eternal is the seraph.
Prompt 12, Hour 12
Halfway point.
“I see him always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated.”
Marlowe waited but his quarry never left the bookstore.
The dank night felt lonely and longer than ever before.
Two nickels rubbing together wouldn’t buy him lunch.
This crazy case was all based on a jealous wife’s hunch.
It was 2 a.m. on a quiet downtown Santa Monica street.
The time and place you’d only see seedy strangers meet.
The shamus walked around back. For once, he was puzzled.
No exit. Where did the man go? He was truly befuddled.
Direct was always best. He knocked on the front door.
A voice rang out, a deep male voice with a throaty roar.
“Get lost! Scam I tell you! Don’t want any. Damn it, It’s late.”
“Tell John I have a message from his wife, I’m willing to wait.”
A pause and then a click as the door swung to let me in.
Marlowe spied a long hallway leading to rooms with a quite noisy din.
A shadow stepped out with a gun pointed at his chest.
“What do you know about my wife? You’re an unwanted guest.”
He smiled. Gun or not he was never defeated.
“She’s worried, she thinks you’ve cheated.”
A laugh from the big goon. “Nuts, I’ve done no such thing.”
“Get out of here before I put your arm in a sling.”
I nodded at the noise behind him, down the mysterious hall
He smiled. “Got to pay off some gambling debt’s, that’s all.”
With apologies to Jonathan Coulton.
This was a triumph (of experience over optimism)
I’m making a note here, (because my memory is awful)
“Huge Success!” (came from being realistic)
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction
Aperture Science (has given me many hours of enjoyment)
(Although I hope we never see anything like it in the real world)
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are… (OK, I’m going to stop you there, GLaDOS)
Nothing good can come from following too closely
In the footsteps of people like Cave Johnson
And so my filk departs, and my own voice is heard,
Wittering on, without metre or rhyme
In a sleep-deprived haze of happiness
That comes of setting an attainable goal
I shall now stop talking, for there’s sleeping to do
Then tomorrow morning, I’ll start reading on through
All the poems posted here, from this and other years
But for now, I’m barely awake.
P.S. I feel exhausted, but I’m still awake!
P.P.S. This isn’t healthy, to be still awake.
P.P.P.S. Oh look, the filk’s back. Am I still awake?
Still awake.
Still a-
My book was Garden by Zhou Fang, and the first line of actual text is just the word “Nothing”. The poem/filk above does contain that word, so I’m counting this as a technical prompt response, even if it was far too easy. 😁😃😄
I would know you in darkness
despite altered dimensions
& across time and space
Whisper my name
& receive my ready reply
know that I am yours
Always
Here be dragons mark the places on the map
Marking the point where facts and knowledge ended
And the wild places of the world beyond.
Where dangerous monsters dwell
Obviously now we know that dragons no longer exist
We drove them out with our reason and our insatiable desire to know
Dragons live on faith and mystery
Scepticism killed them
Perhaps together we could find a way to bring them back
But that would be impossible
Because we already know that they do not exist
We can’t bring them back
Perhaps one day we’ll come to terms
With how we drove our dragons off the map
But we won’t care about how this lost us
Our imagination
Is our world not big enough
To include the fact that dragons can’t exist
With the necessity of having them
The belief in something grander than ourselves
Perhaps one day we will discover
A way for both dragon and reality
To live in the same world
But then again, perhaps not.
Perhaps all we can do is dream…
Misgiving
Emotions are fleeting, but leave shadows in their wake.
They follow stalk-eyed, peering through
magnified lenses–watching as you undress.
the folds of clothing fall in crumpled heaps
and the voices slither from them,
drumming the ear like fingers on a table.
waiting patiently for a reaction.
It creeps across flesh, reaching into the depths
stretching–feeling its way into the creases,
provoking ill-favored sentiment.
They glide down the barrel
twisting a crook around the trigger–
pulling it repeatedly like threads from a hem.
The shadows split the stitching
guarding your heart
and reach into the cavity to retrieve
the soulful cries of
what was lost.
Congratulations Half Marathoners! I am so happy that you have completed 12 poems in 12 hours! That is wonderful. Thank you for joining us in this madness.
In the past I have personally verified that everyone who applied for a certificate was eligible and then I would make a certificate. That is not possible this year and so we will be operating on the honor system.
If you completed the Poetry Half Marathon please consider the following certificate yours, to update with your name, to print if you choose to do so. If you need any help altering the certificate please email me at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com
Click on the link below and download the edit ready certificate if you completed The Half Marathon. Congratulations again on your completion of The Half Marathon.
Here is a direct link to the image for editing.
The visual example of what the certificate will look like is right below this text.
Also remember that this year we will be putting together a 2020 Poetry Marathon Anthology.
Submissions will open July 6th and stay open till the 25th.
All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less. The subject line of all emails must be Poetry Submission. Poems must be included in the body of the email. The email address is poetrymarathonsubmissions@
All poems submitted must be written during the 2020 Poetry marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors.
The first word of every line should not have a capitalization unless it is intentional! Word has an auto caps feature that you can turn off by following the instructions below.
To turn off automatic capitalization, follow these steps:
- Go to Tools. | AutoCorrect Options.
- On the AutoCorrect tab, deselect the Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences check box, and click OK.
You must indicate which hour each poem was written in. Only poets who completed the whole or half marathon will be eligible to submit.
There is no guarantee that by submitting your poem will be selected although the goal is to include one poem by everyone who submits.
Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price and any money that is made from them will go towards covering the cost of the marathon.
Want to know what the 2019 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.
The Myth of Money
neither welcoming smile shouldn’t disperse your mind
nor cheap affections make you further blind
your riches have labelled you like a blank cheque
must segregate you and your wealth with some check
these intrinsic coins weigh love as sand
humidity of sincerity makes difficult its land
love lags money, is not realistic attitude
have to paint yourself with bare fortitude
to meet artificial faces with a little shine and bow
only treasure of jewels can subjugate them to you
money amplifies leading phase of your life
with the nectar, you can control bees in hive.
