The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 11 The Wedding Day

Spring brought the news of a fall marriage.

A wedding in our backyard.

I gave them my blessing

I gave my dreams the wallet;

At last, my dreams would be realized:

A tall white gothic pergola perhaps

A scaled-down, Multnomah Falls;

With a bridge and a path leading everywhere.

Short columns to mount my bonsai trees on,

Patches of lawn between large beds of flowers.

Flowers that bloom in the fall, of course.

In my dreams, I have already arrived on that perfect wedding day.

Everything is beautiful. Everyone is feeling joy in the day.

But my dreams and my wallet need to have another conversation.

I don’t think my dreams want to know what my wallet has to say.

 

 

 

Prompt 11 and Poem #11 “My Brand New World” by Ingrid Exner, Half-Marathon, 2020

Once Upon a Time…

As all the stories go,

You are taken

into make believe

before you even know!

 

My imaginary homeland

and land of

all my dreams

would still have all

Four seasons

tho unlikely as

that seems!

 

The changing of the Seasons and,

Dawning of the Day

have far more beauty than

even I can say!

Seeing changing colours is-

pleasure for my eyes!

Summer morphing into Autumn

Adopting new disguise!

 

Perhaps, I’d add more Kindness

and Compassion in this

World! Take away the evil and help

the misunderstood!

I’d cure all Childhood illness and,

Let all children play!

Allowing them to become

adults who are grateful

each and every day!

In a world of lesser pain,

We would all have chance to gain!

 

By Ingrid Exner, 2020

Shi Shi Beach

I have heard about this beach, the meandering boardwalk, the wide expanse of sand. I imagine

roaming piles of driftwood, singing like a gull, a lonely song that moves me.

My bare feet are sandy

and burnt like my father’s after we left him.

 

Waves thrumming on and on will change you, they say. Whittle you down like driftwood and

take your power away, leaving you sunk beneath the waves. But then the gulls squawk,

fluttering down, pulling apart sea stars.

And my thoughts break apart and fly up.

 

I imagine standing on a gray log and calling back to them. I heard that I might find my song

someday. And now I think I have. I sing the song of the gull and stand strong.

I wrap myself in kelp

and run into the waves.

FLA

Hot, humid, and sticky
That’s probably how Florida feels
Whenever I think of that particular panhandle state,
Turquoise and flamingo pink appear in my head,
And I feel nauseous
I’m sure it’s not all bad,
They’ve got Disneyland!
But something about it…just makes me suspicious
The sunshine state is always marred by controversy,
And it never seems to make the right decisions
Like a middle-aged man living with their parents,
Florida permeates a nervous yet terrifying aura

Music Inspires Me

Music leads the way in which we move, think and create.

As India encourages us to “Get it together.” Embracing our uniqueness and undocumented beauty.

Standing in formation while I’m telling these tears, “Go and fall away, fall away”,

oh, may the last one burn into flames.”

Freedom lives in the mind and maybe this is all just a game and we just need to stop

chasing waterfalls.

Knowing my feet is my only carriage so I’ve got to push on through it all.

On and on Lauren keeps killing me softly with her song.

Whether we are ready or not we want to settle the score.

Continuously told keep ya head up as we question what’s going on around us every day.

We must fight the powers that be so our children can be free.

Jhene comforting us with a frequency towards the hope that someday we’ll all be free.

I just want some real love in my next lifetime so I can be golden and glisten upon the waves of the sea.

#11 Umbrian Gothic

I followed fireflies down
the damp olive tree corridor
and into a cave where
a wall opened at the back, in the recesses
of mystery, and
torches flickered
and caught wind,
extinguishing in a flash.

Stone grated behind me
with an echo, the outside lost to me,
and he was there
waiting for me.

The bulbous-bodied
insects lit a love
for us, a path
that had been carved
over many years.

We roamed its magic, a pulse
of nature
that showed us we already knew
how the story would end.

And we emerged under the Umbrian summer,
hand in hand, never the same
again.

Acirema

 

 

Acirema

 

What if the Native People in this country

boarded giant canoes that were able to take them

all the way to Europe.

 

What if they came ashore on the rugged coast of Wales

and soon took the continent by storm…accepted as seers from far away.

 

Countries all wanted visits from this gifted group

that were in touch with nature in a way not known in that day.

 

The Europeans realized the faults in their expansionist attitudes and

learned to live off their own land with little waste and discovered a new kind of kinship with nature.

 

Kings gave away their luxurious lifestyles and went on pilgrimages to find

their inner selves and ended up much more happy.

 

Eventually the tribes that were now flourishing all over the continent wanted to share a more personal vision of their experience.

 

So they took some of the explorers home with them on their humongous canoes.

What do you think happened once they got to the place now known as Acirema?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour 10: Moonshadow

Bloated on city noise, bright lights,

cheap whiskey and bad luck, he

ventures elsewhere, away from

anxiety filled days and sleepless nights

makes his move across rutted back roads

to the deep country, a cabin off the beaten path

secluded, silent, only the whispers of wind to keep

him company

By chance he

catches his shadow spilling across 

a still lake, shaded in forest

under a blood moon, 

and the celestial bodies speak, open his eyes

to the world

his old life slips away, a fleeting dream

and all that is left

is the present moment

and deep unadulterated night

Waters Edge

Siren song of summer

Scuttling crab
Breaking waves
Cracked shells
Pink toenails
Cotton candy sunset

Calling bird
Gentle breeze
Sand dunes
Wind whipped grasses

Daydream of forever

11. Wonderlust

(don’t worry, I know the word. It’s clever, get it?)

I often wonder,

(get it now?)

more now than when things were comfortable
If I went to get groceries, but instead of going back
to an apartment, in a city that feels cramped despite its
ego
What if I filled up at the gas station. Then took the nearest freeway
probably the 101, drove until I had to pick whether or not to turn around and go back
to the apartment in the biggest small town you’ve ever lived in

Instead drove through the desert. A place I’m reluctant to call home, but still feels so familiar. The heat probably.
What if I found out what was on the other side of that swath of sand and warm colors that remind me of the boat, named after the woman and home to old memories. What if I found something that will make me turn around
or

I wonder where the trees start. I find myself missing trees.
I wonder how long it would take to hit the other coast.
Remember, if the water is on your left, you’re going south.
I wonder what it’d be like to spin off my axis
concluding that, since I have made it this far,
I should probably just keep going.
I wonder if I sold my car, would it make me enough for *ahem*
a
“casual-one-way-fucking-off”
I wonder if I’d be missed
by the trees. Or would they grow out of spite, and envy me
for stealing their idea in the first place.