The Poetry Marathon

The Garden of Secrets

I heard tale of a girl who became disillusioned with her life

Her mother says it was school

Her teachers say it was her home

Her friends say it was something else entirely

They say she found a secret garden filled with all the flowers in the world

She’d visit after school, making the garden her own

She told them the flowers were special, that instead of water they needed secrets

And secrets she gave them

Every day after school she stayed for hours, talking to those flowers

Giving them every secret she could thing of

In return they listened and listened and listened

And grew and grew and grew

Until one day she returned empty-handed, all her secrets spilled

The flowers shouted and shouted and shouted

They shouted every secret back at her in one deafening burst

Filling her head with every secret every girl had ever told them

Now her mother and her teachers say she ran away from home

But her friends – they say she became a flower that day in the secret garden

Waiting and listening for secrets

2020 Marathon Hour 10 – The Books I Can’t Remember

Want to see a writer flounder?
Ask them to pick just one favorite book.

It’s a nonsense question; as easy to pick as a favorite breath of air.

Far more fun to ask about their least favorites!

Let them rip into some sanctimonious tract by a dead white guy,
or a pile of disconnected words from an alleged intellectual giant,
Or that fucking magical realist thing with that damned goose.

But then there are the books between; not worthy of love or hate.
The stories that fade and blend, authors and titles forgotten.
Like that one about Neo-nazis by Clancy (or a ghostwriter),
or the unwieldy fantasy tome where the halflings were deadly archers.

But their ghosts remain with us, fragments of plot or detail,
phrases or images unmoored from their narratives.
Digested, like so many workaday meals; and made part of us.
Enriching our work with shades and flourishes learned
not from some great master or college class,
but from a book we can barely recall.
By someone with the courage to write it.

One Night’s Sleep (Hour 10)

Sleep is beautiful in and of itself,

then come along dreams.

fearful,

fairy tale,

factious false truths,

famous television stars,

from that summer back in 1999

 – all wrapped up in one night’s sleep.

 

 

Poem 10 (Hour 10) Qundeel

In the moonlight

I was walking alone

With nerves, I started a fight

To remember people who gone

Is forgetfulness easy?

Doing nothing but looking busy

Meanwhile, I visited myself

Like dusty books on shelf

In the moonlight I find my worth

Nothing is useless, as my birth

Plan For Tomorrow

I will work,

But I am sick.

I was wondering

what I will be doing

On my bed

For my bread.

I was keeping

What I will needing

For my day

So that I don’t delay

The enzymes snack

But I was still sick

So I was not able to gather enough snack.

 

 

Moonshadow (an acrostic poem, hour 8 prompt 8)

Mother Moon, shine
Over me, and shine
Over the world
Never have you been
So needed, for
Hate is spreading fast
And humanity is
Dying, all
Over;
We won’t last.

~Mandy Kocsis©2020~

Moon Song

Glowing

moon

casts

a

shadowy

light.

 

No matter

what happens

I know

I’m alright.

 

I’ll dance

‘til I sleep

beneath the

fading

moon

light.

Hour 10: Boden Lane Cemetery

Boden Lane Cemetery

 

Faded black lettering peels like birch bark

away from the old white sign

nothing left but shadows and 1812.

A crumbling rock wall held together by clinging ivy

stands like a sentry. I slip between

a granite pillar and a rusty iron gate.

 

Moss gives way to bare feet, spongy and damp.

Acorn caps crackle; overgrown grass rustles

in the breeze. Headstones drifted

out of their rows and columns

crumbling, sinking, broken

like souls who were lost as time wore away their names.

 

The air, redolent with summer, lay heavy

with the weight of its ghosts.

Crickets echo the fife and drum.

Mists rise like dawn on the battlefield, and I see

the ragtag, worn out Patriots of our freedom.

 

I barely stifle a scream and duck

when the first shot rings out.

A car backfires—

suddenly,

I’m just a kid in an old cemetery

playing truth or dare.

 

Prompt 10 ~ Post #10 ~ If

If I were to lose all I had

if all would be wiped away.

I know that You would still be there

for everything, I needed each day.

 

Although all my prayers were not answered

the way I thought they would be.

And one was taken in an instant

oh so unexpectedly.

 

I know You’ve provided in the past

I know your promises are true.

So although the moon shadow surrounds me

You’re there to carry me through.

 ^“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Phillippians 4:19 NIV

by Del Bates

Poem Marathon Submission #10

It's Not a Fair Request
Ann WJ White


The song reverberates around the soothing sound of music.
People nod and hum along, 
A song of loss, but acceptance.
I will not accept.
My heart beats with a slide, a murmur,
the wall thickens, the prison fights back.
The stenosis of my heart
bleeds, can't hold the blood,
Must be caught out and removed.
The only way to survey is not
to give into the pain,
but to fight it.
To growl and mask a face like
a wild animal. 
I can't let niceness win.
This is my life.
A open heart surgery.
A chest opened, without the ability
of medication instead.
At the moment that the calcium 
in my valve fixes itself shut like glue,
I am dead. 
I won't celebrate that.

My brain fuddles around, killing itself.
It takes aim at the immune cells
the T and B cells.
There is a riot in my brain.
If a virus or bacteria
scoots in along the white matter, if it 
remembers the formulation in the DNA.
The white blood cells will leapt
forming a battle against 
anything that doesn't belong, even stress.
Stranger danger!
The brain will attack medications
that have similar DNA.
I can't sit and listen 
to a healthy punk tell me
how grateful I must be.
I fight for every day of my life.
I can't be healed with medicines,
they can only try to shut it down until
the next circus that my body brings forward.
It's called Multiple Sclerosis,
with a pandemic, virus, stress or germ
my brain can be shredded. 
A puzzle torn, ripped, unfixable.
No soft delicate feelings making me nice.
I won't die, not by ignorance or 
foolishness. I'll fight for my life.
Then I'll write a song.