The Poetry Marathon

We used to sit around campfires
Watching shadows flicker
Listening to stories
Passed down from generation to generation
Tales of creation
Tales of battles won
Of friendship and adventures
Of loves found and lost and found again

Now we read 240 character tweets
Of nothing but biased opinion
On complex topics
Attention spans too short for nuance

Bypass well-written articles
For attention-grabbing headlines
Hours spent scrolling…

Scrolling…

Scrolling…

Scrolling…

Through comments section
In search of those who think the same
Something to disagree with
Something that outrages

Something…

Something to fill the void once occupied by wonder
By Awe and appreciation
Not shock and depreciation

We used to stand carving heiroglyphics by torch light
Preserving ancient wisdom
Mysteries of the afterlife
Of medicine
Of consciousness
Of goddesses and gods and mystical technologies

Now we sit
Around processed food dinner table
Staring into flickering screens
Faces expressionless
Addicted to microdosed dopamine
Every ‘like’ a little hit
Every ‘share’ a substitute for interaction

We once told stories
Carved them in stone
Painstakingly scribed them in sacred ink
Into hand-bound books
Pages intricately stiched into leather covers

And now
We’re writing poems
With fucking emojis

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We were not real… not really real. I mean, you were real, as in a real person, and I was real, as in a real person, but we as a we were not real. We couldn’t have been. We wouldn’t  have survived. Well, we didn’t survive in the sense that  we are not we anymore. But, just as fragile human bodies with human egos and crystal thin psyches, we would have, should have disintegrated, or smashed each other’s humannesses against our irons. We should not  have survived My Monster… your prodding.

Did we die in a sense? Did we not survive the I of us and the you of us? Did we not survive? Maybe we didn’t.

I remember telling you that the Monster of Me will stay caged now, not even a nod to the most begging whisper of a tease of you, not a pull from your whiff. you agreed. your bulging pantydandies would choose sleep as well.

This must be the not surviving I am certain we did. This must be the death… the death of My Monster. The refusal of your press.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 10am

Things are getting weird over here.

This poem is phrases from letters and cards I’ve received (lines people wrote, not from the card company), and then some responses or comments in parentheses.

even though I try (A for effort?)

of course you are also changing the world (imposter syndrome)

hope it’s a great one! (more like grating)

I cannot say that I am not upset about your not going (yeah well)

I sent you my lunch (which became cold)

I’ve been doing well in PA (Palo Alto?  Pennsylvania?)

Actually I’m making you a gift (gold, frankincense?)

invite you to share in the joy (see you when I get back)

It was a strange time
When we wore masques

We hid behind them
The ones that we chose
Whether we realized it or not

We took on the masque of truth
We took on the masque of the fool
We took on the masque of reason
We took on the masque of prejudice
We took on the masque of kindness
We took on the masque of cruelty

Hidden behind our masques
We were finally truthful
In an age of artifice

Tigers! Tigers! Fire burning bright;

Trees caught up in darkness.

Do you think I’m joking with what my eyes saw?

Ye! That’s how surprises come to and fro.

Not the one you’re thinking of

but rather a majestic creature just bursting with individuality

ready to make it to the other side if we persist.

Despite this, I don’t go in the water very often.

It’s an empty void with nothing left for me.

Dry land is underrated anyway.

I stand and deliver

a way forward for a new generation

to come and see what makes life worth living,

what makes the world continue to spin

and what we leave behind in the aftermath of existentialist juncture.

Beneath a floppy bow

Chocolate eyes peering

Standing on tiptoe

Twirling in a ruffle cloud

Chocolate eyes dancing

Singing out loud

Surrounded by a group

Chocolate eyes defiant

Protective on loop

Listening to create space

Chocolate eyes kind

Shattered worlds held in place

Diving into knowledge

Chocolate eyes ever-curious

Learning a celestial language

Sister mine, You shine

An atmosphere sapphire blue
heavy and opaque.
Terrain irregular
cliffs, canyons, deserts
rocky outcrops
vegetated fields.
Some of the stones
grow and live and eat
but oh!
Those alien creatures!
Small, delicate wings in many sets
propel them easily
through dense skies,
drifting and darting
in massive clouds.
Other tread the shifting ground
crawling on many legs
climbing and leaping
morphing chameleon textures.
and the colors!
Neon pinks, oranges, blues, yellows
mixed stripes and spots
some entirely transparent
other glow with technicolor life
illuminating the darkest caves.
They are spectacularly varied
fringes and spines,
armor and tendrils,
solid and immobile,
floating away like feather-light balloons
the size of buildings
or barely a few cells
no two precisely alike.
It is a cruel world
with as much death as there is life
full of poison and tearing jaws
rending flesh and organ and bone.
The creatures hunt
pursue, ambush, and flee.
But it can also be kind
animals dwelling symbiotically
so many forms and shades and scales
all intertwined.
Such a beautiful world
humanity has only reached the surface
of our own alien oceans.

4th Hour

Dagwood and Blondie – A Diamante

Dagwood

Dagwood was funny and hyper-active,

Sunning, cunning, and protecting his backyard turf.

Blondie was always hiding, resting and waiting to eat.

 Shy and timid, she didn’t know her self-worth

 Blondie.