The Poetry Marathon

2020 Hour 7 – Rock Bottom or Something Like It

Rock Bottom is where you start from
That’s what The Program.
The same twelve steps for everything
From booze to smack to sex to love.
All starting from rock bottom.

Maybe I never hit it.
I read a book by a lady
with the last name of song
and two years of memories spun
cherished keepsakes hurtling
landed like the sick twist of an
unexpected diabolus ex machina.

Affection recast as symptom,
devotion revealed as obsession.
Defense shown as avoidance.
Love swapped out for addiction.

It felt cruel, capricious, ugly beyond measure.
And true, undeniable.  Correct.
Something beautiful, an inner treasure,
had sprung from a poisoned pit in my soul.
I recoiled from it,retreated from it,
wept and swore at the loss
of who I’d thought we were
at knowing too much of where we’d come from.

And no addict gets better chasing their high.
Every junky and drunk knows that much.
So I had to say it, a slow, messy goodbye.
It felt like pulling a tooth:raw-red, bloody
a part of me yanked out, irreplaceable
My mind still runs over the spot, searching
for what it remembers, what feels like
it should still be there. And it still hurts.

Every time.  Every day.  Which maybe means I’m not better.
Or maybe means I still haven’t found rock bottom.

Hour 7, Season of the Flying Fish

Two young boys were lifted high,
twirled and swirled about in dizzying circles in the air,
stripped bare of all clothing,
one later gently settled, unscathed, to the ground,
the other never seen again.

A single straw was driven
straight through the heartwood
of a centuries old tree, unbent and unbroken.

A brick home stood proud and untouched
beside another razed down to a hole
in the ground, a bare ten feet between them.

A school of fish was scooped whole
from the ocean, flown through the air to rain down,
gasping and alive, upon a town, inland and far from their home.

The soil in this land’s richness sustains life all over the globe,
but in a moment entangling air currents
can swirl and twirl in a vortex, snatch, and indiscriminately kill.

7) Seeking Time

Across the atlantic

she’s seeking time

between hauling mattress,

bedstand, and home

streets over

down a block or two

I’m writing to deadline,

hubby’s doing computer work,

the cats are napping,

we’re all of us taking time.

But she needs our’s

So I’ll crank until she

can touch base,

re-root herself

while I untangle

self, and muse, and verse,

to create a semblance

of what’s within murky Covid

thoughts.

And I know, feel sure,

all will be ok.

For her.

For me.

For him.

Families across the world

trying to connect and take space.

 

Season of the Teen-aged Children

Oh, there are ups and downs in parenting!

Each son and daughter gave me pride and tears

Pride that swelled my heart and livened my step

When I see some strength that grew from us — me?

Tears against self — failing to do it right

Did I not discipline? love? teach enough?

 

The girls demanded all bedrooms clean

Conscientious — often, but not always.

Sons refused to “perpetrate” brand name clothes

competed to see who’d have the first car

Earned money by mowing and shoveling

Oh, but when they drank whatever they drank

broken arm!  burned building! hard lessons learned!

All turned out well, but oh the road was rough.

 

By Nancy Ann Smith     Amherst, Ohio

June 27, 2020    Poetry Marathon

The night

The sun that once shone

Is now gone.

The heat that burned our skin

Has now been replaced by a cool wind.

 

There is no hustle and bustle

It’s so quiet you can here the leaves rustle.

The moon shines bright

As everyone welcomes the night .

 

It’s time to forget about the days worries and rest.

To have good dreams and get rid of of stress.

It is beautiful and calm,

A place where there is no harm.

 

When tomorrow comes we’ll deal with the world’s havoc.

But that’s only when the watch strikes 7 o’ clock.

For now the stars twinkle above.

As we spend the night with those we love.

7. Season of the Fae

translated from The Book of Lycan Poetry

There happens upon a time when
the earth, and the air, and the minerals and the leaves
of Gaia
Hail the glorious sky, remember the victorious dead
lift a horn and drink
to love and life and laughter.
Cabers are flipped straighter. The stane tossed further.
The sheaf put higher off the fork.
Flowing dresses lose their footing
on curves. From shoulders. Creeping towards edges.
Flushed. Muscles strain urging blood to flow faster.
it does. Gasps and pleased sighs always follow. Always.
When the veil is first thin, after being closed off.
For Persephone the Spring She Wolf has returned
And all the Nymphs with her.
-Oryn

Season of the Reckoning

 

 

Season of the Reckoning

 

 

Everything’s off rhyme

we’re stuck in syncopated time

 

this season of the reckoning

is echoing how sickening that

sanity’s trembling is still worsening

 

adrenalin assembling

both sides told they’re trespassing

disenchanting or awakening

 

deafening editing slides by

some who are unquestioning

but to me it is unsettling

 

deadening, deafening lies are enveloping

our lives but we keep on messaging

while what they’re peddling is like sentencing

 

we’re used to this crazy menacing

like a loaf of bread with leavening

we rise up but feel we’re second string

 

this skeleton of embezzling

is sickening but we’re awakening

strengthening what’s developing

 

together we’ll soon be reveling.

 

 

 

 

 

Season of the forlorn

Flowing time, internal grinding mechanical compulsion,
incessant on-going harsh-driving onwards,
sound taking all space from subtler resounding,
engulfed by lightless darkening.
All potency drawn into this machine,
stretched out constantly tired,
willfully compelled into one avenue,
clinging only where magnets can grab.
Weary surrender curling up like a dying leaf,
bowing supplication, release of the outside,
to cradle this torment in fetal form.
Endless weakness corrosive and turned on itself,
mask painted brave outside,
whirring-on, hoping to get out alive.

2020, poem 7, prompt 7 – season of the ____________

Season of a Susan

A special present for an 18th birthday,
a collared bow around a pedigree corgi’s neck,
the beginning of a royal relationship. Susan and Elizabeth
went everywhere together, even on honeymoon.

Her first mate was Lucky Strike, later she rolled over
for Rebellion. Notorious nasher, the Royal clockwinder
a victim – teeth clenched around his ankle
like a metal-tooth beartrap.

She was the foundation bitch, for a long line
and on death was commemorated
with a unique headstone, sketched
by the monarch herself.
My foundation mongrel has a simple holly tree.

Prompt 7 (Poetry Marathon)

“Season Of You”

Once we met, during old summer ride

Just two young and old sober mind.

Banana cue with halo-halo as the treat,

As we walk home as we speak.

 

Your dream was to become a soldier.

An old lonely profession.

You said; “One day, I’ll fight for freedom.”

But it seems like freedom killed your mom.

 

Summer is long gone, just as you do.

I even wonder if you read those emails I sent you.

You’re in a lone place with a crowd misplaced.

You left me through the rain of disgrace.

 

The rain was hard, it blocks as you speak,

My voice was breaking, a little weak.

A scary sound was heard to blast.

Later that year, I received your ash.

 

(C) M. E. Flores (more…)