The Poetry Marathon

You’re In Control (HR 7)

A Social-Distancing Fantasy

Luxuriating in

a blanket of cozy down,

upon waking up.

 

Showering–spirts of

bracing water tingle

while warm water sooths.

 

Jane Austen now leans

very close, her tales repeating

charming adventures.

 

Refreshed by Jane’s

Salacious gossip, plunging

into a sparkling warm pool.

 

Toweling dry and

swaddled in cotton sheets,

sipping mint tea,

 

as I go to bed,

I fall asleep while reading

a bodice-ripper novel.

 

 

 

 

Dancing Day

1. Melodies and syncopated rhythms ring in my ear
   Bass bleeding into my skin
   Pulsating drums pace my cardio cadence
   My soul fed through damp grass on the soles of my feet
   Gyrating hips churning warm wind
   A soft hand touches my face
   I see my reflection in kind eyes of a lover who mirrors my movements
   The taste of black cherry balm from our last kiss hang on my tongue after licked lips
   The caress of sunshine charging my melanin
   Sweat painting paths down my body
   White sage smoke streaming into nostrils
   My spirit sings vibrating out to the universe

Prompt 7: Season of the Curve

As promiscuous as the first buds of spring
nudging into each other for attention
was the first droplet on our side of
the Atlantic.

And, so quickly it captured its prey,
we knew not which direction to turn
without becoming its next victim.

To know who was the spectre of Death
required only looking into the bathroom mirror
as we galvanized ourselves against others’
unassigned entities and unheeded precautions.

We sat or stood in front of monitors, glazed over
by free-associating lies and partially curated truths
until none of us were certain of anything
other than critical thinking and common sense
were on the same extinction list as those
deemed
at-risk.

The young took pleasure in eating the elderly,
or would if the “flu” induced cannibalism.
The hapless of all ages crowded, unconcerned,
into Prince Prospero’s red-bloomed party until laws were made
to nudge them back like the de facto lab rats they
failed to see their behavior marked them.

Weeks became months, and the place from where
our slow-motion disaster arrived has almost settled itself
and ebbed from daily news, other than the ceaseless barking
of candidates who want to throw us off the scent
of two-point-four million infections.

2.4 million.

Does that sound like this just went away on its own?

Remember the good old days?
This would be March, when
most of the country still had jobs.
Remember the “curve?”

When’s the last time anyone, anywhere,
said anything about “flattening the curve?”

Adieu, Curve. We hardly got to see you before
you became a mountain.

Hour 7

Someone I do not know
Wrote me a poem.
I do not know her name
Or her credentials
Or her demeanor
But the language she chose
From my voice
Made me realize
That I have one.

So today as I focus on my ability
To paint portraits with my words
And imagination
I know my voice is more important
Than I thought.

No impostor syndrome here today.
Just a knowledge that today
Is a day of creation
From nothing into something
Like god.

A Season of Reckoning

Give me your tired, your poor
Emma Lazarus

Step up!
It is time to volunteer
you who are old,
on your last legs,
a non worker,
old trees,
fallen brush,
shrub sucklings,
poor,
homeless,
tempest-tost,
without an escape house,
an essential worker,
wrong color, and
all who drain our resources.
Let the virus wash over us and
we will be better off in the end
with more for fewer.
After all, there are more important things than living
Of course, everybody wants to save every life
but to what end?
Step up

Never Meant to Have This

We were never meant to have this
The one thing we are fighting for
The one thing we would die for
We were never meant to have it
Bright red oceans
Trees with purple bark
And leaves that fall like
Rainbow glitter
We weren’t meant to have this
Like clouds made of cotton candy
Hearts softened by love
Respect and honor
We were never meant to have this
Like twisting pink fields
And safety in numbers
And a sun drenched in blood
We were never meant to have this
Black lipsticks
Pastel combat boots
Fishnet stockings
And happiness
We were never meant to have this

But we will

skyscrapers

each night in bed my hands clench

the edge of grey skyscrapers

my fingers cramp &

disappear in the

depths I scream return to

mid-air wait while autumn leaves

drop underneath the sight of city lights

highlight buildings I’ll visit next time I hang

& cringe on repeat till morning I land

on our kitchen chair to hear

my dad say God

is warning me

that my homeless

soul might sink to the depths

of the abyss if I don’t pick a room

in his house or at least keep reaching

against the gravity that seems too heavy

even for the Almighty if I don’t keep clinging

 

with shoulders that have always been too weak

I shrug off the wings he stitched to my body

from birth his battle cries have frightened

fallen flesh that would rather cling

to anything but a cloud of hope

rather fall again just to hang

& eventually fall

asleep

Oh, TV (Hour 6)

Your heart will remain full and unstressed.

Your closets, full of stuff – organized perfectly.

Your admirers, when you’re a young adult and still underage, will remain at bay.

Your brain will not malfunction and you won’t need to manage the process – every day.

Your life is going to be easy,

said no one.

Why did you expect differently?

Oh, TV.

 

 

 

Hour 7: Season of the Squash

We enter the Season of the Squash–

you know, the month or two when baskets overflow with bounty,

countertops corral the herd

before we pass them on

to neighbors less endowed.

 

What to do with this harvest

of fleshy protuberances?

Slice and saute,

stuff and bake,

stick and dip,

noodle and sauce,

grind and add to anything else,

or fritter them away,

until the abundance subsides.