The Poetry Marathon

The Season of COVID-19

Gifts sparkle, shake, and rattle.

They have ribbons and colorful

wrappings. Then when opened,

a surprise that makes us happy.

 

COVID-19 is a surprise.

It is round with flower-like

petals and triangular protrusions

Though it doesn’t make us happy.

 

I remember the polio vaccine,

and the long line we waited

in that trailed outside Finch

grade school and down

 

the block. We drank tiny vials

filled with serum to keep us

well. Now the surprise is the

number of new COVID cases.

 

The season won’t be over

until the vials arrive, delicate

glass with a potent fluid made

especial to foil the surprise.

Best Friend…

I remember clearly,
It was my tenth birthday,
My parents had planned a surprise party.
But what intrigued me,
Was the big brown basket sitting on my bed,
With a red ribbon tied at the end.

At first, I had thought,
Grandma had sent her healthy oatmeal cookies.
But then I saw,
The brown cloth over the basket moved.

Fearfully I tugged the cloth,
Immediately you sprang upon me,
Licking my face as if it were candy.
Your brown eyes,
Looked innocently at me.
Your golden brown fur glistened,
As you sniffed around the unfamiliar room.

That day Mom and Dad had surprised me,
Not with the party,
I knew they were planning for weeks,
But with the new member of our home.

They had given me a gift, a blessing,
That no money could ever buy,
The gift of friendship and loyalty,
Handed to me in a brown basket with a red ribbon.

That day I met Cocoa for the first time,
That day I made a best friend for life,
My four-legged best friend,
Cocoa.

– Addy

Season of the ancient ones

The ancient winds pulled at his soul,

He felt them… the ancestors… stirring him.

He looked to the stars

Are you there, my people?

Do you feel me?

Hear me?

See?

Or are you only on the wind, whispering to see if I hear?

He yelled into the night,  “I do!!!”

“I do hear!!!”

The wind swirled around him.

He closed his eyes and was lifted, lifted from himself

into them.

When day break came he opened his eyes.

An eagle called in the distance,

a waterfall cascaded and thundered upon rocks below,

He stood and waited.

He didn’t know what for.

But he waited.

Then it arose inside him.

Something that had not been there before.

A song or a cry, A feeling and a knowing

A settled quiet and a troubled stirring.

All of it.

He shook at the awesomeness of it all.

Where had they taken him?  He may never know,

but the ancient ones came.

They came and they showed him things he could not know.

And now he would carry with him the treasure,

The stirring of the ancient winds.

 

 

Season of the Enlightened Ones

There they are.

Moving through the square shoulder to shoulder

in determined advance.

An army of two-legged soldiers on alert to procure

what they wait all night for.

There on the pavement, between blades of grass;

there lay the prize they will surely not pass.

There’s plenty for all, and a little for each.

It is right there, placed right within reach.

“Run quick” called the Pigeon. “Grab what you need.

Here come the Starlings! Meet you back at the tree!”

 

Season of the Fog

The whole earth is in a season of fog.

The descent into madness was abrupt.

Everyone, shocked, blinded.

A horror story of apocalyptic proportion.

Atlas must have drop-kicked the world.

 

 

 

 

Mysterious

He captures the boldness of an eagle.

Aura illuminating the complexity of the color black.

Draped in white with traces of gold.

Feet covered by the grace of his mother’s soul.

Eyes that pierce like a serpent, something vicious.

Skin that is deep, dark, and delicious.

 

Arms he used to lift the burdens from the women in his life.

Voice with a tone as smooth as Barry White.

Quiet is his demeanor, but his words eradicate fires.

Quick to spot a bold face liar.

Agenda created to elevate those he loves higher.

He is every man’s reflection and every woman’s unknown desire.

Skay Hour 7

Season of the Grape

 

You swagger and return a blank smile
To my conversation
All my words have washed off you
I read your face.
I see the signs.
I raise my own glass to my lips.

Burgundy of the drink turns brown
Blood curdled in my goblet
Sweetness turns back
And flees into a rancid bitter
Taste on my tongue
I fling out the liquid and watch
The arc of wine rise through the air
Before settling into a pool on the floor

You’ve slumped. Call of the drink is stronger
Than the call of all the loves
You have gathered.
No person remains, no feeling recalled
Only the distant insistence
Of the glass and the liquid

A beckoning never answered completely
Glass upon glass emptied on the call
Yet never fulfilled.
Wine whips once more
And you lift yet another glass

I watch as it brings you closer
To the Grape…and me,
I’m flung farther each gulp you take
Farther from my glass
Farther from you.

Help

Coming to terms with a meaningless existence

is never an easy to feat

and it certainly won’t get easier as

the walls begin to close in

around me.

 

The castle door is shutting and

I can’t seem to get there on time.

I just can’t find an out

no reason or rhyme

 

where do i go?

what do i do?

when they were handing out instruction manuals,

i must have been brooding through it all

i can’t leave because

they’d never let me out alive

but what becomes of my existentialism

if i remain in the bowels of a world that doesn’t recognize me?

 

The castle door is shutting and

I can’t seem to get there on time.

I just can’t find an out

no reason or rhyme

 

But if a semblance of purpose

manifests in the darkness,

if i can derive inherent obligation

within the clutches of purgatory,

maybe it can still work.

maybe this is where we’re meant to be .

 

The castle door is shutting and

I can’t seem to get there on time.

I just can’t find an out

no reason or rhyme

The Power of Deletion

The Power of Deletion

 

If I don’t want to hear your words,

I don’t like what you say,

I touch the magic button

and just make it go away.

 

If you say hateful things to me,

your game I will not play.

I touch my finger to the screen.

Your cruelty doesn’t stay.

 

Defended with this power

as I use it every day,

you can’t hurt me with your trolling.

Spit your evil, as you may.

 

Season of the Soul (Hour 7)

A notion in your stomach,
a truth spoken by the lonely trees, undressed in winter.

The weight of physical being,
laden with existence,
burdened by flesh and bone,
organic hindrance.

The subduing forces that bind us,
that pull things towards the middle.
Silent acts that close the carnation’s petals
and draw you to the center of yourself.

The fetal contortions of dying things,
curling creases of burning paper,
a threatened serpent folding over itself.

The iron in your blood is lured
by an ancient magnetism,
an inner gravity,
a plum set to the navel of the universe.

The water of your being falling, lower, lower,
through the bottom of every well,
crawling deeper than death,
mighty rivers of the Underworld lead
to the primordial clay and mud of the earth,
to the roots of being, pulsating in the season of the soul.