The Poetry Marathon

Poem 6 | {Ideal Day}

By Ajanta Judd All Rights Reserved – 4am 27/06/2020 Australian EST

Prompt 6: Write about your ideal day using only imagery and sensory details. It is fine if it is fragmentary.

 

{Ideal Day}

Sunrise is strewn with brilliant pink and orange hues

Thick mist floats across the ancient cape

Salt smell drifts over the lush green paddocks

Soft sand crunches under my bare feet

The dogs, keen and eager, pull for adventure

My eyes are taking in the magnificence

My lungs are inhaling the freedom

I’m writing the landscape – I’m capturing the imagery

I’m attempting to express the ineffable –

the essence, the emotion, the interconnection

between an insignificant sentient being

and a vast and wondrous environment.

 

Ideal-Hour 6

 

Your lips gently graze mine

Our hands melded together

Their warmth touching my heart

The ocean mist caresses our cheeks

The sun begins it’s dip

Blazing the sky with soft yellows, soothing pinks

A hint of deep purple

Birds swipe at the sky with their wings

Squawking

Diving for one last morsel before bed

We click our cameras

Trying to hold this moment

for eternity

But no picture can capture the cold wind

The soft sea reflecting it’s partner the sky

The sun leaving

Ending it’s sovereignty for the moon

We only speak to say “I love you”

Knowing those words include the universe

The sky, the ocean, the birds, the colors

The soft sand and the knowing

Moments are fleeting

Time will bring another sunset

But not another day like today

Ekphrastic Haiku, Hour 5

Who knew the real gold
in these mountains was sunshine
and summer tourists?

Umbrellas, useful
whether it rains or sun shines,
our all-weather friends.

Heart carved into bark.
I hope the love lasts as long
as the tree counts rings.

On the cusp of night
last rays warm an empty boat
as the stars move in.

Look up into fall’s
last show, baring branches hung
with splashes of gold.

6: I’m Gone

Been listening to One Fast Move Or I’m Gone
the soundtrack to Kerouac’s Big Sur
and it’s as if I’ve been listening for years
never stopping always looping
and making the lyrics my life
even when I’m not sure of every
word and even when I can’t
remember if I read Big Sur
and if I did read it, if I
understood it and I probably
didn’t because I love him
the way any woman loves a man
who drinks and writes and
runs around on her
and his words mean everything to
my little heart even though I
never quite get them because
they exist always out of reach in fast
type scrolled and pounded
and I could never live a life
like that. And still, I listen
to the lilt and twang and
I hold hope that something
gives so I can finally go.

2pm Leave me alone

Leave, leave me alone on this mat to heal. I am not here for publicity or exposure. Leave, leave me alone. Let me cry, let me laugh, let me exhale, let me inhale please! Get out of my space and my head.

Hour 6

As my daughter naps on my lap
On the couch
Under her baby blanket
I wish I didn’t want more
More time
More things
More energy
Because she should be enough

It is not that I wish for more
From her
But for her
For her future
For her energy
For her time

Because her time with me is
Likely limited to
What I can do for her
As she grows
Into a young girl
Who will always be young
And small
And naive
As a sparrow
Taking its first flight.

Half way

I won’t give up

I’ve never been a quitter

If you ask my mother thinking thoughts like that are surely a sin

We will all win

So long as we keep pushing until the end

But just right now, a nap would be good though.

We are half way there-

I won’t give up

I shall not quit

I will see what the end is gonna be.

-Asé

Edith

We only found out about you a few years back,
A family we didn’t know we had,
How painful it must have been to let him go,
Your sweet, clever, handsome little boy,
So many questions we’ll never have the answers to,
So close, yet so far,
Were you there that day when his adopted mother past?
You can find peace,
Your boy was so loved, he had a family, he had a good life

Recipe for Chaos #2

1. A little sunshine
2. Five borrowed thunderstorms
3. Sad violin music the neighbour used to play
4. A heart, preferably drooping
5. A tiny scream

There are no right proportions, it all goes in
You’ll know its ready when your eyes start pouring.

Prompt 5 Trees

My dead cousin climbed down from one in a dream.
He told me it was easier. The second time he appeared after his death, he climbed down from one with my assistance. He had leaves in his hair. I have dreamed of him again since then, this time he climbed from the one in my backyard. Peering through the deck porch window. I miss him and I imagine he goes there to meet me in the middle.

He told me where he is, is just somewhere else. Its easier here, than where you are he said.

To me, trees are portals in every dimension of life. Trees carry our secrets and see everything. Its no wonder he went there to meet me.