The Poetry Marathon

HOW IT REALLY IS – Hour 5

HOW IT REALLY IS
A Zen Story

 

awakening into the twilight of the morning

I take my boat to fish among the silent mists

as the sun contemplates the course of the day

 

night playfully rousing daybreak with sweet kisses

light & shadow parting like a tender, long goodbye

mists dancing with every element in breathless balance

 

as I watch entranced

across the swirling sea-sky a shape emerges within the mist

I am halted in my dawning reverie, peering through the shadows

as the shape is delivered to me from the darkness

 

It is another boat.

 

another boat on this flowing nebula of mist and stars

obscured except its vaguest outline in the sleepy morning

another boat, right in the way of my course

 

I flap and squawk, shattering the sunrise harmony

“Hello!” I cry and “Turn Aside!” but from the other boat

there is no reply across the shimmering water

 

I’m appalled by this cretin

I raise my voice again in contempt to condemn him. Who is he

to steal my glorious dawning? Who is he to make me turn aside? and then

the curtain of fog rises in the sublime sunlight, and finally I see

 

The other boat is empty.

Beach Umbrella

Beach Umbrella

 

I have stood here, like always,

deposited in the sand

like a moon flag

watching Earthlings

camp, one by one,

on my shores.

But now, many of these

aliens don small

tents on their faces

covering their noses

and mouths, tents

larger than the briefs,

thongs, and bikini bottoms

most of them wear.

Like me, those

water-resistant canopies

are colorful, diverse,

and vital.

Hour 5: Before Winter Comes

Sister Red and Brother Bear, please slow down.

You’re too fast for me.

 

Quiet, child, says Sister Red. We have much to do

Before winter comes.

The leaves are changing. The trees are bare.

Soon the sunlight won’t even care.

 

Sister Red and Brother, please slow down. I can’t keep up.

 

Hurry along, says Brother Bear. We have much to do

Before winter comes.

The berries are gone. The creek has dried.

We have miles to go to reach wayside.

 

Sister Red and Brother Bear, please slow down. I can’t see you.

The leaves changed, and the creek has dried.

Winter has come, and the sunlight doesn’t even care.

 

Sister Red and Brother Bear, don’t slow down.

I’ll meet you there.

Hour 5 Prompt 5. Faith Chepchumba

SWEET MEMORIES.

By the lake we sat
In the cloudy dark night
Reminscing the past
Of wrongs and rights

By the breezing shore
We watched the stars
Just like long before
When we were youngsters

In that night we talked
Of our hopes and fears
Some that never happened
While we lived in tears

We were full of life
With our friends in tune
And without any strife
Just like a live fortune

As the night grew cold
We huddled underneath
A tree near the threshold
While waiting the night out.

 

---

 

prompt # 5 five short

symmetric triangles

Hues and tints of a sun setting

a dry, hot day has come to a close

 

pinrails a turning with the wind

changing colors

every time it comes to a stop

 

Northern lights a callin’

mirrored glass colored water

an alien lands amid the light shaft

crashing the party.

 

circle round

holding hands

it may hurt, but it means well to stare and to touch.

if trees can touch and feel well

humans can hold and clasp each other.

10:00 AM haiku

ground hog day
little dirt otter
rippled run

Make Out Point

Can we carve our names in a tree,
Meet me under a sky filled with stars,
Unmask me and leave me bare,
Show me how to love you vulnerable.
Change me like the coming of seasons.
Have me draped under a thousand shooting stars,
So I can wish upon you a thousand times,

Engrave our initials in stone,
So if we fail to last till forever,
Our love at this moment will last a lifetime.
And when I have forgotten take me back to the River’s edge
And remember how we left our hearts rooted in a place where we loved each other eternally.

We carved our names in a tree,
You met me under a sky filled with stars,
Unmasked me and left me bare,
Showed me how to love you vulnerable.
Changed me like the coming of seasons.
Had me draped under a thousand shooting stars,
And I could wish upon you a thousand times,

Hour 5 (2020)

warm gleam over the hills

ethereal alert

wake up call from beyond the visible

a bright embrace to all beings under its scope

wake up and be aware!

reciprocate!

walk out into this golden world

and seek out the sun in everyone

Skay Hour 5

Muscles ripple through gleaming skin

Beads form and sweat trickles

Down a furrowed brow.

Each move shows the ache

In the overstretched sinew

From the strain of the oar

And the burden of your toils

What keeps you going, sailor?

What heartache pumps your blood?

What makes you keep rowing

To where the stars, the water and the land meet?

2020 Poetry Marathon Hour 5 – Umbrella

It was a rainy year in college.
I had a raincoat,
But the drops would always reach my glasses.
And three-quarters blind on rain-slick concrete stairs
is no way to weather a storm.

My first attempts were colorful, light,
portable, collapsible.
A fine companion in a drizzle,
although scarcely broad enough even for me.
But a hard New England wind, a gust of misery,
would throw the flimsy things inside out,
leaving deformed shelter and drenched disappointment.

Then I found the right fit:
double-layered, with a grip built for battle,
a stainless steel spine, and a hood black as despair.
I carried it forth into wrenching gales
and weeping downpours
and came out clear-eyed and unbowed,
even when my shoes were soaked.

At first I held it low and close,
a double-octagon of barely-covered spokes
warding off both water and fools.
But with time, I offered the shivering forms,
caught unprepared in life’s storms,
friends or strangers alike,
a place in that dome of dryness.

The grace and purpose of any umbrella,
is to be shared.