The Poetry Marathon

Collage Creator

You did a good job to create such depth in your landscapes –

I see you have layered some prickly tree, on top of solid hill

And delicately dumped a tissue-paper sunset over the top –

How many shades of yellow did you use?

 

You did a good job to create such depth in your people –

I see you have layered some prickly disappointment over some solid naivety

And delicately dumped some powerful rhetoric over the top –

How many shades of green did you use?

 

Collage creator

Universe imitator

Life simulator.

 

Do You Love Me? – A Song

Do You Love Me? - A Song

I prayed to the LORD,
And wondered why
The LORD had not heard my cry.
Then I prayed to the LORD on bent knees,
And this is what He said:
"Do you love me?"

I prayed to the LORD,
And sang this song,
It had been many days since 
I had done wrong.
Then I came to the LORD in humility,
And this is what He said:
"Do you love me?"

I beseech to you my brethren,
To present your lives a living sacrifice,
Holy and acceptable to God,
Your entire life.
For God is a rewarder of who
Seeks Him diligently.
  (He says...)
"Do You love me?" 

Now, I pray to the LORD,
To love Him is a command,
And one day, before Him we will stand,
And the world will have to bow their knee,
Because this is what He'll say...
"Did you love me...did you love me,
Did you love me?"

Her Flawless Beauty

Her Flawless Beauty
“Beauty in the Ordinary.” Diana Pollos-Lutz
for Kathy Martínez

She’s water girl on stage at every show.
Lucky VIP member in support
of our favorite band.
Her recent dilemma lowers her spirits.
Friends and Townies remind her
she’s still beautiful
after posting pictures of her bald head.

A butterfly with a damaged wing,
she’s still one of God’s creatures.
Erik, our favorite band member
said this to me
so I spread his love towards her,
because there’s no competition
when fighting cancer.

The disease robbed her of hair,
but not the beauty and support to win.
I’ll be smiling seeing her in victory
being water girl once more.

Margarette Wahl

Hour 5

Prompt 4 (Poetry Marathon)

A letter to rain

 

You’ll see the summer city soon,
just like how I promise you that noon.
I hope you’ll see the things you want to see.
you’ll create a good new memory

I’lI always know you’re more than just an emotional dude.
back then at first meet, you thought i was rude.
but that’s just an old forgotten story.
A story of you, hidden in my memory.

I am the happiest person as I heard the news.
the smart and shy you made it again.
I heard you met a girl name Ruth.
you said, she speaks pure truth.
you learn to love her just like I did before.
and you’re back to that old happiness door
I’m sorry If I shut that door before.
But I am long gone and won’t do that anymore.

 

#prompt4

#Halfmarathoner

My World

The world is wafting to the rhythm of dusk

Prancing endlessly to the rhyme of time transit

Oscillating with regular spin
In cyclical turns…

Time is no friend…
It only sprints with endless whim

The world never waits
It moves ceaselessly

My world is mine alone
I craft my visions and dreams
I build my tomorrow today

I activate my passions
Racing against the tide of time…

Time is no friend of mine, only a reminder of changing seasons and times

I own my time,
I run my time
To match the tempo of my world

I am the master of my time, creating the change that suits my vision…

As my time architect, I design with aesthetic mastery

The poignant dreams of my childhood…

No stillborn, no aborted vision –

I run the show!

Join me if you dare!!

The Cabin Prompt 5

The Cabin

 

Her grandfather had built the cabin 

for her grandmother in 1963. 

Trees cleared from the property 

to make space for it in the wilderness

had turned into logs that made 

sturdy exterior walls. Inside 

there was a central living room 

with bedrooms and a bathroom 

from its four corners. The kitchen, 

under the loft on the west side, 

sported a wood and coal stove 

and running water. Stacks of quilts, 

stacks of wood, boxes of games 

and puzzles and pictures on the walls

showed how the cabin had been used, 

life lived and loved here. But her favorite 

thing of all was the heart 

her grandfather had carved into a log

near the front door. It was deep, 

family legend went, just like his love 

for her grandmother.

Hour 5 heartwood

hour 5

heartwood

 

heartwood spirals in the centre of my tree relations

through drought

devastation

and diaspora

unlike my heart would in isolation

from this long-lost heartwood

carved into me like scarring rituals

with ash from fires where hearts would glow

from the sacrifice of one being for another.

 

my heart would be better –

is better –

in those sacred spaces where hearts are made in groves

where cedar

or maple

or birch

hold my heart like my Mother would.

 

my teachers tell me:

the medicine is not far from the illness –

maybe our hearts would hear this healing,

if we reach to the heartwood.

 

© r. l. elke

After Life

After the betrayal
After the heartbreak
After the ultimatum
After the screams and the tears and the collapse.
After the blame
After the lawyers
After the settlement
After the removing and the replacing.
After the silence
After the worry
After the guilt
After the insecurity and aloneness and failure.
After the sunrise
After the risk
After the false bravado
After the stepping out and diving in and pushing through.
After the strengthening
After the confidence
After the empowerment
After the reflection and the acceptance and the re-creation.
After life…comes After Life.

2. Stone Love

2. Stone Love

I fell in love long ago with sacred geometry or was it geology. Throughout the expression of time modern society came to hunger for diamonds that would be created through pressure not as rare as rubies, but still just as sought after. Colors compressed into gemstones. Smooth as glass. Iridescent too. Light Refraction. All we would come to worship in an attempt to escape and express a temporal love that would try to impersonate infinity.

Properties that would become an obsession in man’s attempt to heal a wounded heart. So we then looked to other precious stones like rose quartz or malachite, blue lapis, carnelian remnants of ancestors of the past like Egyptians, Jade from our Asian Brethren, and Turquoise worn by our South American Sisters.  All in an attempt to sooth a broken heart and spirit.

We pay homage to an earth we love and like to take from without any intention of repayment. We wonder and awe at the natural beauty, yet we still look for answers to human ailments we don’t understand.

Ailments that the most advanced pharmacies can not cure. While we were focused on curing cancer, aids, and diabetes it was love that we needed most.  Hate, racism, and greed we realize that no medicine can cure. Yet, we still search the ends of the earth, inside and out; not afraid to venture to the greatest depths of the sea beyond the Mariana Trench traveling to the outer limits of the universe to find a cure we are unable to see lives in the core of the human heart. We are the cure, but like the humans we are we will always look outside before we look within.  Stone love is all we possess. We are stubborn, we are hungry, and thirsty to wake, knowing that our hearts are as hard as stone.