The Poetry Marathon

Walk Bop

Saw the cone gnome fixing up a stop sign today

and the mailman and a brown box truck

but I ponder as a walked past the delivery van’s smile

what keep us grinning while they take our cards up

cuz the roads need upkeep and the house needs upkeep

and the closet and the basement fill up

 

but I ponder and I wonder as a wander round the block

today I wondered if they’ll ever be enough

 

Saw a black man falling off his bike yesterday

in my sister’s neighborhood it was a shock

cuz in the white burbs a black skin man is fairly rare

but to see him bloodied on the ground is sadly not

so we asked if we could phone a friend to pick him up

it went to voicemail, you see a stranger answer not

but didn’t call to 911-and have the ambulance come

cuz if the police came out he might get shot

 

but I ponder and I wonder as a wander round the block

today I wondered if they’ll ever be enough

 

So he left his three piece bicycle, dusted off his skinned knee

and settled in to end his bike ride with a walk

We said farewell, prayed for his health, waved good bye and wished him well

And walked our way back home continuing to talk

Cuz the laws need upkeep and lawns need upkeep

and the prison yards, man, you gotta keep em stocked

 

but I ponder and I wonder as a wander round the block

today I wondered if they’ll ever be enough

 

 

To Those I Left Behind

It would take too long to write to all of you

Everyone I left behind as I was forced to move forward

With each new place and each new life I met more of you

I like to think that each of our friendships helped us grow in some way

That we brought something good into each other’s lives

To all of you, whether it was only a few months or even a few years

Thank you

Your friendship means more than the world to me

Dear Grandma

I miss your laughter
and the way you sang out loud.
I miss the comfort of your wisdom.
The way you held your head so proud.

I often wish that we could visit
like we did back in the day.
I have so many things to tell you.
I always wonder what you’d say.

When I look back and remember
on the days that formed my childhood years.
I see you standing front and center
through a rainbow blur of tears.

I see you smiling thorough the hard times
and all the good times too.
I wouldn’t be who I am without you.
Oh dear Grandma, I miss you.

Hour 4 — I’m Always Thinking of You

Beth A. Fleisher

Hour 4

Prompt 4:  My own. 🙂

 

 

I’m Always Thinking of You

 

Wherever I am

whoever I’m with

whatever I’m doing

whenever I let my thoughts loose . . .

I’m always thinking of you.

 

Dear Black Mothers (4th Hour 2020)

Dear Black Mothers,

I am sorry that your moments of powerful love were twisted into existential fear.

I am sorry that at a time you should be able to revel in your child’s natural life, you are made to feel deep doubts of their very existence.

That the monsters you protected them from underneath their beds have transitioned into real ones in the outside world.

Hell, they are still busting in their bedrooms–guns blazing.

While, we, the villagers just looked on.

I know you felt it. As a mother you have that bond.

That other-worldly, celestial, I carried you for nine months or so while you fed off of my body, heart, and soul bond.

Could never be cut once the cord is gone

It still thrived there within the bosom their little bodies nourished from

It still manifested itself when they moved away from home for the first time and you both dream of dreams that were much more than love and hope and fear.

It was there when you raised up one, not of your own blood but of your own spirit.

That stellar, blessed, divine bond.

I know you felt it.

When your child,

the human you created, molded,

blessed as you kissed their boo-boos away left this Earth.

No. Not left.

It wasn’t by choice that you’re little cherub with ten tiny toes and ten tiny fingers transcended to a bigger human to an angel, again.

Some didn’t even make it to adulthood.

No. Not make it. Their growth was stunted.

It wasn’t by choice that your babygirl with black curls and beautiful smile stopped breathing.

It wasn’t by choice that your lil shy boy who you always dreamt about becoming a beautiful grown man with more dreams than nightmares took his last breath.

No. Not that he took his last breath.

It was taken from him.

I am sorry that as a village we failed to stop the monsters from ripping your bonds.

And now, after many of your children are still being slaughtered like God’s lambs

We, the villagers, vow to make a stand

That your bonds may never be torn by the monsters’ hands.

The Next Right Thing

Sometimes life itself is too much. In these moments, and allow myself to do the next right thing.

I wash a dish.

I clean my place.

I take a nap.

I give thanks.

Hour 4

Dark Chocolate

 

We haven’t spoken in eight years

I think of you often

Are you that same boy I fell in love with?

The boy with the dimples

The boy who wanted to become a firefighter

And did

I wonder what you’re like

If you would even speak to me

The fear keeps me back

 

Poem #1: Homage to a female force!

Master of reinvention, creativity bounces out of you
Athletic … even more at 60something
Dazzling dancer and so demanding of yourself
Ongoing curiosity with life and proponent of improvement
Never satisfied with the status quo, early HIV/AIDS advocate
Navigator of life to epic proportions
Amazing …

A pop icon, a writer of children’s books and films, a director, and the list goes on. Is there anything you can’t do? An inspiration to us all!

Thanks, Madonna!

Someday Sentiments are Letters to the Dead (Hour 4)

Hey Man,

I didn’t want to contact you like this.
Letters to the dead are really just letters
to the living from the living,
trying to reconcile with what we regret.
If what I want to say is so important, why did I wait until now?
Why had I lost all contact with you for the past decade?
You see? I told you. Regrets.

I guess I wrote you off sometime in my past,
drew a line and placed you on the other side;
time just continued to pass. Sentiments would arise,
but I never took action to reconnect,
just buried you prematurely
and tried not to think about it too much.

I heard you stopped by my parent’s house a couple of times
while you were visiting the old neighborhood.
I wish I could have been there, or got a chance to hear your voice once more.
I guess we never know when we are experiencing the last of something, or someone.
We just assume we have a choice in how our lives proceed.
It’s easier to believe that we have some form of control over what happens to us,
so we put the important things we aren’t ready to face off to the side,
to be attended to later… on someday…later.

I’ve thought about our friendship so much since I got the news of your passing.
We had many good times. I was happy and I believe you were happy too.
There were some hard times as well, real times,
blows to the heart, loss of breath times, bleeding times.

I heard about how it happened.
You were just doing the same shit we always did,
but the body can’t take living like that forever.
I think it was an accident.
I don’t believe you meant to do it. I feel bad.
It haunts me how you can consciously make decisions
that invite your own death without realizing that you’re doing it.

There is so much more I want to say to you.
There is so much more I want to say to you that won’t fit into words,
that I can’t constrain into speech or confine to a single letter.
So I’ll just keep talking to you from time to time,
wherever I’m at, whatever I’m doing, however I may be remembering you.

I hope the afterlife isn’t cold. I don’t like to think of you cold.
Wherever you are, I hope you can still be warmed by love.

Your Friend.

4. i think i hope this finds you well

To whomst the contents of this electronic, very bland, correspondence may concern:
“Whomst” is not a word.
Not necessarily.
But it is necessary to tell you the places that we used to go where it was a word, well, they’re brighter now.
And the non-word is quite prevalent in my dictionary.
Brighter now.
More vibrant.
Devoid of your shitty attitude. Oof. Too brash? fuck you, snowflake. I can’t remember the last time I said “sorry” and meant it.
That’s what the people on my side are supposed to call the people on your side, right? Snowflakes?
Funny how in a country where everyone is free to pursue whatever, whichever, whenever with whoever,

we choose to peruse a single side that the partisan partition falls between like a goddamn wigwam.
Knocking heads into uTtEr wOkEfUlNeSs.

I remember the days melting into one psychedelic jelly tape of muscle spasms, Ocean Lights, and sad stories.
Filling pages with graphite doodles instead of inked scribbles before the escorts got home. Staying up listening to your favorite music, because that’s what was going to help us get through the night.  When I sweat so much that my drawings smeared onto my face like some kind of twisted, psychedelic warpaint. I thought I was Van Gough. But bigger, and with both ears.
At that point you shouldn’t look in the mirror though, lest ye glitch and slip into awareness. I did. And I was no longer afraid of myself. I was terrifying. I liked it that way.
I liked it that way.
Because that meant that when you said you were in love with me, that you meant it.
On the streets of that side of town that we stayed up to watch the sunrise in.
I couldn’t sleep, obviously. When you’re iN lOvE such things are menial. So Instead I locked myself out, walked to breakfast, noticed how green the trees were, how crisp the day was, like it had waited for me to arrive and it had vacuumed, put the clean dishes away AND waxed my car.
You cried in the street when you kissed me.
Later. A month or two. I’m railing lines of jet-fuel, and standing in front of a mirror holding an axe. Instead of a B&E and Murder in the Second degree, I load your shit into my hatchback
and a two-man, two-hour job is cut all the way in half when I dump your writing desk in his driveway.
Look at me, waxing poetic.

I wish you longevity, dullness, complacency, conformity, and all of the other things you never thought you’d be, but were set up for anyway.
I wish you all the substances, and none of the inspiration.
I have to admit it, I’ll never forget you.
I have to admit it, you were never The Raven.
You won’t be missed. Not anymore.
– The Wolf