The Poetry Marathon

To my grandmothers (Hour 4)

To my grandmothers

I wish that the afterlife allowed for letters.
Why not let some document float to earth,
ethereal and mysterious,
but newsy.

News from two women who died too young.
News from the grandmothers I never met.

You could fill a page with memories for me:
how you did laundry
and cooked meals
and fell in love.

You could tell me about you.
Did you sing off-key?
Did you read books by candlelight?
Did you love lilacs and spring rains?

Write about what made you happy
and what made you sad.

Most important, let me know if you can see me.
Did you know when I was born?
Did you know that I was born?

Send me a hug or
at least put XOXO on the letter
and sign it

Love, Grandma

#4

Blinded by your deceptive Neptunium haze
you caught my passionate Plutonian gaze
and you hypnotize me in the night
you silently seized my vulnerable light.

Irresistible, you’re sinfully sweet
with your honey-suckled laced lips—
tasted like orange blossom drips—
A most dreamy hallucinogen
mixed with a deadly neurotoxin.

My doomed fate, I already know
comes sealed sweetly with your gentle kiss
as your words enchant me
and bind me into your darkness.

My mind is paralyzed
and my heart:
becomes entombed in your glistening web
of silky, sticky suffocating threads
but it peers perilously through
if only for a moment—
becomes aware
of the real you.

And now I know
it’s far too late:
I’m already helplessly stricken—
with a million little deaths,
I’ll die.
And the only anti-venom
is to wait for you
to breath me back in.

Epistle to Glen Ryan – Prompt # 4

I wept when we reached Sherwood Lane

and learned we’d not see your smiling eyes again.

Sis and I traveled far praying we would reach you in time.

Many hours in the air,

clenching armrests on our chair, we shared our hearts and hopes.

More than that we shared our prayers.

Prattling down I-5 with a brave brother-in-law at the wheel,

we wanted only to make it to your side as our tears we tried to hide.

The oldest and the youngest of your daughters,

facing years of unspoken words to offer you.

Finding a strange peace in the humming

of your old truck’s engine and trees moving quickly by.

Days that followed now seem like a blurred dream.

Words said in eulogy.

Songs read, not sung.

Memories, stories, photos, all shared with love.

I still weep knowing it will be awhile till

I see you again, but I smile knowing I will.

Forgiveness begins with me,

Love began with His Son.

I love you, Dad.  See you soon.

Kathy

The Warrior (written for Hour 3)

The sleeping fighter

has opened her eyes,

finally awakening

to her potential.

She has screamed

alone

In silence

for too long,

and it is now time

to speak

and let her voice be heard.

She picks up her shield

of inner peace,

cracks and chips visible,

but showing signs of healing.

Reaching down,

her fingers linger lovingly

on the hilt of the most beautiful sword,

born from tears and years of experience.

Lifting it up,

she admires the way the memories

have been built into it’s blade,

and knows that there are more

to be forged within.

She sheathes the weapon at her side,

and then clothes herself to meet the day.

Her face and her skin determined,

not showing forth the battle scars

that lie within,

her eyes the only window

to that shadowed landscape.

She bows her head

and takes a breath,

then stands tall,

squaring her shoulders.

It is time to answer the call.

She has been placed on this earth

to live life,

good or bad,

to make mistakes,

to do things right,

to show love and compassion,

and to navigate the ever-changing world.

Never alone,

she has support

and hope,

and each day is a new adventure.

Bring it on.

9 am – one – no title

my eyes burn
my finger is stuck to the screen
cramps in my hand
the screen is so big!
I’ve laid here for hours
missing the sleep I need
why, why, why
did I get on Facebook?
my timeline rolls by…
as my finger slows the roll
again, why did I come here…

I don’t know…

Dear Past Self

Dear You,

It has been 5 years since you left me.

I am 18 now and a lot has happened,

I often wonder if you will even recognise me if we met.

The five stages of grief often pay me a visit,

But even they leave.

I no longer sleep at night,

Because I feel alive during the night time,

Lie awake and chase away every approaching dream because I fear it to be my last.

I stare at the night sky and recreate the moments I was too afraid to feel,

So I am up at 4am trying to make sense of it all.

You left me in a world that breaks people,

And it finally broke me.

Dear you,

I am still failing to fall in love,

Maybe because there is no you in falling but I am there in failing.

I still break my own heart when I expect too much from people,

Still I am looking for that glass shoe fit girl,

To enter my life and leave it,

Leave me and have me searching for her the way my words search for you.

If I could have one more day with you,

All I would ask is if I made you proud,

If your death was worth it,

Or if you wasted your dying breath telling the wrong version of yourself that you loved them

Your Present self

~Baker

Hour 4 THE CAR

I’m doing well,
I hope you are.
Do you remember
In the car

That boiling day,
The herds of pronghorn
We flew past?
Your shirt was torn

And I could smell
The desert heat,
Feel the floor mat
With my feet.

I was afraid to speak,
Could only stare.
The wind revealed
Your shoulder. So there

You have it,
Nothing more.
You probably guessed
I sold that car.

2020 Poetry Marathon, Hour 4

Hour 4 prompt: an epistolary poem.

(more…)

Hour 4, Prompt 4 – Exoneration

dear curtis 

the scars you left

belong to me now

thank you for the gift

PERIOD PIECES

One day we’ll sit on this couch,
we’ll tell each other stories about
this day and that, how it all went
when we were young, looking
at people as they walked by.
We’ll pretend you’re a famous artist
and I a concert pianist. You’ll make
me a painting, maybe a la Picasso,
I’ll play you a passage from Schubert,
both these things mauve or blue.
Later, we’ll have our garden tea,
with cake. We won’t make a scene,
we promise. We’ll breathe in slowly
and try not to crumple our faces and
skirts, taking care to leave the table
cloth unruffled, cups and plates clean,
napkins unsmudged. We’ll slow
down, down, past the bed to the
ground, past the hour of leavetaking,
after they have turned off the lights,
our sculptured selves lifeless again.