The Poetry Marathon

The 498,311 (as of June 27, 2020)

Dear Friends,

I did not know you
but I can guess your lives
Filled with sorrows and joys
Loved Ones and strangers
work and rest
and good times, I hope
Until those last weeks
in pain, alone, fighting to breathe

How will we honor you
now that you are gone?
Lower the flags?
Erect a statue?
Put up a plaque?
Perhaps, in distant days

But mostly, we will fight
Seek a cure
Invent a vaccine
Learn new treatments
Slow the spread
Keep others safe
Working towards an end
Of this horrible pandemic

Rest now
We will take care
of those you left behind
Keeping your memory alive

Signed,
The World

Dear Grandmother, 

I wish you could see, my ink stained hands, 

Where he needled in birds, 10, that I could count 

But I can no longer inherit the chains I ought to love 

Was born to love, everyone says 

The wounds hurt, that held the cord connecting me to your life

I’m sorry, I clipped it, I had to make room for the wings,

Mother is often upset, as I reject, 

Our generational suffering 

We fight, she cries, I do not blame her, 

Would I leave if I had the key to the prison I was born in?

I promise you I will not birth another in a prison 

I wish you could see, no husband will leave me bloodied 

No brother will draw my bounds 

Will you be proud? Dear grandmother? 

When I say suffer, a little less than my mother? 

And a little more than my daughter, 

Love, 

Your granddaughter, who grew half a wing. 

In a world where humans don’t see humans like themselves.

They don’t see men who bleed and breathe the same.

They don’t understand systemic chains of oppression

They just know their life. Their struggle. They think

Their stories could be similar but they don’t see

what some have come to know.

There is a day coming

Where hope breathes true

and the sun rises for all.

Questions push the edge, offering a lifeline

but fear mires progress, drowning in drifts.

How could he and be like me?

Yeats said it best when he said

“the centre cannot hold.”

Desert lives crack and cry,

gasping for air tainted with tumbleweed commerce, sandy greed

and stubby personal gain – equality wanes.

There is a day coming

Where hope breathes true

and the sun rises for all.

So grab my hand, let’s fall on our knees,

open wide our hearts and eyes, receive the rain.

Sew up divisive cud with the sweet cream

of humanity’s purpose and fall into

a time where there is room in our oasis

for all humans. I believe

There is a time coming

When hope breathes true

and the sun rises for all.

Dear Keni,

They haven’t solved your death. I think about you and your last breath.

The coroner doesn’t return my calls. No one speaks of your blood splattered on your paintings and walls.

Your dog is happy and with a friend. I have not forgotten you asked me to take her, just in case— on me you could depend.

I should have taken her. That time was a blur. I was pregnant, and shocked and felt the stir.

Your ex-wife wrote about your love. It was all you wanted to hear, from earth and above.

I will write about you again. I will read, I will call, pray and pen. 

Goodnight, rock star,

Vita

Hour 4, Prompt 4

He is a lovely jailor
who loves me in cage of his arm,
making me warm.
His kiss is a miss
that’s why I am piss.
my god knows how my cleavage survive
without his bite,
while I miss that lovely ride
craving to be soon his wife.

Dear Luis,

We didn’t know how serious it was. And it sure was sudden. I wish we knew how serious it was. The way your head swelled up and swallowed you whole.

I don’t think your family ever appreciated you. I don’t know if anyone ever did, enough.

You were so generous with your time, your life, your everything. How you literally gave anyone the shirt off your back. How you showed up one day without a word, handed me a CD at the door and disappeared.

You were like that. Never asking for anything in return while all the vampires sucked you dry.

I’m glad you weren’t there at your funeral. How they carried on in their snake handling ways. Speaking in tongues and proselytizing, trying to convert the people, when we were just there to say goodbye to you.

I’m sorry for everyone.

And I’m sorry we never said how much we truly appreciated you when you were alive.

Its been a while, like three years since you wen out of this world to the unknown,
I’m not sure what that must be like, allways think about you as some unreachable being,
you live most plagues from the beginnig of twnty century, and you get to the beginning of twenty one,
I don’t know what to tell you, solo sabías español y eso es lo que importaba, but you knew how to ask how was I,
“¿Cómo estás, santa m’ija?” you told me many times.

I have asked mom, your daughter who still misses you out, what would have you do at this pandemic state, she told me that you would tell us to survive, and just enjoy each day like the last one, I’m still taking that advice.

Lockdown is a thing here, but at least you can tell me to wash my chones para que no esté toda chamagosa.

We’re okay now, just let you know we could not go out, there’s still an emergency, but we keep it up with a smile.

Loves and highs ’til the unknown, miss you a lot

Dear an ex who I have forgotten your name,

I wonder if you knew that you made the lilies wilt the day you left 
not the lilies you gave me but the ones I gave you 
they were bright, strong and beautiful 
warming our house with promise 
I placed them inside the door where you dropped your keys after a long day  
ensuring that you would see them and perhaps smile
but that day, there were no keys to drop 
as you held them tightly in your grip when entering 
exclaiming that you were through and life wasnt fair 
stumbling over day drinking breath that you couldn't do this anymore 
The lilies sat beautifully as all the flowers in your home had 
waiting for a deep sigh and apology 
but none came 
I wonder if you knew the lilies died that day 
the day you left and no more flowers wanted to come in your home 
I wonder if you ever realized there were flowers there in the first place
I myself have chosen to remember the flowers 
the bright, strong and beautiful lilies
but I happen to forget your name 

the thrum of impatience
and din of greed; clangor
of intolerance and tumult
of bigotry ring so loudly
across our land they drown
out the voices –

in silence we hear the butterflies

thumbs flying, eyes down
a steady stream of lies
no filter – critical
thinking (a lost
art) we forge forward
asking no questions
and the one we should
sitting idle on our tongues

in silence we hear the butterflies

only in our collective quiet will the
answers be found – amongst the singing
stars; sonorous ocean swells, dulcet
tones of a rainbow and in the
melodic hum of trees
alive with promise

in silence we hear the butterflies