The Poetry Marathon

A Pandemic Bop

Other people
are finding
too much time
on their idle hands.
I can’t relate, I seem to be
running on a hamster wheel.

(Where are the hamsters, anyway?)
My husband does the cooking now.
I stay up late. I haven’t read a book
for months. Instead, emails, the torrents
of bad news, one unthinkable reality
after another. I end each day wanting
hours more. Is my old life elsewhere,
running on a hamster wheel?

1000-piece jigsaw puzzles fill
my friends’ excess hours. Long
distance grandkids call. What about
grandparents? The virologists field
the questions. How much longer
running on a hamster wheel?

The Age of Reason

Its difficult to stay positive
When the world seems to be full of people
Who can’t listen, who won’t listen
To anyone they disagree with
Condemning the other side as evil or traitors
Rather than finding common ground

We are living in the age of reason
And we all seem to have a reason to hate right now

I understand why, its easier
To just believe that the other side are wrong
And not just factually but morally
Remove them from the debate because they don’t deserve
The consideration we show to the people who agree with us
And its not like they wouldn’t do the same thing to me
Nuance is the enemy
And compromise defeat

We are all living in the age of reason
And we all seem to have a reason to hate right now

But this is not sustainable people
We need to find common ground
Look across the barricade and see
Another human being
Confused, distressed, fatally flawed
No different from the rest of us

Dear Society

I cannot be a voice for the voiceless,

If everyone who wants to be heard wants to be louder than the next person,

But no one wants to listen.

We speak of doom but we are a society of sheep,

Herded by our own demise.

 

 

Where colour becomes coloursim.

Race becomes racism.

Where men call the streets home and women call it business.

Teenagers call it an insult.

And Americans call it a graveyard.

 

A place where the darker my skin is,

The deeper my roots are.

A place where being black has been the only thing that has stood the test of time.

And still the world grades us with an F in swear words against us.

A place where the black man has,

Developed a shell for each black insult they threw at him.

So his melanin became his armour and no one could hurt him.

And just when he learnt how not to care,

Learnt how to silence the world and be comfortable in his suit of armor.

They traded insults for bullets.

And masked murder as justice.

 

We all want to be the same,

Be the same characters in a never ending series.

Be approved by the same society that demands change,

But can never start it.

 

We will continue to fight a system that was never set up to protect us.

Continue screaming till our voices run drier than African wells in drought

Till someone hears us.

Till society makes a change.

Till the voice of every man is heard.

 

So don’t take this as another one of those inspirational poems or speeches

I cannot be a voice for the voiceless,

If everyone wants to be heard to be louder than the next person,

But no one wants to listen.

Afro’s Frame

My tight coiled hair fills the frame

Of an otherwise short existence

They tell me “heat. Add heat”

To straighten and elongate

What’s more they say it’s not enough

And so I add extra chemicals that burn

 

Good hair Bad hair White hair Black heir

 

The rain and humidity aggravates

My efforts to fit in to this tight box

My hair begins to shrivel

Outsiders laugh and gawk

Asking to touch what is not theirs

They think me eccentric

 

Good hair Bad hair White hair Black heir

 

All the posters all around straighten out

Can’t get me down

I take my tight coiled hair to shake

I watch it puff and expand and

Rightfully take command.

It’s natural. Treat it so. 100% mine

 

Good hair Bad hair White hair Black heir

Different (Hour 3)

The keys clattered loudly as her fingers flew,

The noise a soothing release of what felt she knew.

Their visions were different for the group,

She knew that when they met.

She kept on going just in case,

Things changed inside her head.

 

Stuck deep in the mire of longing,

Wanting to be seen and known, but scared.

Wanting it to be different, wanting people that would care.

The anxiety kept rising, week after week,

Different, not together, not able to express her doubts,

The group wasn’t what she hoped,  she had to find her way out.

 

Running wasn’t the answer, she did it every time.

She’d have to change her tactic, to try to more than just survive.

The meeting scheduled to talk, one on one with the group lead,

The very next day rescheduled, it was hard enough to believe.

Different, not together, though perhaps that was okay,

The meeting no longer needed, she was stronger yet that day.

 

 

Hour 3

“Jellybeans don’t have gluten…”
She offered, as if that negated the fact
That she ate half a bag before
I woke from a sound sleep.

I stood at the side table
Watching her munch on
Unsafe foods for her
Gentle belly
Knowing she would soon experience
Pain
Cramping
And a hundred needles
Pulsing through her
Gut
Ill since birth
Since
Pre-birth
Since I couldn’t feel her kicking
My own insides

It’s almost worth seeing her in pain
If it means I am seeing her.

How awful it feels
To admit that…

The Allure of Testing

NB: Very mild spoilers for Portal 2.

---

What is the allure of testing?
Never resting, striving after
New disasters for the test
To best a challenge thrown
By unknown opponents
Enter the ring

Testing, proving,
Trying, moving,
Thinking, knowing,
Learning, growing.

GLaDOS knows her drive, her itch,
That which she says no longer rules her
Nothing fools her but herself, perhaps,
With traps of escalation.
The player, though, as well
As Chell, why seek the danger?
What is stranger than the human need
To feed on tribulation?

Testing, proving,
Trying, moving,
Thinking, knowing,
Learning, growing.

Tests are problems with solutions
Sweet dilutions of real stress
Lived duress with no way out
No doubt that’s why we fly
To try our metal in a place
With rules and bounds.

Testing, proving,
Trying, moving,
Thinking, knowing,
Learning, growing.

Each Time You Spit

Such outward sorrow as clads your smile

Betrays the secret you hold.

Far too long from haunting

it now acts with substance and you,

racked with self-imposed stains

have left it too late to lighten

 

And each time you spit, you will see it.

 

The weight upon the back of your neck

leaves you hunched over words.

A thickening pad between your shoulders

deforms your expectations for living.

It is in death you seek forgiveness

but you fail as it has rendered you

Helpless. Intention vomits over

all your thoughts and actions

 

And each time you spit, you will see it.

 

Such inward regret as darkens your heart

remains testament to your abject

cowardice every day you

refuse to clear your throat.

If you believe it is really too late

For laundry, for water, it is

 

And each time you spit, you will see it.

Professional Procrastinator

In the day, I sit in my chair
Eyes wide open, my mind blank
A seemingly calm outlook
For a man with a to-do list
I lounge around and drink coffee
To stay up and do nothing

My nervous self comes to visit me at night

In the day, portraits watch my every move.
To appease myself, I run through the routine,
But I know of my sham.
Written notes disguise my actions,
The books fortify my falsehood.
A pretty, glass house that I’ve built
To allow my consciousness to peer in,
And glee with satisfaction.

My nervous self comes to visit me at night

In the day, the clock groans with disappointment
The seconds, minutes, and hours all pass by
Endless work to be done
But my lobotomized mind is fixed elsewhere
The fire continues to swell under my feet
But I pay no mind until the day is done

My nervous self comes to visit me at night

Bop 1

These blame gamey days 

of lockdowns and attempted pick us ups. 

We have become the captains 

of our own quarrels 

the very great and the very terrible 

of us all, displayed for all to see. 

 

Touch from a distance 

 

The photographed beaches of bodies, these last few years 

of swept up refugees 

are now the front page of swathes of folk sunning themselves. 

The distrust of binary politics and the flimsy news reports, 

how we try to shake ourselves from this funk 

by the boredom of this humdrum rapture. 

The newscasts of the deaths of thousands filtering 

across the rolled out countryside. This greenish land  

 

Touch from a distance  

 

The dictates, the loose tooth thinking 

by governments and their advisors 

who jangle the keys in front of the cell doors. 

They keep us stuffed up with sport on Television, 

keep the question from our lips, we are not all equal when 

the sacrifices of the many are made for the privilege of the few. 

 

Touch from a distance