The Poetry Marathon

Cosmic Love (HR 2)

Recipe for Change

You’ll need to make sure
all your ingredients
are at the ready

You’ll need
1 healthy dose of anger
(fresh, not packaged due to
limited shelf life)

1 jar of openness
(open and let breathe)

Unlimited supply of WTFs
(fresh, as opposed to
pre-packaged
no added ingredients
no preservatives
fresh indignancy adds
honest flavor)

Multiple calls to action
(don’t skimp, you cannot
over-season change)

Mix all the ingredients together
in large vessel
one-at-a-time
slowly, deliberately

stirring continuously
cook over a low flame
(don’t burn out)

simmer until desired
readiness and consistency

spoon out to all comers

*Recipe may be doubled
or tripled as needed.

Serves unlimited amounts

fresh, homemade
justice for all.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2020
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Hour 2 – unprecedented

unprecedented

there is no recipe for this
no steps to follow one upon the next
but feel your way in the dark
reaching out along the dim passage
uncertain if the floor itself will hold
or what creature will appear next
to torment you

if I had words to give you
instructive, enlightening
words to lift your spirit
doubtless, I would share them

but no
in this
you are alone

just, keep going

Hour 2, Almost a Haiku

I never was one for following recipes,
prefer, instead, the adventure
of trial and error.

Black love. (1/2 Marathon, Hour Two)

Black love.
I will not understand your pain
Until you feel my rage in its entirety.

I will not empathize with every death that leaves me just a little more dead
Like starting with numbness—fingers with needles in the tips
Like a blackened lung that will no longer process breath
Like the my fourth toe on my right foot hardening and falling off
Like my left shin (grey on the side) faded and deceased like frost-bitten flesh
Like no nipples left from malignant ravaging
Like three locs of my hair falling out randomly—but not
Like a kidney pounded and destroyed by blood desperately running from stress
Like a vagina sewn tightly with straw and rock
Like my back covered in scales, dark and dry and lifeless
Like fat smothering a heart that is ready to stop breaking

Ready to stop breaking.

This is a lie. I feel your pain because it is my pain inside of your body.

But you will never feel my rage.
You don’t believe it’s real.

Poem #2

Recipe for a Relationship
Ingredients
1 whole person
1 tender heart
a generous supply of time
1/4 C of empathy
1/4 C of compassion

Find one solid human being who is interesting and arouses something in you when you see them. Add one tender heart which will be good for most things, helping, cheering you on, wrapping arms around you as needed, etc. Add in a generous amount of time. You will need an ample amount to discover all the little things you need to know in order to make this mix work. Stir in your 1/4 cup of empathy. Are they able to put themselves in your shoes and you likewise with them? Now, lastly, add your compassion. It should make your mix pliable, able to bend and move easily. If mix is still a little stiff, add a few drops of tears from experiences from both of your pasts. Mix all together and bake slow and well. The relationship may be served hot or cold, either way you may make it a delicious treat.

Sunflowers (Hour 2)

From small seed,  they were planted,

these sunflowers in a row.

My first year at trying them,

to see if they would grow.

 

Mighty sprouts unfurled through the soil,

Seeking the sun so bright.

Watching them grow taller each day,

it’s such an amazing delight.

 

They are tower over me now,

Well over five feet five in the air.

The blooms begin to open,

Bringing smiles to those walking by.

 

Watching for the seeds to form,

To feed the birds the flutter near.

To save a few seeds for myself,

For planting future cheer.

 

Hour 2, prompt 2 Ingredients

My childhood tasted like favoritism,
fresh, hot-off-the-grill patriarchy seasoned,
guiltless bites of “don’t talk so loud,
don’t have that opinion, don’t show that much skin.”

Devouring a life long diet of “stop crying” and
“no one will love you if you eat like that.”

Partially cooked platters of hypocrisy and conditional love.

So, I hid chocolate under my pillow and snuck out
to find validation from boys who never loved me.
All the while, consuming half chewed snack packs of “I hate my mother.”

As a child, my mother encouraged us to feast on the words of God,
to consume hate and discrimination by the handful because,
according to her, my white skin was the only worthwhile thing about me.

It wasn’t long before I started to feed myself from the books I read.
To twist compassion around my fork twines
and slurp up empathy was a singular revolution for my soul.

When I tasted diversity for the first time,
I knew that I’d never get enough.

Recipe For a Lost Love

Recipe ingredients 

 Distance 

Time 

Complacency 

Inertia 

Frustration 

 

Ingredient 1. Is mixed in with everything else,  

Ingredient 2 seasons. 

3 and 4 are tossed into the recipe, both compliment each other perfectly 

But it is 5 that gives it its punch  

 

Method

It was distance of so far for so long

that our love just lost all its heat 

It was time that spoke most, the day after day, more like friends than lovers 

I had somehow grown to enjoy the solitude, lived both lives single and in love 

Certain it was not forever, that time would bring us back again 

Stronger for having made it through 

I didn’t realise her heart had already risen 

Not for us as lovers now but for us as almost so 

Frustration is the prime ingredient of a broken heart 

the what if, the questions 

That sprinkle throughout the whole stack of emotions 

That the glaze of tears that are dried out by grief 

But what hurts most, is knowing 

I did not take enough care, thinking it all so simple 

So straightforward, the recipe of love 

Being maths, measures and doses 

The recipe of love, requires a devoted hand 

It was distance for far too long, that love lost its heat 

More friends now, than lovers 

Two hearts, no longer stirred 

 

My Key – Prompt 1

I loved the way you painted us

Battling wicked fathers

and blood thirsty demons

Our bodies that were

fat-bearing enemies,

begging for war.

You painted us

with legs that ran fast

with voices that belted

and I a key nestled right in my palm.

So I could lock all of my demons behind.