Across the miles
Hour 2 Prompt 2
The lineage of desires evoking
Out in open for a collective effort
Moving to conviction to life everlasting
Surging the path ahead
Across the isles existence
Providing little efforts in loving encounter
I am writing
I am writing, just not posting yet. My tendonitis is more of a bother than I realized. I will write one poem per hour for 12 hours and post later.
Laburnum
Crazy coincidences happen every day.
Sometimes when we are done burning
The world around us conspires with the universe,
To sound out a judgement in our favour.
That’s when Laburnums grow.
While everything is turning into dust,
Brittle, blown away into the winds,
Soft trees stand tall, like a great big challenge to the sky.
On Being Vulnerable
The ability to be vulnerable is the ability to live.
not only to thrive, but to survive.
a dog knows that it must be vulnerable, yet people seem to equate vulnerability with shame.
eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom
are all acts of vulnerability in the wild.
humans are no different.
love, being loved, giving and receiving love,
are also acts of vulnerability
necessary for survival.
hour 1, prompt 1, Bird Women
Some of us are
Bird Women
Frail, pale, and shaking
eyes red,
we hunch over –
ashamed
We retell our tales of abuse and rape
abuse and rape
abuse
abuse
abuse
until it feels like we are talking about someone else.
Just a bedtime story,
another time,
another place.
Bird women live trapped in arched cages of our own design.
Each bar carefully crafted with
barbwire intentions
Delicately woven together with our belief in their potential –
to be.
more loving
more kind
more human
“I gave up the sunlight just so he’d love me.”
Bird women are weak
until they’re not.
As our broken wings heal
and our clipped wings grow,
we burn.
To reclaim our wholeness,
bird women will burn down
bird women will burn away
bird women will burn-
a phoenix from the ashes
we rise
we soar
we forgive ourselves and learn from our cages.
Bird women – I love you.
Hour 1 – Mary Anning
Mary Anning
Gentle waves washed the English coast
Where once Mesozoic oceans played
Creatures odd and massive it did boast
Now walks this fatherless, solitary maid
Her intent, to find curiosities to sell
Remains of shellfish long gone from the sea
“Snake-stones” for which the tourist paid well
To aid her low class and hungry family
This day her discovery is something new
Sixteen meters long, a jaw with teeth,
Flippers propelled it through the briny blue
A gift to Mary the sand did now bequeath
The ichthyosaur was Mary Anning’s find
When she was but a young girl of twelve
A life-long passion Mary then refined
And into the past she eagerly did delve
No women could join the Geological Society
No low-class person was credited with their finds
Yet Mary was recognized for her authority
And worked with scientists, a meeting of the minds
Anning changed the view we have of the past
Exploring creatures no one had ever seen
An ichthyosaur was named for her at last
Reminder of this explorer of the marine
Brothers
“What do you need?”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“What do you need?”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you need?”
What I need is impossible
There’s no use voicing it
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
I don’t know
I don’t know anymore
I don’t even know who would know
I don’t know how to even try to figure out
I don’t know
“What do you need?”
What I need cannot be picked up at the store
This is not a situation where a bandaid will help
“Are you okay?”
I have no idea
It changes from hour to hour
I’ve never seen myself like this
I have never been in something like this
I have no idea
“What do you need?”
I need brothers
Maybe that was why I dreamed
Of working in a restaurant two nights ago
I need brothers in arms
I need closeness
I need arms around my shoulders
I need the reassurance
That I can be exactly who I am
And exactly where I am
And there is nothing I need do
I need my brothers back
Recipe for Chaos
This is my grandmother’s recipe, so bear with me
1 tsp of sheer dumb luck
2 tbsp of a winning smile
1 and 1/2 tbsp nicotine addiction
1 cup of blatant disregard of those around him
2 cups unrelenting visions of grandeur
This recipe takes a while to perfect, so start it as soon as you can.
Once you begin, it will never end.
Maggie 1/2 marathon poem #1
Maggie
1/2 marathon poem #1
The Iron woman with an iron fist
Cast her long shadow over Britain’s poor
Maggie the destroyer of miner’s hopes
Cast her long shadow over pit and moor
The blue dragon with an icy soul
Spits her bitter breathe over Tyne and Trent
Maggie the heartless thief of children’s milk
Winter’s bitter taste of our discontent
The Iron woman with an heart of stone
Fated by the warm bile upon her throne
Maggie killed by her own poll tax spell
Taken to the sword by all of her own.