The Poetry Marathon

Poem 2 | {N-dimethyltryptamine}

By Ajanta Judd All Rights Reserved – 12am Australian EST – No Prompt

 

{N-dimethyltryptamine}

 

I’m invoking my DMT

so I can float in a sea of bliss

so that I can escape from all of this

in this place – at this time

to a state which is sublime –

far removed from the maddening crowd

at least in this household

at least in this place

where space is a commodity

where validation is a rare gem

where energy floats dysregulated

settling densely in the dust

lying thick on the furniture

drifting insipidly amid the noise

of mindless video games

weighing heavily in the disquiet

of sedentary beings

I’m invoking my DMT

so I can float in a sea of bliss

and escape all this

 

 

The Second Wave

Daughters of the founders

Cousins and mothers of the third

The invisible crest

The unheard

”Be anything you want”

”Be smart”

”Be Pretty”

”Be nice”

”Be good”

”Lean In”

So everybody can surf the amplitude

of your energy

your efforts

your quiet indignation

Frolicking in the froth

Never checking

for the women

Crashed

broken into a trough

Prompt one: Helen’s Horse

Helen’s Horse

~willjxn~

 

Darkness is her relevance;

sitting blindly on the glooming.

One magnolia on her lap.

Her Trojan horse— stark silence looming.

 

Constellations— worlds unseen.

Symphonies,  loud silence neighing.

Arion— his presence stirring,

Courageously, she rides his back.

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