The Poetry Marathon

Giving

~ From afar,
The world watches

As you smile
As your energy provokes

One
After
Another
Gift,

One
After
Another
Friend

~ Is it you
Who carries The Message
or
The Message
That carries you?

~ Friends twining together
From across a city
From across a state
From across a nation

As you become
The Voice of Reason
of Friendship
of Love
of Food Lovers
of Workers Who Love Food

~ And I watch,
And every time I listen,
I wonder:

How
Did you
Get through
The Grief

To love
To bind
To give?

~ Is he in every one of us
Whom you’ve helped,
Whose lives you’ve saved
After he could not be?

~ I will tell you this:

You’ve saved my life
So many times
With just your ability

To smile
To live
To love
Again

And, somehow,
You
Still
Give

~ I cannot help but wonder
At your capacity

When The Truth
Of Love
Can be Tasted
In the result of a well-crafted dish

When I think of
How many dishes
You have salted
With the love
You have
Given

Despite
Grief

 

**An homage to Jen Heidenger of Giving Kitchen

If I were famous – hour 1, prompt 1

If I were famous

are you kidding me?

this girl’s not ready

eyes all on my mussed face

any day, any time or place

can’t even peek out

to let the dog run about

without prying eyes

I’d need a disguise

or a pseudonym

to protect my double chin

and how old really

is that Gucci bag, 1993?

how is she famous?

what is her namesake?

I have no stylist to sleek

no salon once a week

no designer clothes

but I’ve got my Walmart shoes

my sharpies, paint and pencils steady

Prismacolor, always ready

to draw new adventures

alternative universes

coiffed hair, shimmering lips

salon painted, hair snipped

a frou frou pooch

and those cars, phshaw!

two or three, classics all

up there on the 35th floor

skyscraper, painted doors

my office, the view

that’s famous too

can’t find me here

windows tinted, and dear

go walk my dog

I can’t handle the smog

and typing, it’ll do

to make me popular, too

WordPress at the ready

best seller, hold steady

the novel of dreams

but so real it seems

the heroine so familiar

that someone wants to kill her

her beauty adored

in fabrics she can afford

and if ever she gets shook

by a fatal gun, look

she can close the freaking book.

– Sandra Johnson

 

 

 

OUR SUN.

She is the sun
Bringing forth light
To the dim lonely closets
Making the moments light.

She is the package of your dreams
Like an eagle still soaring
Every day selflessly living
And with hope, she is scaling.

Her aura is inviting
Every troubled soul she comforts
A smile for another smile
Hugs and plenty supports

She is the girl child advocate
For those that come after her
For their education she fights
And hope they soon join her

She is the leader of her time
Youthfully challenging norms
Gradually developing communities
Even to the courts.

Betty is the star
That always shines bright
Making Earth brighter.

Desperation

I sit alone in the darkness,

tossed in without a prompt

by those damned judges

in their fine black robes.

Fettered to the wall,

all I hear is the swish

as the pendulum drops.

Panic sets in as time ticks away.

Confusion clouds my brain.

I am in the depths of despair.

Crying, pleading, shrieking, flailing,

until I realize by the stench that

others have been here before me.

I grope the littered floor for any

scrap of paper and writing utensil.

My hand stumbles onto a stub of a pencil

and a crumpled piece of paper.

The swishing sound of the pendulum

increases,

and I can feel the breeze it creates.

I scribble faster trying to scrawl

a couplet containing a coherent thought.

As the blade brushes my shoulder,

Poem #1 falls

unfinished

from my hand

lost forever

before I could even begin.

2020 Poetry Marathon Hour 1 – Liar

A faint mist of vaporous emotion wettens the eyes

As he tells me about a Fernando Garcia.

Hadn’t seen him in years

Had him listed as an emergency contact.

An awful, random tragedy

That he’ll never mention again

That probably never existed.

Yet he speaks with an enthusiasm, a force

Charisma that makes me want to believe..

 

But the words don’t match the facts

Don’t even match the other, earlier words.

His actions never hear the promises he makes.

And if I call him on it?

A fresh, angrier lie.

But the intent is always the same,

Sob stories, rants, and mea culpae

all hide one wish behind them:

“Give me a pass.”

 

Can’t meet his eyes as he tells me

he’s going to see Fernando’s mother.

Slowly, sadly, I shake my head,

Grieving truth and trust.

But not Fernando.

 

 

Nazha Khalidi – Hour 1

Born in an open-air prison
Raised with no freedom under oppression
Her people calling out for liberation
They fight with cameras
Recording violations
For the world to see
To hear
Their story
She is Sahrawi.

I met her in Europe
Demanding justice from the powerful
It was her activism that got Moroccans shook-up
Arrested for streaming live on the streets
Unlawful
She is attractive, fearless, and commands a room with her voice
To them, good traits on the wrong woman

You are an interesting person
When I first heard your story
I didn’t expect to be helping you sneak around to secretly smoke
Holding up a scarf at what we thought might be a smoke alarm in the toilet
I didn’t expect to be introduced to your fiancé
The Sahrawi human rights-defending power couple
To be treated to lunch by both of you

Your greatest heroes are ordinary people too
Or perhaps, rather
Ordinary people can be great heroes too
Thank you, Nazha Khalidi

Hour 1

I know today is another moment
Another chance to wonder and
Wish and figure out what
Life might be but
I really don’t want to be
Cliche.
So how do I change that?
Find four things and focus.
One.
Two.
Three…

I need another.
Ah, there it is.
Four. The open closet door
Creaks whebever the cat
Claims it as her own.

What is happening to us?
The strange has become familiar
And my thoughts jumble from
Play to work to nothing…
Blankness.

I should have thoughts while my body rests,
Yet this think machine sits idle
Scuffing shoes on the gravel as I
Meander through unimportant tasks and
A soup of tar: thick, sticky,
A permanent stain.

Does Everyone Know Someone Famous?

I knew her when she was a kid,
remember when she and her brother won
the 4H Share the Fun competition
in McAlester,
her voice,
his upside down guitar.
They could sure put on
a show.
My three octave range
didn’t stand a chance.

It’s the show that matters.
That was my first lesson.

In high school, senior year
singing with a rock band turned country
for 4-H,
pretending to be Kitty Wells
on the Grand Ole Opry stage,
my friends and I went all the way to state,
sang in front of a crowd
at the Iba Arena.

When we got offered a summer gig,
the six of us,
Dad put his foot down.
His daughter wasn’t going to be
a country singer.

I put my foot down, too.
I wasn’t going to be a gospel singer,
the path he envisioned for me.
Our relationship was fractious,
And I somehow found the courage
to choose my own path.
I didn’t become famous,
but I still make music.
And I am still learning lessons.

One lesson has stayed with me,
Learned at the end of a show in Stillwater,
not long after her original band
died in a plane crash.
I shared
a few words with her,
saw the fatigue
understood the hard work,
the dedication,
the singular focus it takes
to be a star, still

I’d joke
or poke at a sore place in me,
that every time I sold a story,
a poem,
a feature in a magazine,
she’d made it to the pages
or the cover,
first.

But on that night,
I went home to my kiddos,
my four-year-old son,
my infant daughter,
and knew I’d made the right choice for myself,
and that she had earned,
had paid for, every accolade.

This year, in a book of Oklahoma poetry,
I’m proud to be included.
She’s there, too,
and we both deserve our place
on the page.

THE OUTCRY

The world stood still

To the smattering smear of a viral pellet
Disrupting every postulation
With images of illusion…
It grounded every dream
With a paradox of reclusion
The sweeping might of this spatial plague
Has continued to haunt and hack
Every unsuspecting tramp in its wake
You have won the battle…
We will win the war!!

THE GODDESS OF SHOWING UP – Hour 1

 

THE GODDESS OF SHOWING UP

–for Mohini Sharma

 

Mohini, our shining star

a slayer of demons long before we met

& don’t get sweet or humble like you do

I checked Wikipedia & it’s the second paragraph under your LEGENDS

 

& you might tell me I’m mistaken

that I was looking at the Goddess

I assure you

I looked at The Goddess when I saw you

I learned your name thereby I learned hers

the glory of magic, of illusion, of truth! 

beckoning us into the Maya we share

 

no way out but through

as above so below

as within so without

never broken by the truth

like the way the forge sees the value of will

 

flowing through this destructive dance

the body of our polity aching

this too is magic, is illusion, is truth

what else could a Goddess do but show up for the work?

not one single soul in this world is alone.

 

bereft, we began building equity in our hearts

we went out into the streets with cries for justice

the swell rising like our selfsame ocean of sorrow

our arctic traumas breaking away into the waters in big chunks

 

the faces of a thousand allies breaking up on the shore

the screams fading into the hushhush waves on sand

as it is our future it is our history

you sit on the bluff & your cry is like the last eagle

 

Mohini, our shining star, touch your own head

reduce the demons of our burnout to ashes

illuminate the night sky with hope.

We’re here for it.