The Poetry Marathon

Hour 13 – Twenty Roadrunners

Twenty Roadrunners

(Based on the poem “Twenty Froggies” by George Cooper)

Twenty roadrunners went to school
Where the desert heat is cruel
Twenty feather coats so trim
Twenty tails so straight and prim

“We are responsible,” said they.
“Respectful and safe in every way;
This is what we know is true
At our school of Pleasant View.”

All the teachers, kind but firm
Gave the chicks a lot to learn
Taught them how to read and write
And found their students very bright

Taught them math and science too
Were proud of how the small chicks grew
Saw them leave for bigger things
Roadrunners now could spread their wings

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The prompt made me think of the poem Twenty Froggies. I decided to borrow that format, but write it about my school Pleasant View with our mascot the Roadrunners.
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Here’s a link to the original poem: https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3358

Little Poetry Projects, Uneven Debts

Our crooked mail was bleeding surreptitiously
through its envelope.
Upon opening – gingerly – the crusted folds
(obviously, the delivery had reinvigorated
the wound), we sighed with relief
even as the paper therein snarled
its intent to drain us of
our combined incomes with bold-formatted and triple-underlined
claims that sounded like they were generated by
a program, not written by a cogent and reasonable
human being.

Foregone conclusions in mail extortion
being one of the signifiers in the
fall of the Roman Empire, we knew,
in a dead second it was either us or it.
Wordlessly, Ron and I danced the mail
to the sink, cornering it with the
mercy it had shown us and we drowned it
to a pulp, then finished it off
with the garbage disposal.

Just to be precariously indulgent,
I bleach bombed the drain and plugged it
with the stopper. Nothing must return
to infect our other correspondence.
We count our guest appearances
in civil dinners, and consider ourselves
pen pals with battle scars.

We are victors.
We demolish the undead.

Gentlewoman, Hour Thirteen

Gentlewoman

In former ages I would have been discreetly labeled a gentlewoman,
that creature of the growing middle class that could not be defined,
dabbling in domestic arts and essentially unoccupied
but for the supervision of the education of my children in the delicate arts
of how to be essentially unoccupied gentlemen and gentlewomen.

In reality, I am gardener, maid, cook, housekeeper, arborist,
chauffeur, medic, recycler, repurposer, thrifter, hauler, economist,
budgeter, secretary, clerk, cleric, chronicler, photographer, author,
biographer, daycare specialist, and all around domestic engineer,
an essentially unoccupied housewife.

Hour 4 Slowly Catching Up

Gotta really focus for awhile now!

Hour 4

 

We are states always and some days I wish farther

Most friendships end either explosively or slow

And yet I was able to fade quickly 

And it’s not really you

Nor is it really me

But it’s us

And for us I was changing in a way that you weren’t

And I realized that with my changes I was tired

Tired of the same conversations 

Tired of being ignored

Tired of being first and last on your list of friends

Tired of you not getting it

I haven’t hated you

But I don’t love you anymore

And that might be the kindest thing I can do for you now

 

On this alter to say I do

My body walks up to yours, your sweet shiny smile welcoming me to our forever
The priest coughs into the mic, we stop staring at each other to look at him.

Oh lover, we are here and I cannot believe it.

Before we stand here to swear to God and man, expressing our undying love, there were days our love withered from the drought of affection
We were unable to love, our souls were unreceptive and I cried on those days, never imagining they would pass.

Oh lover, did you know we will get here?

Those days our emotions were the only things we saw. Days we let our pride go first before our heart desires.
Today we stand before each other- and this priest who is asking the congregation if anyone opposes our union.

Oh, lover, my heart flutters sweetly

We dance and jump the broom to honour your tradition
Only days ago, I’d danced around my father’s compound, walking in the midst of the guests
I’d sat on your lap and we drank wine from a cup, honouring mine.

Oh lover, I am glad to walk this path with you

On this alter I say I do, I walk back to our past, I am glad at our future, and my heart is full of joy.

Hour 13 image prompt

Stripes

Make my eyes

Hurt so much

Stripes

Change the lanes

From roads

To crosswalks

And I

Wear striped pants

That hurt my eyes

As I cross

Striped streets

With my eyes closed

Hour Twelve: Closeted Clutterer

Open, close, open

white panels blending in a white-walled chamber–

Close, open, close

hidden disarray, a mind, a mess, a material amassment–

open, open, open

white poly-blend shirt, patterned harem pants–

close, close, close

move along, all clear, nothing to see here.

 

What is love if it aint me (Hour 10)

Love is doing good deeds when no one is watching.

It is the absence of your self within your actions.

Love is that which all require, but none is willing to acquire.

Love is that which all aspire for, yet, dont inspire.

Love, the thing that everyone wants and nobody wants to give.

Love, is that which seems to be of no importance to the culprits of disordinance.

Love is that which is counterfeited and sold as fools gold in the form of flesh and bone. Moist kisses of cognac and Menthol scented regrets.

What IS love? A drug? A natural herb that one can tea and boil and spoil.

Is it soil that saw you young as you stepped upon its ground, is it mother who has left, was she Love? Is love dead?

Is it only in our hearts, in our minds, in our dreams?

If not us, then what is love

Then what is love,

If it ain’t me.

Symphony

The air in the wind grinds your nostril into an

Ammonium confirmed compound of lost.

You do not choke and you do not falter.

A street with ghosts must only gather

A confederation of darkness, your skin

Kind is the first to assemble. Ghosts are whites

So even in this holy ground you’re discriminated.

You leave the one places that calls you son, two

Roads diverge in a yellow wood. You take none,

You take all, you cling to the illusion of righteousness,

You put your hand again, today, against all the odds

Yet, you cannot count yourself among your people

And you cannot clasp and not shake in silence —

So all the nights music, lay quietly before the soft

Lip of the broken town of ghosts and my kinsmen.

What Do I Do? (Poem 13)

 

Glorifying life and relationships

Making people believe

That love exists

That happy endings are possible

 

I lie and fake it all

More faff than fact

I make people assume fiction is reality

 

What do I do?

I weave tall tales

 

In response to text prompt number 13:

Describe your profession through a funny/humourous poem.