24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Good Morning from East Side of Manhattan NY. Looking forward to creating poems this year. I am a drama therapist in training and use theatre, improv, and poetry in my work with elders who suffer from memory impaired diseases. This year may be a challenge, as I have a 4 month old daughter Leanna. Although as far as babies come, she is easy to handle.
Walking barefoot along the spiral path of life.
Do we post from the dashboard, Just like the introduction? Also where do we find the prompts?
We never asked for the multiple overtures from the Bahman bums
who took none of his creeds to their grasping chest cavities,
but there we were,
spreading out the adverts masking as letters,
all claiming to know exactly
the bind we were in and what they would do – for
a nominal fee – to get us out of a debt
our understanding informed us
didn’t exist.
All through the next week,
we debated, this lawyer or that,
and what approach and how would we pay, and why should we pay,
when this debt was a matter
that didn’t exist?
All through the week, too, invariably,
our attention turned to the nature of debt and who was shaken
and who did the shaking.
Our better avatars never used the
words “shyster” or “scumbag,”
but we are seldom at our best
when our enforced seclusion
is shattered by forces
that proclaim they can rip our paper worlds
and be perfectly justified in so doing
and make it appear that
at no time
did we ever exist.
The other morning, both of us at computer screens,
madly searching avenues for pro bono representation –
true Bahmans –
when you emit a joyful whoop.
Before I can ask, you hold up your hand,
reading the response from
the entity to take us at our paper words and make the bums
retreat into the shadows like a recoiled snake.
Who knew such a deus ex machina moment could
happen, all while the world had supposedly shut down, and with it
the summons no one skimming the public teat
has to prove the right to exist?
In this time of COVID, please warmly embrace my brief introduction.
Not only am I grateful and honored that is the fourth Poetry Marathon of which I have been an active participant, I am a daughter, wife, mother and grandmother.
Two years ago, I retired from my career in education and am currently working as a cashier in a local grocery store.
Relying on the hourly prompts enable me to stretch as a poet. I look forward to learning and accepting the challenge given.
Ordinarily, I have a tendency to isolate when writing, but not during the Marathon.
During the Marathon, the community of poets keep me going through the small hours of the night.
Unbelievably talented poets come together, sharing in phenomenal poetry. It’s amazing and beautiful. There is nothing like this experience. Every year has been different and fantastic.
Certainly, the 2020 Poetry Marathon is already embedded with the uniqueness that can only come from this year.
Taking in the Marathon through each hour as it comes, keeps me focused on the prompts.
I look forward to reading as many poems as I can and commenting on each that I read.
Obviously, you will experience the Marathon for yourself, but you will not go it alone.
No one can take this away from you. You earn it through every poem.
Hi,
I’m Aisha from Pakistan, this is my fourth poetry marathon and I’m very excited to be joining again after several years. I’ve strayed away from poetry for some time now and want to find my inspiration again. Around 6 years ago I first joined the marathon and had the chance to share my still new, uncertain work with some amazing writers and poets and it’s an experience I will always carry with me. Looking forward to read some amazing work!
Love to all my poets.
Egg shell white walls,
House and garden cover,
Hair in a bob perfectly coloured, just right,
Movie star looks and grace,
Street-kid tough, polio survivor,
She could do the hard things for the rest of us,
Paper towels at the ready with a cold glass of Canada Dry,
Tucks me into bed, fresh warm sheets, gentle kiss on the head,
Globe and mail clippings predicting your future,
Observing everything, phone in hand, looking out the window at the top of the hill,
All knowing.
Good luck everyone. I am beyond excited to do this with all of you again. Let’s get it started. You may see me on the facebook group as SparrowsInkwell. That is my handle for my writer’s name Jessica L. Sparrow.
Same handle I use for instagram and Twitter.
Again, good luck and happy writing.
Maggie V. Miles is a recent graduate of CUNY: JJAY School of Criminal Justice with a BFA in English. She is an all around creative force living in New York City using past trauma and recovery to create bodies of work that are thought provoking, light, heavy, and everything in between. This is her first time participating in a writing marathon.