The Poetry Marathon

Not sure if I’m doing this right.
but I’m keen to say hi and not sure who will see this.  Where do I find the prompts? Where exactly do I post my poems… here?  Anyone in Cairns area doing this too?

Well hello there,

much has changed since I first said hi.

Poems published x3 books, short stories in journals as well as book and many anthologies. Ghost wrote a memoir last year and am now a columnist for www.Ipinionsyndicate.com. Lost 14 kg recently, Now working on novel in the morning and writing Screenplay through Michigan State Uni. during the afternoons. Poetry is my first 💓. I can’t wait to do this.

Just one query.. do I post my poems … where? My area here? Facebook? I’m 🤔 not sure

hoping to connect with any others… I’m in Yorkeys Knob, Queensland.

Hey! So close now and sooo excited! Any other UK participants?

My name is Louana however I go by Lou for simplicity. I live in the PNW. I have two adult children, a wonderful daughter- in-law, and two beautiful granddaughters. I have been married to my second husband for 4 years. I left the workforce in October 2019 to help my husband through some depression he was going through. He lost a son, his Father and his sister (his only sibling) within a 5 year span. His Mother died when he was in his late Twenties. So he was feeling alone and because I was at work not at home he felt like I didn’t care. Anyway he is doing much better now. I have been writing poetry for years. I believe in the power of words. I haven’t published anything yet however I have wrote personalized poems for people to give as gifts, read at weddings, at funerals, or just because. I am excited for this adventure and it is my first. I have been trying my hand at writing different types of poems and having fun with it.
looking forward to reading all your wonderful work also:)

Hi Marathoners,

I’m a prose writer (fiction & memoir) and a poet. I have a poetry book titled “Saltwater.” The poems are about my childhood growing up in an abusive home. Writing is both healing to me and it is also one of the ways I show my love of the natural world. I also have a novel “Celia’s Heaven,” that will launch in September. As a surprise today (my husband and my 3rd anniversary) we arrived home after a walk south of Bellingham at Bowman Bay to find five boxes of books on the porch. I was thrilled, but also, I felt a little scare rise in me knowing I now have to market these books…and in the time of COVID. Can do this! Yes, of course!

My other book, which is a project still I’m currently working on, is my memoir STRUCK, about two summers working as a fire lookout in the CLearwater Ranger District, Nez Perce National Forest, Idaho. I have a completed draft that I’m reading through and further revising it. When complete, I will write a proposal and send it out this year.

As a poet I’ve written a poem a day during Peace Poetry Month, April Poetry Month, and August Poetry Month. I love to write poems. I’m thinking I might write about isolation. I’m happy to be involved with the poetry marathon.

Best to all of you,

Nancy Canyon

Hello Poets! This is my first “Half Marathon”. I am excited to be a part of the poetry marathon family this year and hope to participate more in the coming years. I embarked on this challenge after feeling the support from fellow poets and also this marathon is a confluence of poetic emotions pouring from all over the world. This is definitely going to be a beautiful experience.Good luck to all the participants!!!

I am looking forward to my second Half Marathon this Saturday. I enjoy writing poetry and also reading what others have written. What an inspirational event!

I have written a variety of non-fiction prose – memoir, humor, opinion, satire – and poetry, but very little of that lately. Most of my best poems were inspired in workshops at or through Idyllwild Arts, with Cecilia Woloch and Norman Corwin as mentors. As I said, not lately. But it was an important time in my life, where I discovered my right-brain hidden name. It is not hidden anymore, as I am using it here as a nickname. I also abhor a deadline, so this challenge just seems tailor-made for me…Susannah

Desert worn weaves platted through,
Silk soft with cactus pricks,
Covering tapestry and promises to fly
In places disintegrate at touch
In others bare fist galvanized rough
Such a foreigner to this landscape,
Not sure what ground will meet my step,
Months of cloud covered silence gave me a gift,
Deep inside I feel this call louder than ever,
Like a madman being the only one who can hear,
Ignoring the pleas of all those close
Knowing an oasis blooms beyond where they can see
Dowsing rods cross over that open wound
Cards blow fantasy across me
Even precious metals meant for gems is but a rock
Such a rock there is, but inside a greater splendor.

Am I the only one who reads all those word maps?
Reshaping verbal shards into a whole,
Projecting puzzles in aerial signs,
Am I but one of a team pondering every clue?
Seeking to find a way towards an inner grail beyond,
The more I tread the more I am alone.
Who else examines small markings
Knowing that this creature does everything deliberately,
Why leave marks no one else will ever grasp
Or care to grasp
And even if they grasped would be unmoved.
It waits for one who is meant to see
Each test just meant to show they truly are.

They all drank and thrust at the river in the sandy valley
Still nothing compared to where I went
But still they come and drink and do not see,
They drift and pass and still I remain,
Everyone around thinking me quite deranged,
They don’t see what I do, and I cannot even explain.
Such a wonder as only luck in a whole life can bring.
Waiting for failed goldpanners,
to retreat after a month of mere stones.
Knowing not what they truly seek,
they sift and sift then move to other pastures
I drank at every source I could,
I can only think of that one sweet taste
The only place I want to bath
Even if it be the hardest to reach.
Unlike every other,
the taste only grows stronger from yearning.
Nothing sadder than drinking another,
Chidded by bitterness and pretending it was the same.

I lay out right beside that creek
First the beetles came and stung at night
Then the snake intoxicate my blood,
Leads me to the precipice
Yet as the fool I did not fall
Held up by forces I dare not admit
Then the wild sides snarl and gnash
The more the forces thrown to push me away
The more they betray how precious they guard
Another day and more suitors roll through
Now I learned to not even see them,
They take what little they can actually see,
None touch the part this star struck location offers
Alone knowing that the whole valley quivers
In time with my breath my thoughts and my release.
Knowing now having stared so long
That it thinks of me as much as I of it
No matter where I am since I first stepped foot
I am present basking in its wonder.

One day I will open my veins
Laying back in that gentle stream
Let it seep out my life’s potency
Embracing its fluids with mine forever
Then there will be no distinction
We will flow and settle together
Only there can my worn body be washed out
Transformed and pulled under.
Then will it know every word was real.

Thrusting faceless hidden in hair
Why are you here with me
Forgetting who is laying moaning in front
Replaying moments I was inside you
Her grip cast myself inside you again.
Why months later is it still like this?
You cast every feeling you had inside of me.
Opened me to violation through disregard.
Are you condemned to fantasise about
Those men who heartlessly violated you?
Your every desire spoken to me
replays what they did.
Take me in my sleep
Take me in the shower,
washing my hair.
Take me doing homework.
Slip my clothes to one side
Tell me to be quiet
Hold your hand over my mouth.
Sell myself as she sold me.
Make me feel worthless
Use me totally – disregarded.
Exciting to raise adrenaline
Putting pressure on a wound.
I wanted to meet you here
To be gauze to your hurt
and bridge to your SELF.
I refused to leave and disregard
Angrily you cut me off
The pattern must continue.
Cocaine plaster building a wall.
I am left holding that savaged child.
Loving in the darkness
Contaminated for you.