That night

Must enter her other mindset before she arrives
Weirdly standing back supporting loving
Cant I do all the same
But still wow, alone home writing during
Thinking imagining where she is
Two different paths in my mind
One knows she did this many times
One wildly enticed and struggling
Last night dreaming about it – the seedy allure
She still makes me feel special
She works hard to make it ok
My calming mother about to fucked and spat on
I would do the same
I did the same
If I had slept I would be anxious
Feeling mechanical
I want to accept her love, weird a niggle holds me back
Fleeing to her immediately
She pulls back from kissing me
Her loving mouth still in its numb mode.
she doesn’t want to inflict the corruption
I think she must feel unlovable
Enacting to be so totally used
Exposed to what blights her peace and darkens from her earliest days
She expects it to happen again, better on her terms than against
Not drugged and not sold, but voluntary this time.
Every rational cog dedicated to justifying
an object in someone else’s game
The empty saying of nice things is a tiny cost for such lust.
Finding someone already ‘broken in’ by trauma
a gift of an outlet for those wanting to abuse.
Earliest intimacy determining
Before she could think this went inside.
Play a return to childhood,
but what a childhood!
I met her there, on the floor, in the saliva and unknown semen.
In heart I held her hair back and touched her tears.
She couldn’t hug him in the end – she couldn’t pretend this time.
She knew I was there.
I am no better, almost certainly worse.
I give her all of me knowing I will always fall short.
He fucked me too
Its not new
Comfortably numb beside my love
Two half children attempting a whole.

Student

She makes me feel like her student
Kissing at the feet of my naked guru
Giving me a purity of thought beyond my concepts
integrating the parts of me
Asking me what I need
Giving me what I ask
Caring about her footprints
Humbling me
Opening up my child
Making it feel ok
I don’t have to hide
She lets me be vulnerable
There is no shame in being broken
Six degrees later and only now I feel like I am learning
How can I preserve such a treasure
She is given to the world
She is my seminar
I don’t learn any anecdotes
She reaches in and shows me myself
Patience beyond any mother
Compassion utterly beyond my own
How can I be worthy of such love
How can I become like that
All my pretensions fail
I flounder in having anything to offer
Another poet she made in her school
Her devotees are endless
How arrogant am I to seek to be chief Chela
I don’t know how to be – then I never knew how to be
But only with her do I see it
An unmoved limb pathetically flaps in me
Helpless
Struggling
Makes me desperate for her gaze
As I know she can see me
I don’t get seen – I hide with security so complex
How can I live now
The scales fall from my eyes
I am so transformed and yet still me
Maybe this is what calmness feels like
I know there are others – yet she makes me feel the one
What a terrible demanding child I am
I just forgot I never got this
I forgot that behind it all
The way to calm the constant whirl
Which is so constant I thought it normal
Is just to be accepted
I am so afraid of this unknown.

Nameless

Nameless as I don’t dare name
Staring into darkness on black
Abject use play toy horror not worth a name object to use fuck pass around next
Not worth a bother
All the effort I can muster for you
So little
Annoying me
Go cry to death elsewhere
I’m busy
Did all I can
Did all for me – what are you anyway
Just a thing for me
Not worth a name
Can’t now name herself
Could be anything
Scared of what really is
Endless dark
No way out
Suppress
Tread dark evil water
Desperately
Don’t ripple
It will drown me
One drop too much
Barely holding up
Sinking
Choking
Choke me
Daddy
Hurt.
Hurt me
All I can
Numb it away
Fucking made me feel
Nothing.

Marathon Goals and Poetic Dreams

Petri Sun Conure with his Author
Petri the Sun Conure brightens the author photo

No one believed I could write a novel in 72 hours. When I signed up for the International 3-Day Novel Contest in 2009, no one in my circle of author friends had heard of it and no one thought the concept was “possible.” It turned out to be the most exhilarating 72 hours of my life. I pounded the keyboard from midnight Friday of Labor Day Weekend until mid-evening Monday, taking a couple of quick power naps along the way. I used about three hours to lightly edit and add some scenes until 11 p.m. and hit “print” before the midnight deadline. I’d done it. I’d created and completed a novel of over 51,000 words in three days. I was exhausted. I was delirious with joy. I was mentally obliterated. I fell onto my pillow with a smile that I still remember wouldn’t leave my face as I sank into sleep, sleep, sleep.

I repeat the process every year, chasing that high like the proverbial “dragon” that addicts seek to re-reach. And each time I type “the end,” it’s as if I’ve conquered some incredible journey…which…of course…has to be edited like hell.

Now I’m gonna try this with poetry and I’m stoked to dive in! The darling and delightful sun conure you see in the picture posted here is Petri, my muse. He passed away September 2018, leaving a hole in my life that I fall into from time to time. I have a feeling there’ll be more than a few poems about his awesomeness this weekend. I look forward to sharing his greatness with the world.

Thank you for reading and getting to know a little bit about my wacky writing adventures. I hope this poetry weekend is a success for each one of you, whatever “success” means for you in the goals you’re setting!

All my best to you,

SandyLender

Hello Again!

I’m so excited! This stretched me so much as a writer and my ability to push through when I feel like I can’t write anymore. Let’s do this!

Getting ready

I don’t know if people post a lot of things on here that are not related to poetry, but I’m trying to journal the whole experience. Today I started a new notebook for the marathon and planned a tentative list of what my poetry goal will be for each hour. I’ve collected poetry scraps from my other notebooks that were just waiting for the right time (or really any time as a single parent home during COVID) and Saturday is the time.

I’m curious about how other people prepare or if they just jump right in. Do you use the time to revise drafts? Do you look out the window and just go? Do you stay in one place the whole time or do you move about and write in all places inside and out?

Hello poets!!!

I’m in! I’m doing the poetry half-marathon, at the second starting time as I live in Australia (Melbourne, to be exact) and prefer not to be writing through the wee hours. Kudos to all you full marathoners foregoing sleep to toil away at your craft.

I’m a writer of many things, POEMS of course but also stories and songs (I sing too). I’m keen to connect with other word artists; you’ll find me on Facey ( facebook.com/rainiezenith ) and Insta ( @rainiezenith ) and YouTube ( Rainie Zenith ) or chat to me on here!

Best wishes all for the upcoming poetic weekend…

Motivation

This is the first time I have done the Poetry Marathon, well half marathon. An old friend from college shared the link and suggested I go for it. I have been struggling to write since COVID-19 closed the schools and both kids are home 24/7. My brain is literally too tired for words by the time they go to bed. I decided to do the half marathon and give myself the give and goal of writing poetry. As the founder and facilitator of a poetry group in New Bedford, MA, I also want to inspire my group members. I could write an entire bio here and give all the little details of my life, but what is really most important is that I recapture all the poems I’ve lost from my head because I didn’t take the time.