The Poetry Marathon

Another year’s half marathon come and gone. As I often point out, I prefer to do the half marathon because I like to sleep; consequently doing the full 24-hour marathon simply wouldn’t work for me, as it would take me at least a couple of days to get back to normal.

Making things easier this year was my recent acquisition of Scrivener. Thanks to the program’s separate panes, I was able to have the prompt always visible as I wrote:

As before, I worked with all the prompts for the sake of simplicity. That said, a couple of them still gave me trouble. For example, for the hour 5 prompt calling for a poem about a dream, nothing immediately came to mind, so I dug out a couple of my old journals that I knew included detailed descriptions of dreams I’d had. The problem was that the ones I still have dim memories of today turned out to be not that interesting. I finally just picked one and tried to reduce it to the barest details (taking a couple of liberties along the way). Similarly, none of the photos in the hour 4 prompt did much for me—and my first choice (the black-and-white photo of the woman next to the tipped-over stool) felt a little too obvious for me. And the song chosen for the hour 7 prompt was not at all my taste, so I had to take some time to find something I would find more inspiring.

In the end, most poems took me 30–45 minutes to write, lightly edit, and post. On the whole, I think they turned out all right. At least, I didn’t hate any of the poems I posted.

This time, I did get around to checking out the later prompts and using them to write additional poems. I posted only one of them (also written while listening to music), however.

Now to pick out the two poems to edit and submit for the anthology…

(23 June 2019)

You made it! After the first Marathon was completed I came up with the phrase “I survived The Poetry Marathon.” It seems a lot more accurate than the word winning or even the word completing.

Due to popular demand this year we made t-shirts with that saying on it, availble in three colors.

The t-shirt for the event is now available here. There are three different color options. Any money we make (which won’t be much) will go towards future marathons.

I also made two meme images, sharable versions of these are up on our facebook page.

The car is waiting outside
Mom calls, “Hurry up, you guys!”
Sister runs down the stairs
While I try and find my games

The sun shines bright outside
And the car heats up inside
As we drive on the highway
Past fields and fields

There is much traffic outside
The car stops in a silent sea
While we sweat inside
And can’t concentrate
On the game of life

The cars still stand outside
But we get off the highway
Almost at our goal
Our final destination

Before Rome is around us outside
We still have to drive through fields
Fields of yellow, almost burnt grass
It sure is hot outside

Rome is finally here outside
But it’s deadly hot in Rome
We are soaked wet inside
This will be the hottest holidays
In all our lives

(Before the world, there was a world)

It was dark, but also light
It was black, but also white
There was nothing
But at the same time everything

The universe had big plans
A new world was about to start
Which would last longer
Than the world before

There was a star
That glowed stronger than the others
It grew bigger and bigger
Until – boom! – it exploded

The sparks disappeared
And a new sun was born
With her some planets
Of which one we call Earth

Don’t stop belivin’

In what you have dreamt

For the world is ment

To keep you depressing.

Don’t stop belivin’

For after every sunset

There is a new hope of sunrise

So keep hoping till you become achieving.

Don’t stop belivin’

For it is the lifeline

That keeps you going

Till there is breath in your living.

One fine morning as I stood in balcony

To breathe in the air freshy

My eyes caught sight of

A pigeon grey-black on the corner pot.

As our sights held each other together

She hastly ran and took on flight.

This was what everyday happened

Between me and her for a day or two more.

Finally one morning, as usual

I stood in the balcony

And she flew off slowly

Leaving behind her pair of  li’l egg twinkle.

This wrote a new chapter in my life

Of expectant pigeon’s life.

In a fortnight, I was blessed

With two little angels yellow-brown.

Instilling new hopes in my soul

As I saw her nurture her kids

Putting little in their mouth, food

And warming her under her feather.

On one night windy

Rain was lashing badly

Pouring all drops in her pot

So I shaded her house with asbestos sheet.

Slowly they shed their yellow-brown hair

To put on grey-black feather

And then they spread their wings

Practicing to fly within the premises.

Most of the time I saw them dozing

And thought they might have fallen sick

When one fine day they took their maiden trip

Enjoying the freedom to flip.

Off and on now they visited my hearth

Only to have the grains I spread

But by a months time they gained strength

And flew off in the world so wide.

Child of the 70’s I am
probably a
half-a-decade behind that
musically
favoring the 60’s

Not much into the Allmans
though lots of friends
certainly were

rearview-mirroring my peers
I get it now
because I lived it then

Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man
Tryin’ to make a livin’ and doin’ the best I can
And when it’s time for leavin’
I hope you’ll understand
That I was born a ramblin’ man

Moving from Minnesota to Colorado
at age ten
only a prelude

trekking back and forth every summer
solo
via classic
Greyhound Sceni-Cruisers

Within a week of high school graduation
I was back on the bus
back to Minneapolis, broadcasting school
kickstarting a career in small towns

Missouri, Iowa
back to Minnesota for wide-ranging
travelogue
multiple towns, call letters
a true radio vagabond

Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man
Tryin’ to make a livin’ and doin’ the best I can

genetically predisposed, I suppose
descended from
seafaring Vikings and diaspora Jews

My radio days ended, but not my nomadic
approach to the universe
Minneapolis, rural Minnesota again

ten years in New Orleans
as a high school teacher, no less

now back in the urban Midwest
tethered by roots seen
and unnoticed
here to stay, until I’m not

And when it’s time for leavin’
I hope you’ll understand

That I was born a ramblin’ man

Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man
Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man
Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man

Annnnnd…
fade.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2019
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

I was not even one year-old

When my inquisitive nature

Dipped my li’l hand on fluid white

Burning all the baby cell to ruin.

Pathetic was my condition

With a massive dressing on

And baby child have no freedom

But this was the call for her to sum.

At an early age of three

Stole her father, the hero true

And her mother tried hard

Until the lesson of death she understood.

Forgetting her own pain

Over the loss of her husband

She was more concerned

To teach patiently her daughter, death pain.

And the time with my siblings

Never skip my mind ever

Because they were the real gems

That completed my life forever.