The Poetry Marathon

Second Hour

Most days people can tell you

Who I am

What I’m like

Where I go

When I do things

Why I do the things I do

How I accomplish it all

 

That’s ok-

To live life sometimes

You have to be an open book

Other times?

 

Keep them guessing

 

I’ve got the weekend off

A little cash

A fuck it attitude

And no cares

 

I wanna do something

not me

Go out to the Red light district

Find someone to see

Maybe have sex-

Maybe not

We’ll see

 

Go out have my first

taste of whiskey

Make some new friends

Maybe see where it all leads

 

I wanna go outside the box

Clubbing

Drinking

Sexing

 

No worries on the time

or who I’d run into

Give into all my desires

just going Friday til Sunday

 

Maybe find the love of my life

Maybe see what other people

do for fun

 

The time for fun is dwindling down

and so is my night on the town

Come Monday morning–

I’ll be back to straight laced

me

 

An open book for all to see

 

First Hour

It’s going to hurt

for so long

I just want it to end

 

I have so much pain

inside

It’s gotta come out somehow

 

No one noticed the pain

How could they?

They’ve got their own

I’m not the only one

 

I just don’t understand

How could God come to

take her home with him

Why I found her

Why the image won’t leave

 

You had such a beautiful smile

grace

way about you

and I don’t even remember

your voice

 

I have pictures to remind me

of your smile and how

you look

but it’s no substitute

for hav ing you here

 

I took you for granted

so many times

I had child like fantasies

where you would always

be here and Dad would

be my knight in shining armor

 

I really need to punch

something

But what?

Anything to get my

pain out

By any means necessary

 

I’m survivng

Barely

Just barely holding

my head above the

flood

that threatens to bury me

 

I’m drowning-

Just drowning to

the point of being

overcome

 

I can’t find a way

to get out from under

this

It’s choking me

hands around my throat

Squeezing tight

Can’t breathe

 

One second I’m

Happy, laughing

Next?

Angry and so ready to

punch something

 

Lying here alone

I need you here

You made living easy

 

 

Introduction

Good evening Members,

I am bathing in the afterglow of the Half Marathon.  It was an incredible journey and a testament that whatever your doubts were about entering such a task, they were put to rest as I continued to pursue the end!  It created a synergy and creative flow that nothing that came against  me could stop.  I still want to keep writing!  There it is!  The confirmation that whatever is in you to accomplish, when you put your hands to the plow and push off, the overflow will follow you.

Seventh Solstise

2019 Poetry Marathon: My half-marathon recap

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)

Listening

I Survived!

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.

Cars in Summer – Hour 16

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

World – Hour 15

(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’

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.

The baby pigeon

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.