The Poetry Marathon

8pm poem that i couldn’t post bc i was at work

Dripping, verdant land
The air is made fresh again
Life becomes pleasant.

Hour 14 HE WORE BOW TIES

He built the best damn furniture in the world
And he smelled like sawdust. He wore bow ties
At night and let his limbless hair unfurl.
A thousand miles away she saw him in the skies.

Hour 14: Lost

On days when the world is too much

And I feel lost in neon and concrete

I walk into the woods and breath in

I let the ground reawaken my soul

I let the stream bubble joy into my chest

I walk and walk until I can feel myself

Until I can face chrome and glass again

The Long Road

Missing you as I would do,

Letting old acoustic guitar stir awake

Long, slow sweet memories of country driving,

Your voice in my ear, low and husky with sleep

As a quiet counterpoint memory playing accompaniment

While country miles whistle by.

Slipstream wind coasting through an open window,

Coming home to a place I’ve never driven,

But in a primal way it hasn’t been forgotten,

The smell of morning dew on lightly damp earth,

Fresh green and nodding starburst morning glories

On rusted fences, and though I’m driving home,

It’s to you that I want to drive back to, and

There are miles and miles between us,

You’re home to me, the long road back home.

 

in response to the prompt of hour 14

 

 

Grandma Sharon Talks to Her Teenaged Self

You couldn’t have known that law school
was out of the question,
when you were Girl of the Month your senior year
and answered the question about your future plans.

No one told you, because your parents didn’t know,
how hard it is to pay for college
when you don’t know how
to navigate the system.

Your job at the Mexican restaurant,
just you and the owner on weekends,
paid the rent. The landlord’s garden
yielded turnips. You didn’t like turnips.

So, what’s a girl to do?
Get a full-time job, taking classes here and there.
It took another twenty-five years
to get your graduate degree,

find the job that you were meant to have,
teaching kids to read and write.
You couldn’t have known then,
that it was your calling,

something you might have missed
if you’d been more affluent,
if you’d had more information.
Luck.

I don’t believe in fate now.
You didn’t believe in it then.

Prompt 16/Metonymy

An editor with whom I worked
always talked about the rags
he wrote for
with a sort of defiant pride.

They may have just barely survived,
but he was around to nurture them
and sip from amber memories
every time
he coached us fledglings
to kill our babies.

I watched
as my own stories
gushed my mentor’s resources
and embarrassed my conscience
in the week’s mail.

Now that we have fake news,
the yellow journalism of the Gilded Age
wears its mustiness
as a peculiar base note
for a world that views war as a movie
and calls “hanging out” sex.

The testimony of other men’s daughters
papers the walls of politicians,
and academics flog their credentials
to distance themselves
in flight plans.

The Yellow Kid poses
in front of a hotel
he’s just named
for himself.

Overtures

When I am lost, and far from all
The home I call my home will call
I remember my first view
Of the home I always knew
Walls and maps don’t mark this space
It’s the people, not the place
When I am lost, and far from all
The home I call my home will call.

Form: Based on an Octelle, but the imagery and personification part still needs work.

Prompt: Use this quote as a jumping-off place – “The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

Hour 14 – Homeless

Homeless

Adrift, I wandered seas of grass, across the
uninhabited places, a desolate and forlorn land.
Where I was destined, bound for, no one knows,
compelled only to rid myself of thoughts of you,
a task at which I persistently failed. Even
now, years later, when hope has fled, when
your face recedes slowly from my memory, you
linger in the corners of my heart. There you are,
in your own cozy home, and I? I remain lost.

 

This is a Golden Shovel, a poetic form I learned during the 2017 Poetry Marathon and still use often. The text from the prompt is used as the last words in each line.

This Journey We’re On (Poem #14)

There is a journey

Not a path I chose

But a life chosen for me

I was given an opportunity

A chance to love hopelessly

To take the journey of difficulty

One day I met you

That first day I met you

That’s when it all started

I didn’t know you

I had never met you

But I knew God has a huge design for your life

You were chosen for something greater

I was chosen

And didn’t even know it

To be part of that grand design

I got so lost in chasing it

I got so focused on being there for you

That we fell when we thought we could fly

We decided to spread our wings

We decided to jump from the nest

Everyone was cheering us on

Telling us it was time

Telling us this was supposed to be

So

We jumped

We spread our wings

And began to fall

We weren’t ready

It wasn’t time

We just saw how happy they were

How happy it would make them to just jump

We were stupid

When we finally hit the ground

We were more broken than ever before

We picked up what was left of us

We put our heads up tall

And as friends

We shook hands

and knew together

we could be no longer

I was sad

Depression overflowing out of every fiber of my being

We were both alone

We were both apart

We both gave up

As time went on God allowed us to grow new feathers

We lost the old

He renewed our strength

He revised our minds

That did not mean the journey was over

That did not mean the journey was easier

He simply began to equip us

Our wings had grown

And now they are fully equipped

This time we aren’t falling

This time we aren’t hurting

We look at each other

We are together

Hand in hand

Hearts together

Our time is now

Our lives intertwined

Like a grape vine

After being pruned

Green and beautiful

Completely intertwined with one another

Ready to take flight

We look in each others eyes

We spread our wings full span

And now

We are diving off the tallest mountain

We are doing it together

It is time

Time to fly

Our journey isn’t over

Our journey is just beginning!

Prompt #14