The Poetry Marathon

Midnight Blues on Jazzy Day

Poem 12

Midnight Blues On a Jazzy Day

By: Ashley L Powers

 

I remember sitting at this spoken word café

Sitting there all by myself

Sipping on my mocha

Snapping my finger and clapping my hands

Listening to everyone who stepped up on that stage

I sat back listening to everything they had to say

I listened to every detail

Wondering if I might find an answer to life

In someone else’s story

But no one seems to answer what I questioned

But the sound of their voices were so soothing

It kept me in a daze

Made me so happy

But then a breath of fresh air hit the stage

And it caught me off guard

I jumped up and sat straight

Because he had my attention

The words flowing outta his mouth

Soaked into my soul

I could understand everything he was saying

I looked at his brown skin

His long locs

That goatee

He kept me so intrigued

Looking at his juicy lips

Just watching the words roll off his tongue

Damn

That’s all I could say

Muscular built

Watched as his arms moved in a rhythm

Watched as his form took over my mind

And I wanted my body to connect with him

He was speaking of love

Speaking know how hard it is to find

And how hard it is to keep it

With every letter I was spelling out what he was saying

He spoke on how at night he longed for someone to be by his side

Someone to hold and tell that he loved her

He spoke of how he would make her feel

That he would make her feel like a queen

And it felt like he was calling out my name

The jazz music connected our souls

Had me swaying to his tone

Man I think I’m in love

IN LOVE with the midnight blues he was speaking

Had me feeling like Lauryn Hill

Damn he was killing me softly

As if he had been a spy

Watching my whole life

And as he stood on that stage

He was speaking my life with the most beautiful sound flowing with it

As if my life didn’t have any flaws

He had me wrapped up in his every movement

His every sway and when out eyes connected

He smiled as if he knew I was in love with him

The jazz music played On and On and my soul was melting into its melody

His midnight blues had me on this jazzy day

When he ended what he had to say

He looked out into the audience

The music came to a sharp end

He looked right at me

Smiled and said Will you be my queen

On that jazzy day

I fell in love with the midnight blues

Prompt 16: Lexicographer

Harbinger of words.

Curator of thoughts.

shepherding sound herds;

to alphabetic lots.

 

What would be our world,

if word mongers were not?

Knowledge bound and furled.

Would all be lost in thought?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ordered by the alphabet.

 

 

 

 

Owls

outside my widow every night
the owls will hoot and take flight
and then often stay out of sight
you get a fright, you get a fright

the packrats seek to avoid them
by running along the tree stem
the owls are looking to take some
but not the sum, but not the sum

Prompt 17, Hour 14

For this hour I want you to use the quote bellow by Robin Wall-Kimmerer from her book Braiding Sweetgrass as the jumping off point.

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

Prompt contributed by Ramona Elke

Intercession

This sweet entreaty
Humble earnest request
Created in confined spaces
Meant to contain and yet
Breakthroughs are imminent
When challenges test
The strength of beliefs indeed
are empowered best
When destruction is menacing
and discord is rife
Rampant inexplicable chaotic moments
Give life
To an interruption
By excellence
This mastery reveals
Disproportionately administered favor in contrast to the previous ordeals
Suddenly and soon
Earth shaking
Vanquishing out of the blue
Unexpected transformstive blessings overflow
In accordance to the connection
Through
Intercession

Weirdward

Speculating the possibility of those things deemed unreal and far beyond the reach of reality.

How can it be so simple?

Contemplating the moment, I no longer fear death and reach into the realm of synchronicity.

How can it only be one life, one rhythm, and one call?

I need the answers to them all.

Bricks stacked one against the other to build a wall, aligning perfectly only for each one to fall.

Wondering why the opposition in my waking life contradicts the deemed natural laws of prosperity, forgiveness, and love.

Reminiscing about my past relationship with the one from above.

Manifesting forgiveness for another person’s wrong.

Taking in the elements of my past, present, and future to place on the offering plate.

Giving my ancestors a place to settle their debts and download the details of my fate.

Offering my last breath as I weirdward nightly to digress.

Lucky # 13 Walk into a Bar

When

Diabetes,

Retinopathy,

and Cancer

walk into an

Epstein Barr…

It’s no joke!

Insuperable

What do you want for dinner?

World Peace

Rubix Cubes

Reaching that place where lost socks go

The space between time and eternity.

You and me.

jj2019 2019 Poetry Marathon

Road

200 miles passed, and 200 to go.
Just enough gas to hit the next nowhere town
And drink, drink up to your fill.
It’s a bright day, and when you stop
The wind is a brisk friend whipping excitedly around your legs,
Waking you up, wondering if you remember it.

Sure. You remember long days of walking,
Merciless weather drumming the knowledge
That all you are is meat, and all you will ever be;
Or your bones do, your genes,
Passed down Lamarckian from ages past.
You let your friend go,
Knowing it could once again be foe.

Each waystation passes like clouds in the night,
Mile after mile after endless mile.
Your car eats them up with the crankiest purr,
Hungering, hungering ever for more.

Hour 13: Sciamachy

Sciamachy

Dream them up

Shadows upon the surface of the mind

Make them all, invite them in

 

Preoccupied with omens, prophets

Remnants of old memories, demons

Make them to drink them, invite them to fight them

 

Companions

Follow them, they follow you

Watch them, they watch you

 

Because a shadow is also a reflection

And a shadow is also an absence

You fill it to fight it, but you cannot win