The Poetry Marathon

Dreams

I look up in awe, as the creatures I idolize
stand twenty feet away, completely
unaware of my existence, unbothered
by the tears beginning to gather at
the corners of my eyes.

There is no explanation, no deep-seated
reason for my sudden overflow of emotions.
The excitement, the pure childish joy
that bounds from my chest is not
unexpected, but exceeds anything I was
prepared for. I glimpse the looks on my friends’

faces. They see me. They understand,
they are as happy for me as I am for myself,
and as I hold out a long branch to the
long-necked animal far too large to dream
of keeping as a pet, those friends
cheer me on. This is
my dream. I’ve waited 24 years.

Just to pet a giraffe.

Damned (Hour 10)

It’s been 10 years since I stood under a midnight sky,
sand beneath my feet, watching the fog linger above the ocean waves,
while boats of all sizes swayed at their dock.
I dreamt of getting lost within that fog,
of diving beneath the surface to find Atlantis.
I’d watch the moonbeams move with the crest line of the ocean,
a hush filling the air, the world around me going silent.

In that silence, I felt a sense of home and expectation.
But feelings aren’t concrete, they cannot be held or make promises.
I’d walk the few blocks home,
the fir trees surrounding our house suddenly became twenty-foot Sentry’s guarding
a home I didn’t know I couldn’t keep.
Every blade of grass was a burst of hope,
every crash of a wave was a whisper to keep believing.
…and I did.

Then I grew up.
The moon now is just a reminder
that I was damned long before I ever had a chance.

 

 

 

Intermission

Flippin dippin trippin tippy trop
gotta moonbeam in my brain gonna blow my goshdurn fuckin top
don’t sweat it baby hush let’s head down to the coffee shop
cruisin’ like a missile that a concrete wall won’t stop
 
…no
 
Listening to the waves softly crash against the seawall
The sunset painting pictures in the inside of my eyes
Boats pulling into harbor to unload their daily catch
Gulls starting arguments, fighting for the scraps
 
The tide is at its peak to prepare the day for night
I’m a thousand miles away but still drinking in the smell
salt and mist mingle with the coming autumn chill
Some memories might leave me but the ocean never will

Almost Perfect Day

Before the last moonbeam disappears
you’ve filled your canteen with water
and your thermos with coffee
and backed up the old truck to the boat trailer.

Never mind that I prefer to sleep in
on my days off, I’m with you.
We drive on back roads to a place you know,
and slip the boat into the water.

As the sun comes up, fog rises from the creek.
We cut through the mist to a deep hole
filled with old brush. We once found crappie here
and hope to again. But even if we don’t

it’s the day on the water that’s the thing,
the hush, the stillness, you and me
communicating without words, until
“Damn! Tangled again.”

2019 #10 Letter to my friend

Back in the day

You and I stood in the rain one night

Across from a building on University Place

Stalking your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend

You just wanted a glimpse

Of that bitch.

 

You offered me my first joint

In some random bar in the village

I played it cool but declined

Making Nancy Reagan proud.

 

You asked me to be a bridesmaid

At your wedding in Vegas

I agreed, but then begged out

Awkward and scared I wouldn’t know how to act

Like the other girls.

 

We get together often now

You have two daughters

You used to say you’d never have children

And I laugh at that thought.

 

I haven’t changed one bit since that night in the rain

Timid and a straight up Dudley do-right

You have moved remarkably with time

And I have stood still.

The fog

I didn’t want to just share

not this time

so I made a cup of coffee and listened

she told me it was rather late for coffee

as the  moon beamed through the fog, casting a misty light in the dark

she hushed herself while our conversation traveled through grassy fields

she told me to give her a minute so she could take in the smell of the air

I told her, “foggy air does smell different”

she talked about generational curses

and how damned we are

“this world causes a lot of pain to a lot of people” she says

“I feel my inner life is on a dock waiting to go adrift,

it’s ready for its turn…” I say…

 

 

A lover’s memory

That picture on the shelf:

sipping some coffee from a canteen,

sitting on the dock wrapped in fir.

The hush of the fog rolls over the damn.

A moonbeam lights a concrete paradise into a dim blur of peace.

We were young.

Saving Boots

Saving Boots

 

They’re still in the barn

His dozens of worn boots

Waffle stompers they’re called

Look it up

 

When in Alaska

I discovered old boots

Would become planters

Boots still working

 

While saving his boots

He was feeling

Both honored and

Thinking me crazy

 

This one style boot family

Size 10 Field & Stream

Allowed for that broken toe

On his left foot

 

Having earned their keep

I will haul them to the yard

Spray inside and out

With the garden hose

 

Planting each with flowers

I’m tempted to lay them

At random graves in the cemetery

Where he had dug for fifty years

 

TobeTT  # 9

Hour 10 WORRIED

I’m worried about what happened today;
These people, these catastrophes that slipped
Down the slope toward me that I couldn’t
(Or wouldn’t!) avoid. I’m worried and maybe

I won’t sleep tonight. Maybe I’ll dream
Of those faces, all twisted and wrenched,
Like dried fruit, fanged and hungry for
My soul. Oh yes I’m worried and anguished

And suddenly I know how Satan was conceived;
Where his scythe of retribution, his dagger of
Malice, wrathful horns on my own face,
Poking backwards into my curdling skull, came

Into the universe; a fiction both horrifying and real.
Hell exists. I built it. And I’m worried I’m going there.

Fern, the Resurrected

Resurrection?

What an interesting thought…

Living proof of the soul of this planet

Whose clothing is us.

And when a strong strand loses her head,

She thinks herself into form.

Exactly the same as before…

With his permission, of course,

After her apt logic gave him no choice.

“You said I have everlasting life!”

So he repaired her in the ether

On the carpenter’s bench.

She chose her eyes.

“Orange!” she said. “And my nose like a bird.”

“You will scare them,” he laughed.

“You will scare them enough as it is.

Are you sure you want to go back?”

“Yes, I am. I want to be a grandmother!”

Nothing dies.

Death is never death where there is love.

We are all life as life has become,

Evolved throughout the measures

Of this universe.

We spank along through empty space,

Like jewelry round the neck of a flame.

Her face, glowing, seeks nothing, being light.

And we, her children, travel along,

As children of her living child.

Resurrection?

She simply won a fight with God.