The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 11, Hour 9 The Light Between Oceans

When the sun rises,

the light house rests.

The mermaid meets him in the waves,

accepting his seashell with a kiss.

They lay together on the dock, intertwined

and drunk on life.

When its time to go,

She holds herself up with her arms

on the dock,

and slips back down into the ocean.

He watches as she swims away; rising and falling within the waves,

her teal tail glittering in the sun.

his heart is reaching out for her like a hand.

He searches for seashells for a few hours

and sleeps until the sun has set.

He returns to the lighthouse,

sending a signal for anyone lost,

while waiting for his own light

to return to him.

Finding Me (Haiku)

Waiting for love I
Found a man that taught me more
About who I am.

A Map of the World

I don’t need a map of the world. 

I just need a map 
to carry love
from my heart to yours 

and back again.

I'm not planning to stay or moving in. 

But I’d like to visit 
from time to time. 
And fantasize that you are mine.

Family

Do not see the cracks
Only see the love
Do not see the problems

Must keep going
Must stay together
Must not fall down

Can he stay?
Should he go?

See the cracks
Cannot feel the love
See the problems

Cannot keep going
Cannot stay together
Must fall down

Will he stay?
Will he go?

Keep moving forward
Patching the cracks
Changing the group
Making our own family.

Dracula

i would have loved to grown up a better person. this is not

a personal offense. merely an observation of the fact that

 

girlhood never seemed to suit me well. i was always too

loud too out there too much too needy too much want

 

i have been hard to handle and harder still to keep. i

do not believe this was my fault. girlhood struck me

 

right beneath the jaw. taught me to wear pretty dresses

and think pretty thoughts. i spent my formative years

 

consuming numerous vampire novels – i cannot help

myself; i have always been a lover of the flesh

 

and a sucker for all things rancid. girlhood says

this is symbolic: girlhood says it is no wonder

 

a girl as self-absorbed as i am would love

tales of violence and horror, of taking

 

all you believe to be yours. we become that which we consume;

and i, by god, consumed a lot of it.

 

pretty girls do not spend their teenage years

squirming in the basement, but i did it anyway.

 

girlhood tries to keep me skinny and well-mannered:

i tell girlhood to go suck it

 

one day, a sexy vampire lady will take me to her

castle, and i will get what is mine.

 

 

Unsolicited Submissions

unwanted thoughts flood in

plaguing heart and mind

whispering “crazy”

 

not sure they’re mine

psychically emphatic

or insecurely blind

 

is there any truth to them

questioning, mind comes unhinged

 

mercifully jumping

through the rabbit holes

twisting and turning

till the truth is unknown

Amanda Potter©: 2019 Poetry Marathon

Still Me (Hour 9)

When your masks of pretend and deceit fall away,
I’ll still be me.
When your words slip, but cannot persuade,
I’ll be the brutality that cuts the cord,
in quiet whispers and kindness on the wind,
ending in inevitable silence.
You might see my visage crack, turning into ethereal ash,
yet I’ll still be me.

For I do not exist for you. Or the world.
I exist for me.

And when that silence descends like a fiery torrent of disbelief,
a burning blanket of loss and regret,
I will still be me.
And you…
You will wish with a guttural moan, that I was still there.

Constellations

Constellations

 

The dust on my phone looks like stars in the sky.

And every time my screen locks, I see planets

circling around and around the earth,

stars so hot, they’re about to burst,

vacuums, space sucking in and in, hope.

With every glimpse, my heart starts to twirl.

Not A Hero

A golden fists silently fits

Inside the velvet glove

Covered complete

The violence reaped

Unintentionally it goes on

I can’t escape

My terrible fate

Why didn’t I just flee

Although I regret

The stage is set

Until the curtain falls on me

Till We Have Faces

Till We Have Faces

Till we have faces which others recognize,
we'll struggle 
for the genuine compliment of competence
not a measure about how we make others feel, 
for promotions and invitations
without expectations of contributing our best,
for our voices to be heard
without our need to call out louder ever lounder.

Till we have faces we recognize in each other,
we'll struggle
to accept each other whether or not we have children
an education, a stable home, a successful health care plan, 
a clean record, a proper background, a promising future,
the right husband or children or pantsuit or political platform.

Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll struggle to wake in the morning and sleep throughout the night.
Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll look in mirrors with doubtful eyes and pounding hearts.
Till we have faces for ourselves
we'll teach our daughters and nieces and students this similar fear.

Till we have faces
we must rise to see, value, and affirm our being.
Our uprising starts now
and continues until we all know our worth
because they'll finally see our faces.