The Poetry Marathon

Congratulations Half Marathoners!

Congratulations Half Marathoners! I am so happy that you have completed 12 poems in 12 hours! That is wonderful. Thank you for joining us for this intense events.

In the past I have personally verified that everyone who applied for a certificate was eligible and then I would make a certificate. Due to how big the marathon has grown, this is no longer possible. Now we operate  on the honor system.

If you completed the Poetry Half Marathon please consider the following certificate yours, to update with your name, to print if you choose to do so. If you need any help altering the certificate please email me at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

You are welcome to use this tool to get the certificate with your name on it.

Congratulations again on your completion of The Half Marathon.

The visual example of what the certificate will look like is right below this text.

Also this year we will be putting together two anthologies.

The print anthology will be edited by Blessing Omeiza Ojo, a terrific poet (you can read one of his poems here) and a long time participant in the marathon. For the first time ever there will be rejections for the print edition. He will pick between 80-100 poems to publish in the anthology. This is the last time that the co-founders of the poetry marathon, are paying for the print anthology, and the last time we will formally be “in charge” of any anthology. You can learn more about why, here.

That being said the wonderful poetry marathon community is already stepping up, and Erin Lorandos, another long time marathoner and compelling poet (you can read one of her poems here), is putting together an electronic anthology that includes everyone’s work

Submissions for the print anthology will be open from the 18th through the 30th of September. Submissions for the electronic anthology should be between the 7th and 21st of October.. More details about both anthologies will be forthcoming soon.

Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price and any money that is made from them will go towards covering the cost of the marathon.

Want to know what The 2022 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.

Chapbook of a day

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
Restless thoughts that take a pause
in the cradle of warbly words

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
dripping emotions set free
by seeping deep into expressions

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
Overwhelming some said
challenging some thought

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
A million tales woven into a few lines
A million lives lived in a day

Chapbook of a day
Every hour’s a page
lost at the fraying edges
found in the inky heart

No Other World

I want no other
world. If you’re not there with me.
I am happy here.

Hour24

Maybe

 

There’s nothing more to be said,

humans sank in the seas of oblivion!

But maybe there is still hope

and empathy will prevail!

 

Maybe not everything is lost

And we are not doomed yet…

Maybe we will all meet in the heart

of the rainbow after this big storm…

Nope (24th hour)

Nope, there ain’t no hope.

We is not teachin’ hope.

Hope is like Saddam’s rope,

The one around his throat.

 

Hope is for the Judas Goat,

The one that leads to

slaughter houses.

Why Hope

When we can know.

 

Hope requires trust,

And that is very

hard for US.

To give away

What we don’t get,

Stupid, slept,

I won’t forget.

 

I don’t have to pay

The rent.

Hope is sum’n

I might regret.

 

baby, wet my cigarette,

we are celebrating death,

Bring the fentynyl and meth,

Bring the Hope that we have left.

 

Hope is for

The hopeless

Or the hocus pocus bogus

Smorgasbord of morbid orchids

Just don’t give them much importance.

 

I have Hope they will not notice

Hope they don’t have any motives

Though I know they have explosives,

I just hope they don’t explode THIS.

 

Hope is for the hopefool

Not hopeful or helpful,

For hopeless

is helpless.

Hope is for

Hopers.

Smokers with chokers

Pokers with jokers

Dopers with chauffeurs.

 

Ogres with loafers,

Donors will go first.

Loners will mourn worse

Stoners withhold turns.

 

All I got to say is NOPE,

We shall NOT depend

On HOPE.

 

 

The Memories Carried

Hour Five

Memories tucked into
my breast pocket
left and close to my heart
they flutter like eyelids
just waking from slumber-
fractured images
play upon the screen of consciousness
a remembrance and tribute
to a life once lived
the ancestors of self
that passed away
by the alchemical chemicals
and compounded experience
of former selves in prior chapters.
I reach into the enclosure
running my fingers over their edges
flipping through the pages of life.
some slip through fingers
like ribbons
while others cling to
the thread of emotion
slicing into my skin
the salt of tears- an antiseptic
cleansing the sounds.
Some are moonlit passages bathed in shadows
that circumvent the present-
I lift the camera lens of my eyes
and snap another memory
like my fingers
as I mosey along, maintaining
a rhythm of observation.
I tuck it in the rest
stuffing and threading the edges in
minding where I had come from
and just how far I’ve gone
a moment of self that passes
folded into memory.

Childhood Kaleidoscopes

I used to stare through tubes

of cardboard and plastic

watching fractals

and splinters of color

remix and reorganize

as they turn

in my tiny hands

and entertained me

for hours

Magnum Opus

Hour Four

Outlying plans
with graphite tracing the intent-
gradients of charcoal
delineate from original form
a tiger’s eye iridescent gleam
watch with slanted strokes
of ink to pen
in abstract thought
and underlying meaning.
Oil streaks as the canvas weeps
fields of color upon it’s blank slate
Terra Verte and Payne’s Grey lament
Coalescing hues of personality – a prism
of sun-stricken fractals
whose reflection is diffused
upon the walls of self-
a color scheme of multi-chromatic
emotions undulating
with no adverse effect
to the masterpiece mirrored
in our choice of being.
To know without seeing
blindfolded painters are we
bequeathing the authority of art
to the greatest creator-
our free will imaginings
A paltry scribble contrary to the
artistic hands who has
A better idea
of the magnum opus of our lives.
With authoritative strokes,
He fashions us instruction –
dual creators working in tandem
we are the ink
but He is the Pen

Hour23

Say hi to future!

Forget the past

and live fully now!

2023 Poem Twenty Four

When in doubt knock out

a haiku to meet the time

and make sure you win