The Poetry Marathon

Slater (Hour 6)

I see,

This round earth bullshit belief,

Was all a big hoax by the morbid elite.

Who knew it was true no planets, no orbits,

Just pancake flat earth on the back of a tortoise.

That’s a big fucking tortoise, I wonder who feeds it.

I try to see God all I see is a beatnik.

He tells me “be mellow man expand your horizons-

-existence is full of exquisite surprises”

Are you God, the all mighty, the grand lord and creator,

He said, “Na, I’m his cousin Winston man, I’m just here to feed Slater-

-Slater, the turtle”.

Oh, ok.

Winston.

 

 

 

 

Up

Up

high up

Up is high

high is always up

high up like a cloud

Clouds float up in the sky

the sky is blue with white clouds

the clouds rise up and over the mountaintops

the mountaintops rise up and over the valley below

the moon is up higher than the sky and the mountaintops

the moon is up higher than the sky, mountaintops and the clouds

yet, up has even more with the stars that twinkle and shine at night

the sun is up and shines over all, never yielding its glory to anyone.

except when darkness covers the earth  and the moon smiles down

Just look up tomorrow and you’ll see another day.

8:01

It’s Just a Leaf Prompt 11

Old and brown.
Only your imagination can remember the deep red
Of this maple leaf on her tree in autumn,
Exuberant with her sisters in the fall wind,

Pirouetting on the tree.
You picked it for me,
Holding it by the stem,
Pointing to its lobs, declaring the five ways

You loved me,
You could not live without me,
And five reasons to immediately marry.
Our red maple tree made the best leaves for jumping,

Our children laughed. And the best shade in summer,
Your mother declared.
I stroke the old leaf as I gaze at the tree,
Sprays answering every breeze.

She is my secret poetry tree –
Where my eyes wander when the words are congested,
A promise of movement in stifled time,
Treasure of our tribe.

Hour 9: Elena

I know you didn’t do it long

But I need your advice

Tell me how you made it

As a creature of the night

 

I turned my switch off too, you see

Many moons ago

But I must’ve done it wrong

Now all I feel is low

 

I must’ve turned it halfway off

Can you do that?  Can you not?

It’s the only explanation

For this darkness that I’ve got

 

I feel no joy or happiness

No light, no pleasure

Just a deep despair

With no hope of getting better

 

I still feel fear and heartache

Pain and misery

All the bad I’ve ever done

On loop, just haunting me

 

Make it stop, I beg you

This whirlwind to insanity

Tell me how to get it back

I’m missing my humanity

Prompt for Hour Twelve

Text Prompt

Closets are a big deal inside a house, but also metaphorically. One can be in the closet, or come out of it, for example, But they are also places of safety and joy for small children, or where a monster is lurking, depending on the small child, and/or time of day.

There are very few poems about closets, but this is your chance to write one about the closet, metaphorical or physical or both.

Image Prompt

Mandala drawn by Vidya Shankar (this is the full image that we ended up using for the cover of the 2022 Poetry Marathon Anthology)

8 PM – Grief

Creeps up,

feels like nothing,

a numbness,

until you feel everything.

 

The buzz of my skin,

hive minded,

thoughts disconnect,

left with resentment.

 

Can’t accept it,

want to deny it,

flight of the bee,

reaching crescendo.

 

I feel nothing.

 

Did I ever feel at all?

 

Did I ever stop to think about surfaced thoughts?

 

Did time stop to be my friend? Or pass as my enemy?

 

Will I always be in storm without peace?

(Hour 11) 08.30-09.30am. TEXT PROMPT: “Extraordinary in Ordinary”

pillow talk

i don’t : want to sound : soft : believe me : i’m no soft : soft : soft : city boy : upper middle class git : everything comes so easy to me : unconscious of my own privilege : woke whinging softy : cos i’m not 

but : i tell you : right now : i’d go to great lengths : to secure : the deepest : softest : memory sensing : foam pillow : (bamboo preferably) : money can : beg : borrow : buy : steal : be gifted : just to rest : for one night : in luscious luxurious : lighter than air : angel’s wings : fairy floss : cotton cloud cliche : comfort

because : my swag : no matter how many socks : i insert : remains : harder than the rocks : it rests upon

Tiniest stones (Prompt 11)

It’s just an old quart Mason Jar
two-thirds filled with sand

sitting in the corner, small shelf
just above my desk

as nondescript as artifacts go
prominent display

typical jar, ordinary sand, hand
scooped by me –

my hand, from shallow bottom
Horseshoe Lake

grandparents home, my summer
oasis – though

over twenty years had passed
current owner

allowed beach access, I had a bag
and an impulse

My stop spontaneous, my actions
deliberate

In glancing at that jar so much comes
back to me

lapping waves on the beach, walking
barefoot on same

summer days have lasted a lifetime
amazing what sand

thousands of granular bits of rock
most common

element on earth, most uncommon
touchstones

Mine alone.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2023
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

hour 11 – to all the books who’ve gone before

You, who have given so much
and left my flesh alone.
You, whose love-well has become my own.
You, who bared your spine for
this dilettante pile of clumsy bones,
who paid my fees for Charon–
and called me back

to continue my quiet instruction
on how a person should be.