The Poetry Marathon

I Am

 

Poem 12

I Am

The universe hides under my skin
But the secret leaks out
It can’t be contained

Stars in my eyes
heart of gold
smile like a rainbow
Hair like cotton
Black as pitch
Sappodilla coloured skin
sweet inside and out
Ancestors, they fuel my path
The echo
Reminding me there’s still much to do

Royalty
Loyalty

Chained but never broken

I stand because of their strength and virtue

Their Spirituality too a seed that grows within me
With every thought and memory that becomes me
I am renewed with each tick that sounds, never the same, evolution in motion

Sometimes colliding with uncertainty
I pause
I fall I cry
I scream

And when there’s no will to rise
Stories unfold
In ways too surreal to be anything other than signs from corridors of unspoken worlds.

poem 17

Capturing this moment
Eye lids rise and fall
Each moment brings
Closer to sunrise
Each hour captures
a unique display
There is no sameness.

Hour Twleve: A Moment of Triumph

Author’s Note: Yet another time and the last time I will be ignoring a prompt in this 2017 Poetry Marathon. I will be concluding this marathon with a poem about a dream I had. Enjoy reading.

I once was in a sacred cave

that had nothing in it

but a cliff

and light blue glowing water below it.

 

My hands stretched out,

I was determined to dive in.

 

Diving in was like diving into

the endless morning sky above

but maybe even better.

Because I was landing into

something more solid,

something that could caress my skin.

 

Even though the water changed into lava

at a last second’s notice,

it didn’t matter

because at least I had the courage to dive

into something that was potentially great.

And it was at that thought alone that changed the lava

back to the beautiful serene water below.

 

So when I finally land into the water,

the walls echo hallelujah,

and I am filled with glee.

 

Even it’s just for a moment that I feel this,

at least I can say it’s a moment of triumph.

Summer Fever (poem 18)

Rainy afternoons
summer breaks like a fever
thunder shakes the sky

table for two -#18

table for two

i shall set a lovely table
a table just for two
to dine alone with wine and candles
revel deep in quiet conversation
then somewhere between the appetizer and dessert
i hope to gaze deep into your eyes
and you in mine
no phones or outside distraction
just an old fashioned date for two
i shall set a lovely table
a table just for me and you

Hour 18:Cloud Mountain

Cloud Mountain is—

shrouded in mystery,

where thought is soundlessly

sleeping.  

“Come down,out of the clouds,”

my father warned—

but I have always spent my free time,

on Cloud Mountain’s pleasant slopes;

where I can see more clearly,

my daydreams floating by.

CLIMBING (Hour 17, PM 2017)

    “Despite her [Marie Bracquemond] gifts, despite her striving, despite  her enthusiasm, the day came when with an obscure feeling of grief, she had to confess herself beaten.”

    — Jean-Paul Bouillon, “Marie Bracquemond: The Lady with the Parasol” (Women Impressionists, p. 242).

 

Never met a ladder I liked –

not the trap door pull-down device

to my childhood attic, nor the sketchy plywood versions

in construction sites where my brothers hid

and snickered as we circled below, our bikes

tied outside like royal steeds.

 

But that never stopped me

hauling myself up, hand over hand, until

I reached the upper limits, and could rest

hands on hips, as if lord

of all I surveyed below.

 

Blame it on grandma who climbed

a ladder at 82 to prune her trees,

and fell, breaking her back in two places

then recovering in one sweet week, as if

such a fall only required dusting oneself off,

then retying your apron strings.

 

Never met a ladder that made me sad

until I saw Woman on a Stepladder –

why did you stop drawing?

 

—-response to Marie Bracquemond Woman on a Stepladder, 1882 (private collection; printed in Women Impressionists p. 243)

Hour Eighteen

Up on the mountain,
far beyond the foothills
where nimbus clouds hide the cliffs from sight,
meet me, darling.

Driving

Poem 11

Driving in the dark
Doubts haunting like the shadowy mountain range afar
The air cool and thin
Bumping along a narrow road punctuated by puddles and dirt
Going beyond houses barricaded by high fancy walls with bright lights and landscaped foliage
Into rougher terrain and corner shops and fellas on the block
Still my heart does not pop
For all roads lead somewhere and even in the dark

there’s light ahead

18. Evening fog (a revue of the Royal Crown variety)

Hat. A fedora tonight, I think. The air is a white plume on black noir.
Boots. Laced, no, buckled tonight, yes.
Blue-grey smoke, (not like that faggots’ eyes.)
from my cigar, or is it my pipe, no, it’s a cigar tonight,
Dominican, Full bodied, just like I Like ‘em.
A little scotch, just enough to singe, and lite.
Jazz, jazz to a slow groove, with a silky alto.
My soundtrack. Don’t mean a thing, am I rite?
A stray cat crosses my path. Lookin’ like a, you know,
not lookin’ half bad in thrift store frock, hopin’ some
Shmuck gives her more than a night. She gives me the luxury of a
second glance. But with evening fog like this
who knows what I might be.