The Poetry Marathon

Hour 13-A Different World

In a different world

You and I

would be walking upside down

On a balance beam

Or flying a kite

Beneath our feet

We would be challenging each other to duels

With cyber sticks

And puppet guns

We would go to work

And play with anti matter

Come back home and work with

Quantumless Mechanics

In a different world we would cease to be limited

And limit ourselves to being different

Our questions would be answers

Our answers would be questionalbe

and our facts would be fiction

In a different world

We would spend our lives and end up young

We would boast of our poverty

Make pets out of trees

Wish on Tootsie Rolls

And chew on stars

If we were in a different world

You and me would be me and you

But we would still be together

No matter how different the world

I would still find you in it

Walking beside you

Or maybe above

 

Black Wings

We cannot eat this bread.

A shadow reached all the way around

the sky

as a life tilted away like a

country road headed north.

 

We sometimes forget

just how to move air in and out —

There are no easy breaths here.

We search for life, and find

loss instead.

We seek reasons, but find

no words

but “broken,” “mystery,” “gone,” “sorry.”

 

Starved, we long for light, but find

the black wings of a darkness too vast

to walk through.  Meanwhile

 I will cry, then

I will bake a new kind of bread to awaken

a different kind of morning.

 J. Pratt-Walter, (c)  8/2017

 

 

 

Absence

Trees uprooted, leafing

Water flowing freely

Dripping all around

 

She whispers so discreetly

With no feet upon the ground

 

Floating around, so freeing

Nothing to tether, just receiving

Moon’s coming down

Up to misconceiving

 

She whispers so discreetly

Rising above the sound

 

The sands of time so fleeting

The hours and seconds spin

Out of control, then back back again

 

She whispers so discreetly

The power of the pen

Light as a Feather

The rain dripped over my lashes and I awake to the thunder roaring above the clouds. Streams of lightening color the sky with magnificent rainbows.

I must be dreaming the water gently removed the discontent from my face.

How did I end up in this place, I look carefully to examine the extreme circumstances in which I have found myself. Not asleep nor awake but in the in between of life crossed over into fate.

I immediately began to pray it is not to late. I float to the left and guild to the right as the wind rips through my hair the vibes in my stomach begin to take flight. I feel light as a feather and calm as I maneuver the stormy weather. I start to accept I could live above the clouds forever.

Hour Thirteen, Change in the laws of physics

Perpetual Motion

A world without inertia
would at first seem a paradise.
Nothing would slow us down
as we glided around, flitting
like jeweled insects through
daily tasks, dancers flying
through the air, creating aerial
displays that no longer defied
death, one push of a windmill’s
blades would power all of the earth.

But,

eventually the dancers would tire,
the windmill’s blades would break,
we would willfully tie ourselves
down, in the desperate hope
for stillness, for silence, for calm.
We need adversity, consciously
slowing down our world to survive.

Bittersweet Truth

Walk through the block

beautiful house,

watch the flag wave

the red, white and blue.

 

In love with country

a patriot it seems,

turning in whirls

more pride wearing flags.

 

Beautiful homes

one can’t help think,

A wonderful world

The American dream.

 

Reality bites

one hardly can think

the sky doesn’t mix

a cruel brew of hate.

 

Unlaw

At 12 noon
on a Monday,
the inner core of the Earth
gave Her immediate notice
And quit

"Dear Universe,
You stuck me with a planet
Of people who think I'm
Hollow or
Flat
And I can't go on holding on
To these ignorant hoomans. They are too spacey and believe the weirdest things!!
I'll feel bad for low mass creatures,
they can visit me when the magma chambers cool or when I visited my cousin the Sun.

Gravity, don't hate me for leaving you alone in this.

Peace out,
Ferra"

Us hoomans laughed at our lighter steps and joked that we lost weight
Our dogs began to fly around and sleep on roofs.
Cats no longer needed the fireman, and they were downsized

Cars, plans, trains and trucks
now a carnival ride
Look ma, no brakes!

We grew taller, wider
but we still didn't learn our lesson

We still doubted the planet, we still abused Her

She never came back, stayed in the shadows of the planet never to bother with us hoomans again. We missed Her but didn't realize it, our logic floating away with our gerbils and potted plants into the darkness.

Hour Seven: A Day of Dismay

Hour Seven Prompt

It was a day

of dismay

that threw my whole world into disarray.

For whoever is responsible for that horrible day, they must surely pay.

Because from that day forward, I will never be okay.

 

Galaxy Fallacy – Hour Thirteen

A year was not a year

Any longer

Or any shorter

It just wasn’t clear

But the nonsense about orbits

Had been pure fiction it seemed

And 365 days meant no more or less

Than 112.

How could this be?

How could we no longer know how long we

Had been in existence?

And when did we start counting?

And why?

On whose say so?

The anxiety was mounting

We needed to know

The reason for the lie –

Was it decided arbitrarily?

Did nobody argue contrarily?

Would we now have to divide time

By a different number

To unencumber

Ourselves from this fallacy

About our galaxy?

Castles in the Sky (Hour 13)

Morning comes like a blank page
with subtle illusions to comfort the mind.
There is calm within the city,
serenity, in the eyes of a child.

To greet the sky at my feet,
where the night before twas a refuge
to where my dreams did flee,
and now is at my door
where the floor ceases to be.

My senses opened wide to the purity of sound,
I exude an awareness of a world turned upside down.

In the immensity beyond my doorstep
I proceed forth to know the difference of every entity,
Where all the slumbering fantasies can entice my curiosity,
with chances for new discovery.

To walk aloft the breeze
where the castles in the air seep while the city sleeps,
To pluck dreams down from long branches,
like fruit from a great tree.
Tasting each flavor that is there is to be seen,
without hesitation or divergence from what can truly set my soul free.