The Poetry Marathon

Congratulations First Half Marathoners

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

In the past I have personally verified that everyone who applied for a certificate was eligible and then I would make a certificate. That is not possible this year and so we will be operating 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. We will be taking feedback into consideration, so if you really feel strongly about this new state of affairs please email me at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com to explain your position.

Only use the below certificate if you completed The Half Marathon. Congratulations again on your completion of The Half Marathon. The link below will take to a version of the certificate that is easy to edit.

Half Marathon Certificate

The below image is not as easy to edit and just serves as an example of what the certificate will look like!

Also remember that this year we will be putting together a 2017 Poetry Marathon Anthology.

Submissions will open August 10th and stay open till the 15th.

All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less. All submissions must be made via our email address (poets@thepoetrymarathon.com). The subject line of all emails must be Poetry Submission. Poems must be included in the body of the email.

All poems submitted must be written during the 2017 Poetry marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors.

The first word of every line should not have a capitalization unless it is intentional! Word has an auto caps feature that you can turn off by following the instructions below.

You must indicate which hour each poem was written in. Only poets who completed the whole or half marathon will be eligible to submit.

There is no guarantee that by submitting your poem will be selected although the goal is to include one poem by everyone who submits.

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 2016 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.

Doubts Borne of the Men I’ve Loved Before

You know you’re beautiful, like no one else,
I’ve seen the way you hold yourself:
That shameless poise as you just pass through
Holding my heart like I belonged to you

What is it you do not see
To make you find it easy to discard me?
What is it you love so much more
That you’d walk out and shut the door?

You know you’re so talented, so self-made,
I’ve seen the wealth and the accolades:
Dropped a trifle in my palm,
Wrote me off without a qualm

What is it makes you not care
Despite all we promised to share?
What is it you want so much less
That you’d shatter my heart and leave it a mess?

You know you’re so very skilled at love,
I remember the things we’d both dream of:
That passionate demand in my ear
Making me wish I could hold you near

What is it makes you disappear,
Pretend we were not and just wander clear?
What is it you get with her
To pretend that you and I never were?

You know your life is so very nice,
Family so lovely as to entice,
Home so calm my own dreams I might sell
If I didn’t know your wishes so well

What is it makes you shield your heart
When we’ve finally managed a belated start?
What is it makes you act this way
Where I’m so damned sure you’ll go away?

You know you’re just so very smart
I gave you my whole life to take apart,
I’d have been with you a million years
But you left me spilling a heart full of tears

What is it you loathed so much
That you tore me apart, gave so rare a touch?
What is it makes you blind to see
That it was your problem more than it was me?

2017 Poetry Marathon, Hour Twelve: Sleep of the Golden Hour

1
At last
I am home with you

We are tucked in bed
sheets clean and fresh
pillows cool and soft (not too soft)

Side by side
your head resting on my chest
we are warm
comfortable
safe
happy

2
My eyes close
I hear disjointed voices
speaking in gaps

My eyes open
I have been following all along
I think

Wait—
why is that guy doing that?
And where did he come from?
Who…

I’m going to have to start this one over
Drowsy, woozy, and drifting
are not conducive
to understanding complex plot lines

Time to sleep

3
Tomorrow I get to sleep in
(I hope the cat is paying attention)

4
Hmm…

I should probably take care of that
Nah… it’ll wait

I do like the cool side…

(5 August 2017)

 

Fin Encore

I just posted my twelfth poem, another Half Marathon finished. I can’t imagine doing this for another twelve hours. Good luck to all you Super Beings who complete the Full Marathon. I wrote Old Lady Poems this year. That is how my brain feels at this point. Old.

12 – lust –

I am full of indecision, my heart is a whirlwind lost in its twist

all because you stood within my sight, your scent wafting

toward me. What do I do now, with these feelings coursing through

my veins, my body moves hypnotized, soaring across the distance

between our breaths, singing some genetic jig, control held by my

ancestors, but whoa I have brain, slow down relax so his pretty and

he smells nice , personality, job prospects, hygiene, family, medical history

factors that need consideration a google search a detective, time ticks slowly

then stops. back track, heading home.

 

-s.j.duncan-

countdown

white smoke of Canaveral

curling towards visionary space

 

blindfolded, she went 20 to zero,

‘fore seeking our hides.

 

anticipation of Old Faithful

Yellowstone’s sulfur-up-your-nose.

 

Guy Lombardo New Year’s eve –

champagne glasses tilted high.

 

on your mark, get set, and Olympic sprinters

loosed

like starlings over the Vatican.

 

Bottles of beer we took down

and passed around…

 

The Horses are at the Gate,

sweaty tickets in palms,

silken jockeys praying

bottoms-up.

 

the 2-minute warning,

time to grab your last snack

before the Oakland Raiders

give you another heart attack.

Hour Eleven: Farmers Market Sounds

The buzz of the local farmers market resonates closer with every step,

music and singing tickle my ears.

Young girls on ukuleles, a string-band stomping in ballad,

street performers juggling—delighting the young families slurping up ice cream,

toasted cinnamon almonds, and Bavarian pretzels.

Fresh scents of basil, dill, cilantro, lavender float around the square…

and tomatoes, melons, potatoes, zucchini, squash, cucumbers abound.

I stand still, eyes closed, letting a fiddle take me away.

 

 

Wings (Hour 8)

WINGS

I envy eagles and butterflies, I envy ravens and bumblebees.
I envy all creatures born with the gift of flight.
I achingly long to have wings of my own.
Feathery but strong as steel, iridescent purple, blue and white.
Wings as beautiful and fierce as the Fae of folklore.

Wings that let me fly passed the clouds, towards the moon,
my wingspan shimmering across the onyx sky, a magical streak of light.
If only I could fly above all the mire and muck of life, all of the pain,
above the past and the present, then every what-if would fall away.
Where the wind blows so hard that it dries the tears within,
before I could shed a single one, and only elation could be felt.

To feel those wings expand and retract underneath my skin, a part of my scapulas, my spine, what ecstasy that would be.
To feel the freedom of sheer flight,
of weightlessness with no burdens pulling me back to earth,
what a gift that would be.

If God had created us with wings, I’d be the first to take flight
and the very last to ever land.

— Saskia Lynge / Hour 8

11 MAKE MINE BLACK

Although sugar-mixed or cream-stirred

It will always be black for me

As black as a moonbeams-less sky.

Serve it hot, cold, or in-between

It will always be black, particularly mine

Black as the darkness of the night

Sans stars and the milky way.

No matter how you stir it

And make an eddy

It’s still black, a whirlpool-black

Like a muddied, stagnant canal.

In a mug, or in a cup,

Brewed, or instant, or 2 in a 1

It’s black

Similar to a beclouded sky, with a brewing storm.

In a sip, in a gulp

Whether it’s bittersweet or honeyed or nectar-ed

Or bitter-creamed or milky

It will always be black

Such as a darken tunnel with no sight

of a light at the end.

It will always be black

Ergo, make mine a black, sweet-black

confinement

confinement

 

pressed up against the sides of this space, I bump into the places where we meet and I wonder if there is enough room to branch out…to become the giants we need to be in the parts of our lives requiring us to be larger than our lives allow us right now?

 

tightly locked. back to back rather than face to face…where I would rather be with you…contained inside you instead of this cramped area of my head suffocating all of us under the smallness of my doubt about what is possible for either of us.

 

freedom made possible only through resignation or surrender.  either or both a possible option to break us out of this confinement.

R.L. Elke

Aug 5/17 prompt 12