The Poetry Marathon

Forsaken

Death is not a solution, my dear
     It is only a final escape
From the tortured emotions you are living
   And the love you cannot find.
You asked if he cared….about you…about the two of you
     Nothing….not a word.
Echoes rang in the void of his frigid indifference
   His silence threatened you with the thought
That you would lose him forever.
   That threat is now a reality
He is gone by this point.
     No way to get him back.
If he would just give love a chance
     No more tears you’d cry….alone in your room
Until he left you again.

prompt #12 ~ The wolf did it

My grandson says a wolf lives in our car.

He is invisible, Trin explains. And I hate him.

He wants to eat me.

The wolf says ‘stupid,’ which Trin is not

Allowed to say. The wolf is sarcastic,

Ebullient. Fearless. Trin is not.

 

Perhaps I need a wolf, I think. An alter ego

To remind me what is possible: courage

And a sense of the absurd.

The wolf did it, Trin tells me, when

He kicks the back of my seat.

 

This is what I will say when asked

About my own deviance:

The wolf did it.

Just this.

The Hunted

The traveller urges his horse on

with wolves at his back.

Suddenly over the howls comes

the merriment of music.

The wolves retreat to find a safer hunt,

the traveller begs for a shelter.

He gets it, and more,

food and wine and the promise of safe passage in the morning.

But with one stipulation.

So the traveller sings away the rest of the night.

In the morning, he is found in the ditch.

Poem 12: Waterlight Butterfly

Silver blue sky, spread with rosy clouds, overlooks the city in the canyon. Deep between the rising red spires of rock, the azure river flows calmly past after a million years of wearing down the stone. The sun descends behind the horizon, leaving the sky stained a pale violet. As dusk descends, golden halos of light illuminate the crags between the reddened towers. A breeze passes, whistling a song in its journey between the cliffs, and urges the butterflies from their nests.

Golden wings flutter-
A flurry of butterflies
Released by the wind.

If You Love Chocolate

Melt in your mouth and hands alright!

Such a creamy delight

In its dark, milky, or ivory goodness

I love chocolate

When it’s hot and cozy

When it’s cold and frosty

When it nutty or on a cake

When it’s the skin on his face

I love the scent and the texture

When crispy rice bits make crunchy pleasure

The tasty candy rules the world

When it’s plain, ice cream, or swirled

Shout your love and admiration

For the best candy in all of the nations

Sweet, delectable, and an artist’s dream

This ode to chocolate is a universal theme

jj2017

King Sisyphus

Say what you will, there’s an honor in persistence.

Just because one does not succeed,

have their tries become inert?

Like King Sisyphus forever cursed to roll a boulder

only for it to roll down at the end,

I care not what comes for the final result.

As any writer worth their salt can tell you,

It’s the journey that makes the trip, not the destination.

Take me to New Hampshire

Take me to New Hampshire
Where I left it on the water
dreams floating
on the mountain bay
Where the stars held my attention
Star North gave direction
I was in a moment
With nothing in my way
Take me back there
Follow signs to Echo
Find myself
the place I want to stay
Take me to New Hampshire
With stone lined pockets
Walk me to the water
When the stars consume the sky
Let the water take me
Last breath in that moment
Hold me close to everything
That has slipped away
All but the moments
All but the memories
All but that smile, she wears upon her face
I will let go now
Leave me in New Hampshire
Leave me on the water
Where dreams rest
Leave me on the mountain bay

12: Ghazal for Dylan Thomas

Hoist me a pint of ale in the old boat house;
Seek shelter from gust and gale in the old boat house.

Wield me a poem, you bardic Procol Harum:
Turn a whiter shade of pale in the old boat house!

Breezes of Laugharne, perpetually fresh!
Nothing ever goes stale in the old boat house!

Jonah me, Moby me, humpbacked and blubbered:
Spend three days in the whale of the old boat house!

Come to the confines of your monastic keep:
Lock yourself in the jail of the old boat house!

Message me in a bottle, lyric lord of Wales:
I’ll send my fan mail to the old boat house.

Let druids rise up from their moss-grown graves
And bless each rusty nail of the old boat house!

Heron and cormorant, he-gull and she-gull
Soar and wade and sail past the old boat house.

I praise your psalm-shed, beer-brawny word-worker:
Hosanna, hurrah, and hail to the old boat house!

Swallowtail Jig

I cannot dance,

I run around,

swing my feet,

I cannot dance,

yet her tune never recedes

and I imagine I can dance

while I play the Irish fiddle

hold onto the joyful memory

and dance forever more.

Poem 12: The Last Chance

“Last chance to see”

The woman in the scales

come one, come all

to the Mermaid in a stall

The man in the checkered suit

waves his gloved hands at the tent

last chance to see

a bit of remaining wonder

a con that only the guileless believed

but we went anyway,

spending our meager cents

for a moment with a woman

who all pretended to be

more than a woman

we needed to believe in something

more than the cars on the road,

the orbs of light on the streets,

and the skyscrapers growing into the sky

we needed a moment that recalled

when humanity lived in fear of the dark,

and knocked wood to keep the fairies away.

Electricity exposed the outlines of our magic

We still need the dark.