The Poetry Marathon

Death to Self (Hour 6)

DEATH TO SELF

I see, hear and feel the truth, but it does not set me free.
Rather, it pricks my heart with a finely cut dagger.
I miss the you’s through out my life, all those I’ve had to say goodbye to.
Why? Why must it always be goodbye?
You were friend, you were family, you were my heart,
and now I’m gone, in what feels like an ever expanding expanse.

But I will keep you, in a pocket within my heart.

I miss the me’s that have faded, the versions of myself that are dead, that are gone, that are changed.
In most ways, for the better. In some ways, for the worst.
I like me. I hate me. I love myself. I hate myself. Depending on the day.
But it’s okay. I accept who I am and who I’m not.

I lean against the tide of emotion, against the tides of change,
until the tide lifts me up, my feet off the earth’s crust,
propelling me beyond this atmosphere, where no one can see me.
Just for a little while.
Until I no longer care that I’m not seen.
Death to self, the objective to disappearing.

But I will keep a part of myself, too, in a pocket within my heart.

— Saskia Lynge / Hour 6

Hour Eleven

I am more fully alive in the heat of this fire!
Much was learned, hard fought, lost.

I run alone for a prize foolhardy
I go alone to the lavish trees
I race, cramp, hardly breathe
I sink beneath branches green

And what is it you would have me do?
Come back, penitent, to you.

7

It doesn’t start like this
Not with the soft centre
Not with the creamy texture of it
It’s never that simple

You can’t skip the shell
The crunchiness
The pleasant hardness
That keeps its shape

Please don’t ignore
The outer layers
Of baked goods

hour 11: motherhood

My friend tells me that she fears
bringing a child into this world
because of what the parasite might do
to her body.

Another laments
the financial burden it would entail
to invest into his offspring,
to feed,
clothe,
educate.

But me—
I fear that I cannot live up
to the responsibility of guiding a human life
through to adulthood.
If I learned anything from my mother, it is that
motherhood comes with great sacrifices.

Will I be able to sell them the world
the way my mother sold dilapidated homes
to men with deep pockets,
guiding their eyes away from scratched hardwood
to the seventh layer of new paint
in order to put grains in my stomach?
Even if I do as she did,
and use my own body to shield my children from the world,
will they be recovering from their childhood
in this monstrous world?

Inspired by “I AM ACCUSED OF TENDING TO THE PAST” by Lucille Clifton and “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith.

The Swallowtail Jig

 

 We crisscross patterns across the forest

a force lifts us into the air

to float and whirl above the mountains

partnering

the jigging birds and clouds

Circle up, flutter

circle up, flutter

open wings

fly.

E_N

Quietly, Percy lived

on Section 1in an Eastern

Montana dugout,

listening to crickets

and meadowlarks, a lonely

conversation on windy plains.

 

Lively, Allie wanted

to dance, and joined her cousin

at the Richey dance.

Allie – with California beaches

in her genes – swung her hips into

Percy’s arms, that unsuspecting fall night.

 

Leaving the brutal January winter,

Percy lived up to his promise

and traveled to Long Beach,

stealing away his Dancing Queen.

 

i wish

i wish i could express

myself the way you do

i see you dance, i die

Robert Buck

I listen
to 10,000 Maniacs songs
in-between hours, and
you were constancy

of crystalline accompaniment
and precise guitar notes –
dominating but the raven-haired dervish
growing to womanhood in your view.

All men with bowties
should have a title bestowed on them.
All men with bowties and perverse literary leanings
should have a guitar thrown in their hands.

The End Signals New Beginning

The end hurts.

I forced it and I will never know how it ended.

I rushed it.

 

I did not plan it.

It happened.

As summer comes to an end, so does love.

 

Love came to an end, and yet I still warned that it was approaching.

It was the beginning of the end before my earth day.

It ended long before I knew.

 

Still I let the end dupe me all the same.

I never knew I was capable of putting an end to a love so long in the making…

Almost 20 years of friendship and love has come to an close.

 

Farewell…

You taught me love and for this I will always wish you well.

Love like energy never dies, it is transferred.

 

All rights reserved copyright(c)2017 Natasha Vanover

Apart

earth wind fire rain

separate but equal can you

feel the pain the oceans

rise like a woman’s body

when the moon calls

 

rain earth wind fire

every person you have ever

touched you have never touched you

are always an atom apart

but there are many things that strive

to be only an atom apart

 

fire earth rain wind

reminds us we can begin

again buries summer deep

within

 

rain wind fire earth  

births us from the night

a tiny spark in the distance the outline

of wave and flame look the same

from a distance