The Poetry Marathon

I Wonder Where?

 

I Wonder Where?

 

I wonder where

it is

I can go to see the

people I hear wailing?

Being of different cultures veils them from me like a wall.

 

They may think I don’t care for

them at all.

But the

hearts in us are our mothers.

 

And there are many who

are forced, who gave

away what they could not

and don’t ever pretend it was freely.

 

 

Not just I.

 

Many think we did

what we could but really did not.

And search our country’s past to find

what is a fountain pen blot that

wrote our history books. That which has been anointed

to us as truth. And I cannot find hope in such a spot.

 

 

Original Poem:

Mother’s Day Mourning

Colleen Schwartz 1997

 

 

Having a Drink with Charles Bukowski (8)

“ … later she sat there in her slip / drinking Old Grandad / and she said / what’s a guy like you doing / living in a dump like this?” by Charles Bukowski

 

After you wrote on a slip

of paper, we took turns sipping Old Grandad

from a Dixie cup, and you said

“What are you doing

with someone like this?”

Revelations

Funny how life can send you soaring or spinning in the blink of an eye

Things happen beyond our control no matter how hard we try

Deadlines anniversaries and birthdays all seem to come on go

Don’t procrastinate or hesitate.         For tomorrow we may not know

When life gives you lemons learn to make lemonade

Most importantly remember when there’s an opportunity to party.         By all means celebrate

The Disorder (8th hour)

“Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal has ever dared to dream before” (credit goes to Edgar Allan Poe and his poem The Raven)

No longer certain if my thoughts are burden to significant doubting

But they flourish at night when I just might question if I am dreaming

These nightmares in question have become an obsession of my inner dreams

Have I possessed the powers of transgress while my ghost ventures beyond the shores? I say No

My darkest fears hold the shears that tear at my soul, reminding me that I am a mere mortal

Screams escape from my throat as I shoot up and choke upon black feathers, death is imminent as ever

Who placed such dark lace upon my face and bottomless brain…who dared?

And to choose me as a vessel, as an instrument of turmoil, not knowing where next it will send me to

I spring from my bed with visions of the dead still masquerading in my head in a most harrowing dream

Still fully awake, I just cannot contain the feeling that I have dreamt this nightmare before

Hour 8 – Golden Shovel Format

My attempt at a golden shovel below:

Original Line from ‘the Rape of the Lock’ by Alexander Pope

(Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul)

 

A bounteous gathering of lovely charms

With floating eyes, which are about to strike

Among the cloud of expectations and the

Hope – Is a bubbling rain that sets the sight

Slowly this love swings between if and but

Everyone tries to evaluate the merit

Who endures the pain and everything wins?

But who don’t compromise on the

Situation, must weed on existence of soul

 

 

The Critic

Original line is from Howl, by Carl Ginsberg: “who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish”

I cannot tell you how or who

creates poetry out of the scribbled,

mush-mashed ramblings told by all.

I cannot tell you day or night

of the rhythmic, deafening rocking

of time as I waited for you and

in that moment, angrily rolling

in our bed, with the sheet over

my eyes and ideals, be they lofty

or just simply the incantations

that clear my mind of whose or which

still too angry to truly speak in

harsh prose.  Stammering over the

anger to get past the golden yellow,

to start the new morning

no longer ‘we are’, but now ‘were’

forming meaning from stanzas

that cut brutally short of

creatively giving love or worth to gibberish.

 

Storm Inside

Storm Inside

Outside the sun shone bright much so

With blinding gossamers threads sensing much;

The brewing storm inside, depends

For the future to chance upon.

(Inspired from “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams)

 

Hour 8

@varenyas

#6

She collected people like others collected shells or sea glass. Finding them, often washed up, in places where others didn’t even see them. Like hunters of agates, she’d reach into a grouping and snatch those she found beautiful or interesting, ignoring others nearby.

Her  hair was like a barnyard, chunks of hay strewn to one side, some rusty object projecting out of an overgrown thatch. It looked right and peaceful, though it was a look unique to that one location and one that could not and should not be be duplicated elsewhere.

A sleek hotel lobby best describes her appearance; smooth marble, velvet finishes and something about her reflected light like crystal chandeliers shining off oversized mirrors. There was a mystery to her, like an escalator heading to another floor, an elevator door that might open and reveal something.

Both ordinary and complicated are the words that best define her.

broken beauty

Original lines taken from Take This Longing by Leonard Cohen:

…your beauty lost to you, yourself,

just as it was lost to them –

take this longing from my tongue

all the useless things my hands have done

let me see your beauty broken down

like you would do

for one you love.

*************************************

broken beauty

 

What did they do to your

confidence that you don’t see your beauty

behind the pieces of you lost

to time, to happiness to

pieces of you

you wouldn’t see in yourself.

If I could just

love you enough as

to hold a mirror for you to see yourself in it,

I wonder if it was,

or would be time lost

for me to

find them

and take

them a painting of this

holy mess they’ve been longing

to claim from

what they have stolen from my

heart, my soul, my tongue.

Like you, once and for all,

I need the

voices to stop telling me I’m useless

with these things

tangled in my

heart in my hands.

I need to have

peace in what I have done.

Even when you have my blood to let,

you see me

let me see

you and all of your

broken beauty –

soul held down

with kisses like

everything you said you

loved or would

love if we could do

what we needed for

ourselves just one

time if you

let me give you love.

R. L. Elke

© Aug 5/17 prompt 8

 

Revelation

“The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”

-Virginia Woolf

I have left it behind, in the
woods so deep, so great
Found in that place, a revelation
It had waited all this time, perhaps
An escape, to return soon, or never
With all I did,
Have done, long time waiting for this to come