The Poetry Marathon

hour 6: y’all

They never used the word sacrifice,
they always used the words a better life.

On the first journey,
I dropped the name that granted me wisdom
and the brightness of the sun and moon
for something equal in syllables
but meaningless in worth.

On the second journey,
I dropped the new words I had just mastered.
Gave up freeways for highways
and you guys for y’all.
It wasn’t enough to rip out my tongue
a second time
for y’all to see me as human.

Y’all wanted me to unflatten my nose.
Open my eyes.
Starve
than to use chopsticks.
Poke my eyes out with them
instead.

Y’all’s problem
became my problem.
I should never have taken that load,
I should’ve thrown it off the side of the Appalachian mountain range
and hoped for it to crush y’all
on its way down
rather than let y’all crush me.

Beach and Memories

Cold water washes my feet
The super stubborn sand
Still sticking to it
The smell of sea fills my senses
The smiling sun tickling my skin
Hearing the sound of rushing waves
I let my mind wander
To the time when we
Used to make castles in the air.
Then get on them to fly off
To that one far-off place….
Do you still remember it?

Those days…

Busy roads usually don’t excite many
But for me,the busy traffic had stories to tell,
Those empty rooms had lessons to preach
The scrotching sands had ailments to heal

Then I was a small ignorant kid
My world was my room
My best crowd was my classroom
My best teacher was my loneliness
But all of these had points to point
To find happiness in loneliness
Chillness in burning heat
To ignore the unwanted
And care for the wanted
Bundle of lessons
For a lifetime…

Poem 6: My mess of a desk

Behold, my mess of a desk, covered with
a powder blue vinyl pencil case,
a glass of water on a mosaic coaster,
bags of original sea salt flavored potato chips,
and a half-liter bottle of Snapple mango tea.

But wait, there is more-
sleek silver pens with crystal blue grips,
a tiny stuffed panda head looped phone charm,
two silver rings engraved with hearts,
green plastic scissors on a frayed spiral notebook,
a white ceramic cup filled with neon highlighters,
black woven landyards, rubber bands, and hair ties,
and a plastic box of nickels and pennies.

Also I almost forgot-
point five-millimeter lead graphite pencils,
two pigma micron archival ink pens,
biology, chemistry, and psychology textbooks,
a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts,
a half-completed sketchbook of penciled anatomy studies,
a digital watch ticking rapidly from ninety seconds,
an opened laptop with ten tabs open,
and a word document listing a poem.

The crooked road to nowhere

Bustling sound of busy tractor tilling the drought ground,

Where rural farmers are busy harvseting corns and other crops of the season.

Cage less chicken roaming around to find what’s left on the ground.

Children of farmers loved to play on top of the hay like a first class sliding board playground and yet, they all bursting with laughters.

Hogs and goats joined in the fun of  harvested crops in abundance that was accidentally drop on the ground.

Till sundown they work hard on the farm and rest their tired feet on the flowing streams where cows bath too, to cool them down.

Together, they had a quiet dinner with a prayer of thanksgiving for a lovely day, in a small cottage where candles are lighting their way.

Cats and dogs on the porch after a sumptuous meal and farm kids joined, in sleeping side by side  with their pets.

A life in a rural, where crooked road meet nowhere.

The finding of one’s self

Where do I belong?
The rhetorical question I asked all my life from state to state and school to school.
Jobs to jobs the indefinite path of my life the more I planned the more it became disorganized and harder the tasked became to accomplish.
A bias statement had me questioning whether I have given up despite the hurt I had made it through. I’ve been judge and sized up to see if I was the right fit for their son only too fall short of their judgement as if I’m not worthy or do not amount up to the value that they set their son at.
Or was it stating that I made it too far to just give up or even settle for acceptance I’m stronger than what I can see more valuable than ones eyes can see

Collection of Sorrow

When it rains it pours

Whether that’s a good thing or not

It’s raining in this house

And I’m collecting the drops in a bucket

An unhealthy habit no doubt

But this helps me keep track

Of the collection of sorrows

That are gathering around me

I’m collecting rain in a bucket

To keep it from coming up around my ears

And drowning me

I’ll take the bucket outside

And water the flowers

Then repeat the process

Until this rain ends

Prompt #6 ~ changes

Changes

Some things never change
Rain falls to the thirsty ground
In silver torrents
Until you move. And rain
Glitters down, silver threads
That shimmer in the grey mountain air

Light that in another latitude
Scorches dreams
Here gentles the air
Offers up its softest sheen
A kind of curtain against darkness
So that I draw back the real curtains
And drown myself in light like rain
Silver healing.

Time Marching On – Hour Six

Difference

Is a hindrance

When you reach forty

And people get haughty

About your single status

Your creative hiatus

Your dislike of their children…

 

So you try to keep it within

Stop yourself asking when they became so boring

So you have to just sigh

And ask yourself why

You can’t just bloody join them?

And things would be so much easier then.

 

You know –  easier to blend,

Easier to make a friend

Easier to fit into their social events

Easier to have more small talk and less rants and vents

And you could have a mortgage too

To stop you feeling blue

About anything too serious

And deep

And you could lose sleep

Over night feeds

And not the reason your soul bleeds.

undone

permitted to seep

into the wound, the saline

stings; afterwards, the

bleeding ceases, breath released

– it is a sigh of relief