The Poetry Marathon

A Vaporized Life

Life is but a vapor

We wake

We arise

We go

And we do

Not knowing what life holds in front of us

What we will run into

Do we believe?

Do we understand?

Do we know what happened if I sudden accident we die

Where do we go?

Do we prepare?

How do we do it?

Where do we go to face to it?

Is eternity real?

Can it happen now?

Everyday we live and in  someone’s life it shows up somehow

Where do they spend it?

Heaven or Hell?

Where will we spend it?

Do we know well?

The sign is there: Eternity Now

The door is there

But it’s closed somehow

Can we open that door to Eternity

One day

without wanting to know

we are headed that way…..

Halls of uncertainty

Halls lined with lockers

Memories of the metal clang.

Fill my mind with the dread

of the awkward feelings

caused by insecurity.

My heart pounds at the sight of the library

where I fell in love with books

and found an escape from surroundings

until I made my break.

elemental

element and force, it erodes earth and stone – smoothing what is sharp

carving out depths over distances and lengths of time measurable but, perhaps, not intended to be fully

comprehensible

if instrumental to life, the creation thereof, the shaping of other elements so why, then, has it not helped to round out her edges

still jagged – no matter the amount of time she’s spent allowing it to wash over her,

abrasive; sure, she’s weather worn from the storms she’s withstood but, even when she’s firmly grounded, she remains

unchanged

by the tide

Ideas Equal Reality

Ideas are things, I don’t need to tell you this.

Like the thought of her lips touching when you kiss

Or the sting of death on your mind, painful abyss

2 shots ring, thankful you miss.

Ideas are things, they’re the seeds of our reality

Be firm in yourself, concrete mentality

Thoughts and imagination become actuality

Artists of life; Thought, emotion and the Quantum Modality

Ideas are things, it’s where we all begin

Porkchops for dinner n’

The second season of love, I’m in.

Ideas surely are things, I’ll say it again

I can’t deal with mediocrity very well

To me mediocrity feels a lot like hell

Ideas are like a sperm cell, fuck it-Magic spell.

Careful what you think, I can’t write it much better, “Oh well.”

 

 

this old house

poem#5
this old house

I used to know every crack in this old house
the way the basement floor felt on my bare feet in the winter
and how the bathroom stayed so cold
the flashbacks of us piled up on the stairs
so that we could all fit in the pictures

lots of memories of family dinners
and how the smell of breakfast waffled through this house
on saturday mornings
just mindful recollections now
as boxes line the walls
as pictures and mirrors come down
and furniture sold

a sort of ending
a sort of beginning again
all just phases in the end

#5 A Place From Childhood

The hallways smelled of whatever her neighbors were cooking. Sauteed onions, roasting beef, frying chicken.

Her own apartment was neat, orderly and filled with treasures; a blown glass grand piano, oil paintings by her mother, small shelves filled with items gathered in her world travels.

The couch material was green, itchy and hot, I much preferred one of the rocking chairs; a delicate cream upholstered one with dark wood, a larger one that sat beside it that had once been leather, then a satin stripe and now sits beside my own fire place in a blue fabric I chose when preparing it for my nursery a quarter century ago.

The kitchen had a table with space for two, a paper napkin that she used for weeks as a time was folded precisely and lay atop the radio. Her coffee percolator and canisters were clear class. She could create magic with the small efficient gas stove.

The bedroom housed a set of furniture from another era, on her dresser was a small framed photo of my father as a child.

I would never know my grandmother but it was her sister who never married and lived in the apartment adjacent to my own yard as a child where I felt the way my friends felt about their own grandmas.

5 – sundays –

I’d say it was my quiet place, but it was so full of life.

the wind singing through the gums, the gentle rhythm of the cattle calling their young

the whoosh of wings gliding through the canopy, my breath echoing against my chest.

 Magpies warbling, a gang of opportunists,

and the laughter of the kookaburras, made the wild paddock the last pocket of bush,

this place of my spirit, my home,

 

– s.j.duncan –

Youth in the Mountains

Fireworks sparking into the night
Reflections on the lake.
Mountains soaring up so high
Emotions filling my head.  
     I tripped.
         We kissed.
     I ran and hid.
My shy embarrassment out of hand.
I look back with a wry smile….
So innocent I was.

Poem 5: Place

Look, there, beyond the rolling hills,
round knuckles of emerald,
past the gentle slopes of grass.
Ignore the dark dirt beneath our feet,
or the chestnut dust mingling with mud.
Do not cry with the rain.
Look past the box buildings coated with grime
with their flat roofs and wooden plank walls
and dusty, cracked glass windows.
Stand on the broken swing dangling from the aged tree
with its thick, tired branch bowing down,
grab the frayed rope and stand on the cracked leather seat
and look up, out, and far.
Look beyond the cumulus clouds
to where the blue peeks out
over the slate mountains and their crystal snow caps
where the glaciers begin edging down
to sapphire lakes in plains of gold
that melt to deserts of crimson and dunes of sand.

Tap Dancing on Puddles

Tap Dancing on Puddles
VCS

He went out the door at noon
He arrived at the pub at two
By three or four he was playing billiards
After seven in the evening
He couldn’t recall
If he’d told his wife
Where he’d been off to
(She tended to get mad at his leaving)
With his blood pumping heat
from his head to his feet
He walked home in the snow
Northern lights overhead casting
Their spelling, singing like crackling glass
Lighting his gaunt face in their green and pink glow
Like a tap dancer he skipped across a puddle of ice
With the grace of Gene Kelley
And now one to see
The voice of a pipe organ
He serenaded the moon
Until he came to the front door
Of his own little home and remembered
That Marjorie hadn’t been told
That he’d been gone since noon
(Or more importantly she hadn’t told him
that she was okay with him coming home
by the light of the north and the moon)

The door creaked on its hinges
The house looked deceptively at peace
But he knew that Marjorie would not likely
Have gone to bed so soon
Peering with wide eyes
He took off his crushed fedora from his
Creased working man’s brow
and tossed it into the dark by the couch

His breath blew out of him in clouds in the cold
He rubbed his arms for warmth
And cursed in a whisper
As his hat
Like a miracle
Flew back to his hand

Marjorie was awake and her message was plain:
He was not welcome here until the ‘morrow
Sweet bottles of sorrow
He closed the door with a prayer
To the God of his fathers
(That he said he didn’t believe in but
he prayed to all the same)
And tap dancing over
The frozen puddles
He went to find a couch
To sleep what was left of the night away