The Poetry Marathon

Bedtime Story #1

Bedtime Story

 

When there are more leaves than people

Bluebirds and cardinals suffer few fools

Doves’ anniversary under peeling birch

Crows demand brunch without humor

Knowing what transpires

 

The long willow sways, the maple flutters

Blue spruce needles burst at fingertips

Squirrels hustle, glide with abandon

Chickadees visit in moments as summer lingers

Shade behind sunlight stretches in green time

 

Bats long gone from night shadows

Are mourned while honeybees persist

No intended flowers grow here

Paintbrushes and lilies and daisies

Spread only by the warm breath of God

 

The muddy brook clears from the storm

Few disturbed leaves have fallen

Do you remember green my child

The mother soothes reminiscing

It was all very beautiful

 

After The End

Tell them to open their mouths
and taste the air. If dust has
overtaken the saltiness, tell
them it’s okay to move closer
to the Pacific and that their mother
was not always confined
to this mattress, sedatives
swirling in her blood. Keep your
arms unburdened so they
have a place to drop their tears,
and if one wants to pick through
the detritus of decline, let them
but make room too for the other
who wants to hold the music
that made her hips sway. Tell
them when she was young,

nothing was easy, but there was always
her smile, a sunset breaking into
every room she entered.

Spring Love

Prompt for Hour Two-

Under the comforting shades of aspen trees-
Memories wilts and wheatgrass grows taller than the last year-
fragile moments and parched eyes; thistle needles pierced my solitude

We collect dandelions; beyond time and life

We churned corn stalks powder into anesthetic-

Somewhere between your presence

and absence of love; the autumn winds gently blow
whisperings- bittersweet memories and noises

Like a scent of Wisteria bloom, your absence waits for Spring
The Crimson sunbeams penetrate the freckled skin-
Soon, popular will also shed their roughened skins

like our damp memories.

The quiet brook will comfort our yearnings;
Soon, we will walk together hand in hand in
Silence-
Eclipsed by noises, and absence.

Copyrighted by Ruchi Chopra, 2017.

The Wordless Lament (Hour 2)

Nameless wonders speak volumes in my unwritten heart.
Called to taste the moment their beauty can be shared
and forever trembling behind my unspoken hand.

Come forth wordless desire
eternally escaping my call for definition.
If not by words then
find sound and understanding in a chord or broken rhythm,
find comprehension in a touch, or stroke of hair, or waltzing precision.

Do not let yourself die in the quiet fire of my longings!

Birth yourself from me in colors splashed on canvas,
in caressing hands upon clay, delicate fingers placed upon strings.

If not by words then
make thyself known by contracting muscle, by tides of blood,
by sex and sweat and tears upon pillows.

It is you who inspires all forms of expression.
It is your authorship signed on every overlooked simplicity, every unappreciated complexity.
Do not orphan the magnitude of your gravity.
Give it voice, give it flavor, give it scent and color! Give it texture!

If not by words,
then by utter silence, in total darkness.
Removed from the need to name you.
Your beckoning emptiness is satiated
in the still surrender of my tongue.

Prompt 2

Clinging to my crazy
Yearnings
Creating, labelling
Refusing to
Let go

What do you do?
When you don’t know
You don’t know
At all.

This urge to
Belong
So powerful
This urge
For belonging

Hypnotised
Alone, and not lonely

What if
one doesn’t join
the club?

One can love
without need

Passion
without a cause

One can know
this self
and be humble
enough
to

Not belong.

Hour 2.

he walks through the rust
by the sand worn
tin box houses
with a canvas
like a white beacon amongst the
blizzard of yellow and yellow turned reds and blues and grays
he comes to a halt
at the brick end
of his venture
the canvas binds into the scorched red
then paint
a fury of fresh colors enters the air
landing violently on the canvas
no sand penetrates them
they move freely
like the juice of a tomato
like the stain of grass
all foreign to the alleys
in which they meet
a yellow
much brighter then the
arcane sand
hits by the mans hand
now he feels the fabric of the canvas
resonating
colors
now meeting and parting
and conceiving
by the dry leather textured brush-like
hand
of their conductor
swift work
no borders
no chains
the paint drips and
marks
beyond its once pure
confines
till the wall is cloaked
from intrusion
sand grains fall inside
with no effect on the magnificent creation.
the creator turns and slowly trudges
back and back
once again concealed in the
unforgiving sand.

“before darkness” – 2/24

such average silhouettes
living in the light of their honeymoon
doused with kisses and expectations,
a clever guise for kerosene.
they paint phase by phase a map of forever,
not realizing that the amber shade of their moon will fade.
Every full and every crescent will set again
and before darkness –
the lover’s eyes will see something less sweet,
a mustard sun,
but they won’t dare to confuse that for reality,
hand in hand, a tight rope walk of grand illusion,
to see sweetness where there will be none.

before darkness, they will never accept the sun.

 

(based on a prompt from another year – “write a poem titled ‘before darkness’.”)

Cries in the night

Cries in the Night

A guttural howl
Echoes in the soundless night
Breaking into song.

A car revs crunching
Our dreams and peaceful sleep
Blood covers the ground.

A moment can change
A mood can alter instantly
Life is unpredictable.

Gunshots. Bullets. Death.
Life ends before it begins
Respect each other.

We Won’t Be Hailed As Heroes

Even if we give our lives
For them and the ones they care about
Even if we bleed out drop by drop
On the cold ground and still reach out

We won’t be hailed as heroes
Just as people who did as taught
Fighting a war never our own
Still dutifully giving everything we got.

We still won’t be hailed as heroes
For there will be nothing left of us behind
For them to remember us by
Just a vague memory that we were one of their kind.

Even if we die the death
They hold in great regard
We won’t be hailed as heroes
Just as people who worked hard.

Together, Alone

Poem moved to private.