The Poetry Marathon

Poem 1: Fire

What’s in a fire?:
All sizzle and roar
and destruction.
We inhale it, taste it, mouths agape,
watch its cleansing destruction
with eyes painted in shades of violence,
primed by action movies
in which explosions shout our loudest
words of wisdom.

A crackle that crunches
like tin foil wrath,
nothing like the softest sigh of rain on stone
or the shush of shoots
gasping from tender
soil beds.

Heat bites parched lips,
bakes the softness of water
from bones and skin,
sears gentle words on swollen,
clicking tongues.

Wind sighs in our lungs.
Empowered, emboldened,
we exhale,
breathing fire like some
ancient, angry, resentful dragon
that forgot the sweet shyness
of humanity.

Hour one

Prompt one 9 am Write a poem in which the four elements (Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water) play an important part.

Elements

By Patricia Harris

Earth to ground me,

All around me.

Solid,  comforting,

Affected by all I see,

The comfort of me.

 

Air to cool me,

Lift me up,

Release the stress

Carried away,

Just to deal with

Some other day.

 

Fire,

For passion,

Love,  lust,  and anger,

Burns away the darkness,

Setting the imagination

Blazing with so many ideas.

 

Water,

Churning emotional tides,

Soft soothing depths in which to hide.

Washing away all my sins,

Keeping me sure and clean within

As it all starts over again.

 

And lastly,  never least,

The element of spirit

Both divine and the one within,

A connection with the universe

Blessed and perverse,

Combining all elements

To a song and verse.

Life Cycle

This is life.

First the leaves rustle,

gentle with the promise

of more to come. Then

a crow calls lifting itself

above the boughs and rustling

leaves. On the covered ground

animals scurry into hiding or

flee across the way. Orange and

red blazes through, leaving

smoldering black in its wake.

Finally the sky turns gray and the

rain drops down. The earth hisses and

steams. Then, the green begins to grow.

Life begins again.

I am

I am

The waves hammer on the naked earth

Among innumerable froth

To a loudness, nearly full;

The wind blows away the falsity

That I’d gathered deep in my heart

The insatiable sea, fire inside, dances in silence

To match the throbbing earth into a lull –

And takes me into its heart

To show many treasured things,

And among them was my name.

Hour 1

@varenyas

Elemental

Lets begin

Let the life forces

Churn.

The elements

Within me.

The air I breathe

A hurricane now.

Dripping on my skins

Some gentle raindrops

Of labour on my brow

I can feel this hurricane

Wafting through

The soils of my being.

My earth is agitated

Blowing around my centres.

My air, my earth, my raindrops

Oxygenating my flames

Tending my fires.

Burning

Warming up.

The glow

Dripping down my fingers.

My words turn to ash.

My ash .my ink.

_narinder

Not all

From when I was young,
Family friend Auntie would come and sit,
Approach me,
Eyes brilliant and bulging with the weight of knowledge,
And she would say:

“Never get married.
Never in your life.
It’s a miserable existence
To be someone’s wife.”

And my heart would race,
And my eyes would widen,
Perhaps I would have appreciated the joke had it not been for

The way my mother’s hands trembled as she sat.
And
The way the walls of each house
Held more screams, rage, sadness
Than the one before it.
And
The way aunties and grandmothers and cousins and family friends
Smiled perversely with jaded eyes,
Said,
“Oh, marriage, oh, men,”
And began again.

2017 Poetry Marathon, Hour One: The hot, hazy days of summer? Or a test run in disguise…

Smoke fans out from the fire
travelling hundreds of miles
in search of its own demise

But it cannot escape the heat
however far it flees from the flames
the sun will still have its way

Clouds provide no relief
it has been 49 days since last rainfall
the sky is empty

Or is it a case of misplaced irony—

Trapped between sky and earth
mitigating otherwise oppressive heat
wishing for rain…

(5 August 2017)

Hour 1: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water

Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water

We huddle, shivering, in the tent
Not the vacation we had planned
The wood was wet, the fire spent
The earth as sodden as quicksand
The rain pounds on, it will not relent
Beneath the tent the rivulets fan
The wind blows on in wild lament
It shakes the tent like a giant hand
My vacation days are all misspent
In this sodden, cruel wasteland
Camp again? I will not consent
Our next trip must include broadband

 

Prompt one

Consumed

 

Slate grey skies consumed this view

My hands lost on stagnant winds

Screaming

Drowning

As chilled waters fill empty spaces

Connected

Suffocating

All direction lost

Where is North?

Where is South?

When pain is blinding

I drop six feet

Into the ready earth

How it beckons me

Fires below

First to indulge

Burning

Consumed

I disappear

The Begining

The Begining

I’ve often wondered
How to pin-point the beginning.
Is it the moment I took my first breath
Or the moment that shaped
My destiny.

The beginning holds
My secret to unlocking
Why I am
The way I am
Is locked in the moment
I’m searching for.

Maybe it will erase the pain.
Perhaps it will remove the doubt.
Or it could help me move forward.
Or I could create a new beginning –
One filled with love, hope and peace.