The Poetry Marathon

Elemental -Prompt 1

Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire,

fueling all that we desire.

And yet that base is often attacked.

Yes, based on history, but more myth than fact.

The world dangles not on elemental ire-

As science has shown whenever we enquire.

Yet still, this spell asks for elements of Earth

With a dash of Air and a touch more self-worth

Because they aren’t elements of the universe,

but rather elements of what we make worse.

Nature based in four small things,

Supposed to give us our spiritual wings.

Perhaps it’s not all that strange?

The fact is whenever we get the urge,

from these elements do power surge.

9 am ish Palace of Justice

Palace of Justice

 

J — man — a threatening man —

lifting weights in lights-out jail — it’s his apartment —

and again

— glistening as we do in want and work —

glistening across his back —  U — S —

glistening black against wormy white skin

— T — on the long slog to this

moment — this computer —

these hands these keys tea cooling left — I

how the body — this body — has plotted and waited

labored and coded — C — elaborate braided

codes tattooed permanent black, ever unseen

— make it —

make it — fixed — who is fair? of them all?

E — waiting.

Random Prompt Hour 6 (The living memory j.r.m©)

…and as I gaze into the void,
it bears a reflection,
that dances like a reflection on water.
It is a living memory
that gets in the way of my history.

And in the distance my tired eyes
catch sight of distant hope in
the land of the hopeless I’m lost
and unspiraling  as nothing
seems to make sense anymore.

There’s a path illuminated
and it goes through the woods
it leads you in discomfort
with its cavalry to implore you.
I don’t belong here,
but, I embrace the madness anyway.

j.r.m©

Rise and Shine

Things look better that way, anyway, even the things you can’t see.

With the world as your adversary, nothing is as it seems.

You could banish war to another dimension and not even think twice

If only we realized our full potential.

To each his own (a haibun)

At the art show opening, the juror explains his method for choosing from the many fine submissions. Turns out he categorized each painting, sculpture, weaving, quilt, and etching by which of the four elements he thought they were ruled by.

The resulting show made me weep, but probably not in the way he intended.

the gulls
look the other way
August evening

Between the Tiles of Life

Between the Tiles of Life

 

Rush, blow away the boredom, lost in wind and storm.

Burst, chaos still it lingers, sparking flames are born.

Splash, eyes of leaking splatter, wash those feelings out.

Grounded, soil beneath the feet, emotions are the grout.

 

– Mary-Jeanne Smith

1: Aubade

Cross grass
bruised brown by August

beneath sky
pearled with rain’s
forebirth

morning
freshens with sparrowchant
livens with leafbreeze

heaven silvers slightly
behind her cloudcurtain

and the workworld
wakes and walks
through weal and woe
through noise and news
through blight and blessing

Ghost shelves 1/24

If I was a better story teller,
would my teeth still be shoved in the spine of this book?
Gumming through the pages of our torrid love affair,
swallowing the chapters I didn’t like.
None of this added up,
an entire encyclopedia but not an ounce of truth.
I saw you taping over the facts and scribbling with stolen paint markers about what had and hadn’t happened.
I felt my hands turn red and my face even redder,
my neck bending from the pressure of the burden you put on my back.
You left me with all these books and nothing to write about.
Every time you opened your mouth,
I lost another muse.
Please stop saying my name in your sleep,
you’re not the only one being haunted,
and my ghosts don’t live on a shelf, like yours.

earth, wind, fire, water – #1

no fire can warm these chilled bones
impenetrable as powdered earth
beseeching water to quench its thirst,
for wind to deliver it here.

swb

1. Away She Goes

The rising tide pushes her further up the shore
The salt water rushes to meet her feet
As she inches her way back against the dense forest
The fire from the logs emits smoke as the wind blows
She knows she would have to leave soon
As the earth begins its descend into complete darkness.
She shakes of the sand from the back of her ‘sarong’
And heads towards the unknown
With a glance over at the dark horizon
She steps towards the dark with a sigh
Realizing this might be the last time she sees the sea, the shore, and the place she calls home.