The Poetry Marathon

IX- Heirophant

Atop the hill he stood,

steadfast, immovable

revered by the castle

and the land beneath its spires

Bards spun tales of his skill,

his grace, and the wounds

that would lead him to his cave

He peers out from within

the rock face, motion slowed

by his fairweather gait

and looks beyond the hill

beyond a warrior’s pride

beyond the wildflowers

who would wither within

the disorder of the seasons

Through the marigolds,

a young man appears

valiance written

on his unburdened face

The withered knight

steps into the mid-day sun

to greet the hero seeking

his hard-earned wisdom

 

 

 

 

 

Bayou

Early morning

loading up buckets in the carport

moths bang against the lightbulb above

I cling to the sleeve of his jacket

the tremor from the engine makes me shake

as we slip out onto the bayou

Staying at his elbow

the mist makes this place look

like a fairy land

Hiding all the monsters

freaks, trolls, and goblins

that every good swamp provides

Hour Nine (Beet, jacket, tremor, bayou, elbow, light-bulb, cinnamon, bucket, elk, carport)

The bayou of my mind comes alive

as your elbow digs into my ribs.

What, now? I ask as you pull

my jacket off. Your lipstick

tastes like cinnamon, your face beet red

from the alcohol, the light-bulb is off

and we aren’t even out of the carport yet.

True love or true lust?

I’ll take either.

There is a tremor in your voice

as you call me your honey elk.

I just hope at my age this passion

doesn’t cause me to kick to bucket!

nine: Bad Guys

Bad Guys

In a village-
Where there is no factory
nor specialty shop or alchemist;
Where we get after-the-fact reporting;
With nearby state border,
across which
conceal and carry more lax laws;
Where surrounding freight yards
have Open Box Car Night
There is no need for Feds,
who don’t see the real dealers
in the mirror

Prompt 4 Connections

Associating traits with an idea

seeing from your mind

instead of your eyes

you think love makes the ice colder

when there are no promises

you volunteer your heart

and become an employee

to a secret invisible boundary

this connection is supposed to fill

feeling up heart pockets demonstrating warmth

yet it can also ignore

harmoniously demanding evilness to prevail

when love doesn’t show scantily dressed

and willing

Prompt 9, Commission

The J.M.W Turner in my head elbows me into a sense of calm,
a stillness in which I’m helpless to the interplay of sun and cloud.
Gradient tremors mesmerize, then relax, contract, then open-palm
the sky like a lightbulb pulled on a celestial cord and I’m found

in an almost painterly meditation, a state my schedule precludes
but, today, encourages and guides and folds me under its jacket
of air and light. And I am all that nature contains and secludes.
I belong to and am outside the moment. A pin in a universal bucket.

 

11am. Poem 9. On Taking Mom to the ER

11am. Poem 9. 

(Use these words in a poem…
beet, jacket, tremor, bayou, elbow, light bulb, cinnomen, bucket, elk, carport)

On Taking Mom to the ER

Bracing your elbow
in the palm of my hand
we slip your favorite red jacket
over your shoulders.
The tag says
Outer Layer: Beet
Lining: Cinnomen

You like to hear about that
everytime.

Winking up at Dad’s
old elk head on the wall,
you assure Bokie
we’ll be right back.

You like to do that everytime, too.

Your sweet, soft, white hair tremors and shakes
with the rest of you
as I place the blue bucket
on a black floor mat
between your legs,
just in case.

You marvel at the beauty
of sunrise on the bayou,
lookin like the yellow parlor
lightbulbs of your youth,
as we back out of your carport
for the ER.

I won’t tell you it’s 11pm.
I won’t remind you that
you grew up in a two room
share cropper’s stilt house,
other side o’the tracks.
I won’t let you find out
you’ve never been to Louisiana.

.

Root

That is not my conscience –

fear; a beast that feeds on attention.

Not just a beautiful root

Call me black, that is a music to my ear.

I preferred the root of integrity,

for beauty is a fading flower.

Behold, money or the love of money –

The root of all evil.

 

Although I felt a sudden stab of pain in my chest,

I’m proud of my African root.

The grass roots that have ants in their pants

The beginners but not the gainers

that’s a strange word and no mistake.

 

The past telephoned the future,

Likely to live an endless night

For it hardly seemed to notice the presence of the presence.

The alpha of the alphabet is being ignored

The fruits of the plant; tasteless and colorless

prompt #9

A single tremor like a bell

 

That Friday, we watched the elk

cross the valley below us.

Down the road, the orange truck

rumbled from beneath the carport

where a single lightbulb hung

suspended in a thin pool of yellow.

The elk flowed around the elbow

of the fence in a cinnamon river

their white markings like letters

in some foreign alphabet.

How could we know the single

tremor that followed them

was a death knell?

All of it to disappear ~

 

Signals Prompt 9

I’m here –
In my beat-up beet-red leather jacket,
The one with the elk-hide patch on the elbow.
I sit in my skiff sensing the tremor of the bayou.
I have a bucket for crawdads, and
Flashlight with its just replaced light bulb.
Will you come with me?
I wait for a sign.
I stare at the light in your carport.