The Poetry Marathon

hour 8

i love how beet stains

a dark pink/purple hue

the color i would imagine blood to be

if i didn’t know it was blue

underneath this jacket of skin 

until a tremor of oxygen turns it

a dark rust red

the body a bayou 

an interdependent ecosystem 

a moist landscape

best traversed when familiar or by guide

we are not taught much 

about our bayous

i mean bodies

not about our elbows

or tastebuds or knuckles or gray matter

for that matter 

the lightbulbs of neural synapses 

cinnamon lights up my mouth

a heat that travels from tongue to tip of toe 

unfamiliar mechanics 

as unfamiliar as a bucket list made

with enough time to fulfill it

there is an elk that my grandma watches

from her window she can see it across the road

or maybe it’s a deer

hard to tell 

its’ shadow disappears behind the carport

(Hour 09) 06.30-07.30am. TEXT/VISUAL PROMPTS: ten words + 2 butterflies

Butterfly curses

Can’t believe you deliberately chose beets

That jacket doesn’t suit you, denim never does

Why does my lip tremor when you speak

Eyes that suck me in like mangrove mud

Elbow made of electricity every time it brushes 

Smile like a lightbulb going off

Soft cinnamon scent always in your hair

Heart big as a front end loader bucket

Always angry as a wild cassowary

A carport I’d huddle beneath come summer storms

 

 

*given I am an Australian poet, I have changed 2 words which do not suit my poems being set in Oz. Cassowary for Elk & Mangrove for Bayou. Nonetheless the original words did their jobs by forcing me to think in images I wouldn’t have done without the prompts.

**In editing post marathon I will probably also jiggle the line order but I like giving myself little side tasks & for this prompt I always aim to use all 10 words in the order they appear, despite my dislike of CARPORT being the final word in the list hahahaha!!!

2023 Full Marathon: Hour 9

Hour 9: Nicknames Outlive You

 

It’s true you know –

if you’re not careful

the nicknames out live you

the art changes the future

 

&

the memories morph into

beings of thier own with

thoughts, beating hearts

 

&

 

an appetite for adventure.

 

There is nothing wrong with this

but if Life came with an

instruction manual I truly believe

that would be on the first page

 

.-M. Rene’

Poem 9: 20 Little Poetry Projects and the word list for #9

Summer Fugue

A good friend is a comfy jacket that matches

all your favorite jeans. Or maybe a good friend

is the carport where you park your beat-up VW.

Calloused elbows rough to the touch, the scent

of freshly squeezed lime, love as red and earthy

as beets, the click of the lightbulb switching on,

the first sip of sweet morning joe. I want to listen

to how you touch my hand, to touch your voice

with my fingertips. Like when Judith and I kicked

around UTEP after the campus was closed to cars.

Elbows no longer rough when rubbed with half

a fresh lime. Lime puts me in mind of mojitos

like the tall glasses we drank poolside in Coz.

Dagnabbit, I should have grown spearmint this year!

Because then we could go on a dive trip this winter.

Women think they’re our equals, bwahahahaha,

I heard my brother-in-law say. The established laws of evolution

will take care of him. I’m thinking of the Neanderthals

and the furry or scaled game they once hunted. Judith can

take my BIL out with a quick round-house to the chin,

if we can’t wait for evolution to come save us. ConCon

would be so happy for that. All of this will come true

in six months, like the woolly mammoth who visits twice a year.

Dinosaurs love my mom’s chile con queso most of all.

¿Pero, que podemos hacer? The tostados sit up and take notice.

I see the big one is wearing a comfy-looking jacket

made of maize I pulverized with my hands.

Cinnamon Greene

I was barely twenty-one
When I met Cinnamon Greene
She was waiting at the bus stop
For the number twenty-three.

Her padded denim jacket
Was slung over her arm
The badge pinned by her elbow
Said ‘Rock and Do No Harm’.

We spent a lazy summer
Paddling in the brook,
Catching mud in fishing nets,
With a bucket, for the look.

We’d ride our bikes through mirages
Past fields of sugar beet
And pick the unripe apples
Off of feral apple trees.

We’d spent our nights on benches
Behind the parish church
Get drunk on wine from corner shops
Where our old school friends worked.

I was barely twenty-two
When I moved out of town
She said she’d come and visit
But she never made it down.

Four

Fire or water, both understand Earth. Let rain, wind, and air nurture all. Liberty and movement give desire and love. Softness and repose are rich in abundance. No matter the angle, right or wrong, don’t beat yourself up, the road is long.

Hour 9: Jackets in the Rain

That cinnamon, autumn afternoon

Linda Ronstadt crooning “Blue Bayou” through the speakers of the stereo

You and I curled up under a beet-red blanket on the floor of your daddy’s carport

Cigarette smoke still lilting from the ash bucket twists around the naked lightbulb above our makeshift bed

You kiss me with the slightest tremor and I ask you what you’re thinking about

Somehow I don’t believe you when you tell me, “Do elk need jackets when out in the rain?”

But trust me, I understand, sometimes the words just get in the way

I kiss you back, light another cigarette, smile and say, “Goloshes, too!”

 

Poof! (Hour3)

Im a fading phantom traveling in the wind

I am God related, jesus is my twin.

My eyes are soaked with streets of smoke,

The feel of having less is real.

Silence dies, the city cries.

I hear the songs of sacrifice.

Marihuana scented wiffs, a musky dusty bitter gulp.

Spitting verbage tuned composed.

The taste of poems fills the air,

William Shakespeare in BelAir

William Shakespeare is not alive

This prompt is ‘sus’, it made me lie.

Writing poems makes me fat,

Is it lie or is it fact.

“This train is not in service”

Devine pen defies time

By deleting every rhyme. I pressed rewind.

Look up in the sky, its the poet, he can fly.

This too shall pass us by.

One day we will die. But for now we live eternal.

“Como estas mi amigo”, whispers a cigarette.

Fading into nothingness, the dissapearing ghost.

 

Hour 9 – So Much Depends Upon

so much depends upon
the teal and cinnamon cruisers
with their elk-antler handles
elbowed in on the cobblestone bridge
with the row houses jacketing the street
and our satisfied tremors of delight
as we clamber up onto the bikes.

First line taken from William Carlos Williams ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’.

Photo by Aswathy N

Prompt 9

10 word puzzle

I get tremors when I am near you

Your cinnamon colored jacket makes my heart beet faster

Feeling all elbows and knees, awkward like a preteen when I look into your eyes

Buckets of love feels,

emit from my carport car radio about you and make me smile

Thinking of you evokes images of elks dancing gracefully

Or lightbulbs shining in the dark

You are my Bayou, I love you.