The Poetry Marathon

cheers to being sick

I’ve been sick for a week

from Prague with love

the bug in my stomach

is such a needy

little thug

crackers and ginger ale

have been my friend

yet I’ve been dehydrated

and exhausted

with no sight in end

so I took to my bed

since Monday I’ve been

and I started my first

eight marathon hours

totally getting it in

but I wanted to take

a nap, because I was tired

now I’m up every hour since 154a

booted and wired

trying to talk myself back to sleep

look at all the prompts I’m missing

and then counting sheep

the REM sleep I’ve been wishing

for and yet I can’t sleep because

I’m missing out on poems that I could write

so before I head off to church

I’m going to play catch up to what

I’ve missed, and write and write and write

is that alright?

I pray that that’s alright

 

FJ original 2016

Rice Paddies

For a considerable chunk of my life

The years when I was formed

High school to young adulthood,

The time to dream dreams and hope to get laid,

All us tender white boys were obsessed with staying out of the rice paddies of Viet Nam.

Our draft lottery numbers were our horoscopes on steroids.

We saw villages burn and marched in the streets.

Patriotism gave way to anger and fear and disgust,

Something broke inside us as a people.

The carnage of WW Two the big one

Was across some mystic bridge to be viewed with approval,

While the Greatest Nation On Earth

Dropped death from the sky on children on television,

and we hardened our hearts.

We hardened our hearts, to save us from self-loathing and despair.

But failed and did not know it.

We became hard and hopeless and cynical like some European,

Pragmatic as Stalin,

Blind to nuances as moles.

 

 

 

 

LOVE

L
Is for the laughter that you stole
O
Is where your oath exposed it’s holes
V
Has varied verily though remains incendiary
and E
Is where such elation depreciates from high inflation

LOVE is such a pointless race for you and
LOVE from you is something I’ll eschew
You and LOVE can’t make it; when hearts you love to break em
LOVE is not for me nor you

Dear Daughter (Hour Twenty-One)

Dear Daughter,

Please follow my example

In about fifteen percent of things.

The rest of the time, do the opposite.

I’m pretty sure you already know

Which is which.

Reasons I Can’t

Tongue tied
Finger cramped
Brain dead

Let me count all the ways I can forget what you said

Toe twisted
Lung frozen
Eye burned

I won’t help any more with your petty concerns

(Hour 21) 18.30pm-19.30pm. PROMPT, genre: “letter / start with dear”

times like these

dear M———

at times like these : my thoughts turn : once again

would i have been happier : if i remained here : if i never met : never loved : never lost : you : if i stayed : where i grew up : like so many of my friends : & married a girl : i went to school with : & did some kind of work : farm work : or in a vineyard : i suppose : i don’t really know : had my quota of kids : my house : my mortgage : coached a local sports team : lived : my share : of the Australian dream

if those five years : with you : never happened : if my heart : didn’t ache — every day for what i lost

for that madness : that glory : that intoxication : that honey : that sunshine : that bird wing : that waterfall : that beehive buzz : that cigarette burn : that sea salt : that sugar rush : that open door : that glimpse of white ; that spark rising from the fire = that leaf in the stream = that droplet that prisms a rainbow = that unique flake of snow = that light in the sky = that helicopter seed = that dandelion ball = the morning dew

Prayer Life

At morning rise

I hit the floor

Thanking my God

For every place my feet will explore

 

“You are my now

You are my destiny

Without your love

Lord I don’t know where I’d be”

yer

“You make a way

You’re promises are true

In you I trust

Praise forever goes to You”

Shiva

SCRO 2 am

Oh my. Quite tired. Here’s panel 21.

I’m also collecting clips of ambient sound for SCRO’s eventual incarnation as – what? some sort of multi-media installation, sound, video, the whole deal. I’ve gathered 50 or 60 clips today, each a minute long. Here’s one.

(Hour 20) 17.30pm-18.30pm. PROMPT, genre: “ekphrasis”

fable of a fairy tale

One of Aesop’s foxes ; Ted, Goldilocks’ Papa Bear ;
& Little Red stirring it through Soviet 60’s suburbia
in the strident bright sunshine.

Cinderella has run away to the city (again)
& they want to bring her home (again)
even though they know, she won’t want to go

they’re not sure what the moral here is
or what archetype they each need to portray
but they know it will all resolve itself

in the end it usually does : these three
characters on a mission in the suburban sun