The Poetry Marathon

Prompt Hour nineteen–phrases used unexpectedly

Back Burner

Picking up my children from my former home
was a practice in diplomacy, anger restrained
as I wove around broken machinery, lumber,
animal waste, in a yard I had kept pristine.

Welcome home, I muttered to myself, wrinkling
my nose against the stench of livestock roaming
freely, finally arriving at the front door, hearing
How are you? through the broken screen door
from an ex who had observed my painstaking
path, and more than likely wished me dead.

Fine, thank you, I replied through the choking, red
rage in my throat as I awaited the outside arrival
of my children, eager to sweep them swiftly away
to the clean comfort of my own new home, my
parting shot on our way to the car: Have a nice day.

Tracy Plath

You got me 

Time is slipping by
and you really notice just how fast
when an alarm goes off every houron the 45 there’s 

so much to do and none of it is a good excuse. 

And so I write
That’s really the point isn’t it? 

Find something enjoyable in whatever moment you have and share it 

in –word or energy

You got me.

Healing

God grant me the healing of my heart .

So my heart can feel.

Love again

Unnatural Nature – Prompt Fourteen

Concrete jungles rise high in the sky

Most things green have been killed out

A small oak sapling has risen

Fighting against all odds beside a cafe

It digs its roots as deep as possible

Creating problems as it grows and grows

Money spent along with time well wasted

Sends the tree into our homes

That we lit for warmth and comfort

The Killer

It came in dark,

Tried breaking the window.

 

He was huge

His shadow revealed

Eyes were red

They were angry.

 

He knocked the door

Then banged it loudly

Even tried to break it down.

 

He did whatever he could

To kill

And Finally I opened the door.

 

He stood in front of me

Ready to use his weapon

At that moment

I looked straight in his eyes

Raised my hand

Shouted at him to go away.

 

The self doubt left

He ran like scared creature

Never to come back!

The Shake Down

I pushed through the midnight burn

somehow lost my way in the return

never done won’t be held down

sharpening my fingers for the next round

dissapointment my banter and ego taunts me

sleep your dirty mutha@$?!, yea you

got the best of me, kidnapped me from my

freedom and took managed to rob me of my air

~ism

 

HOUR 19 HUH??

HUH??

 

“Welcome home!”

“Thank you,” he said to appease me.

“How are you?” my sentence began.

He replied,  “I’m fine, how are you, my old friend?

 

Now there’s someone who knows

where respect grows. Pardon me,

if I lose you, on this one.

 

“Excuse me,” he said, as

he pushed me away, without malice.

 

“Have a nice day” I said as I left…

“Pardon me” “How are you?” “What do you do?”

 

So this poem sucketh

without an ounce of true.

If I could make it go away

would you tell me,

THE TRUTH?

 

 

 

 

 

Hour Sixteen: Harmonia

Clung to the threads,
Built you up and never looked back,
Stapled my heart to your hand,
Found harmony in what was left of my dignity.
Control the last remnants of this dream,
Dizzying love spell, the last call to our ultimate survival you paved the road to all my rotten memories.
I still hold life in the one you gave me,
I found harmony in the blackened cavitied of your lips and my spell casting fingertips of woe and love blasphemy.
I entrap myself in this cavern,
I engulf myself in your chaos,
And dare not ask your name,
I found harmony in silence.

Poem 19- sanity or not

In my family

sanity doesn’t come cheap

the stream of psycho joins us together

A stiff thread or a raging rope

We strum the strings of insanity

Like a well tuned band

Maybe it was all the creativity

The early reading

Maybe after generations of addictions

And prescriptions

Predictions and contradictions

It comes over us like fog

Engulfing the hill side

We march to a different drummer

Who cannot hold a beat

that lives in another county

 

Phobias,

Paranoias

OCD and delusions of martyrdom

poetry and piano playing

mixed with

artistic fervor and

feverish wonder

Sanity never claimed my family

We have to earn it, strive for it

And sometimes we must avoid each other

Avoid the murmurs of mayhem

and focus on friendships

And the familiar

and just focusing on focusing

We cannot blame, we are all the same

A part of us all

can claim to be insane

in my family

sanity doesn’t come cheap

For most of us

it doesn’t come at all

And the rest of us?

It is lurking right around the corner.

In it’s birthday suit and a bouquet of gardenias

In and Out

In and Out

 

He didn’t mean to kill

the man,

it was self-defence,

he said –

he came home

to the burglary

in the dark.

 

I only meant to

get his attention,

he gasped,

to scare him away.

Pardon me,

your honour…

 

The man shuddered

with anguish

and grief:

Pardon me,

your honour,

I deeply regret

what I have done.

 

As the man

gathered up his

papers and

satchel,

he

was as repentant

as a pardoned man

should be.

 

Closing the door

behind him,

in his welcome

home,

his partner asks:

How are you

always

getting away with murder?

 (c)  R. L. Elke 2016