The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 14 – Iron Eater

Living as me, in a time when
Fear ruled
Just about everything
I thought
and did — It was

A new experience
When I
Walked to school
Under the pass,

Heart clenched in terror
At sights of
Unruly branches and weeds
Almost as tall as me
Burst through unkempt,
Overtaken sidewalks

In a city where
Nature is tamed and
Kept in line,
Unallowed to break through.

Graffiti overtaken
By ivy
Climbing up the sediment stones
Under the curve of the pass
Creates
A surreal sight, as if
I were in an entirely different
World

From the tamed
Nicety
Of my city.

When I emerged from
The pass, I swore I just
Was transported
Back to normality

But then I met the
Iron Eaters;
Trees along fences
That do not simply break
But instead assimilate
Their metal
Into their bark

Thinking of Eight

These tender summer mornings

over all these flower beds

awaken wistfulness, turn me

sharply nostalgic for hosta houses–

the twig people’s sticky petunia hats,

their stands of spent geranium bloom,

their tricky violet-leaf tunics cinched

with xylem and phloem belts.

 

I miss when the world

could be put together under a leaf

with infinite room for intricacy.

Poem 16

Thick night air

humidity hanging low,

creating cones of moisture

below the street lights.

Crickets charm their mates lazily,

thunder rumbles in the distance,

and lightning jumps from cloud to cloud,

like children jumping on a bed.

The world sleeps around me

as I listen to and observe

the end of summer.

 

Eve Remillard

8/14/2016

musing

life always something personal and private

yet life as a poet always meet a certain clique or audience

 

always be kind

 

light and love forever

 

a traveler in this space and time

 

HOUR 16 Her Third Eye

HER THIRD EYE

She’s a psychic in denial.

as everyone knows.

She’ll deny her third eye

though  brightly it glows.

 

Along with her aura

she will deny

that her aura bangs it

right out of the sky.

 

Ask her a question

she’ll tell  you

the truth.

 

No fudge in her answers

she’ll brutally bruise.

 

She’s a little pudgy

men flock like flies

she could care less,

her love is true, no lies.

 

Centered on earth

her faith has been

shattered.

 

No glory in war, but

what does that matter?

She fights the light

that comes and goes.

 

She fights the light,

not darkness you see.

For the light keeps on

calling both you and me.

 

Don’t get her wrong,

she hates the dark,

and all that it stands for.

 

Evil versus Goodness

and sometimes it wins, but

she encapsulates sweetness

and let’s the light in.

 

Don’t be confused

with the one you will seek

when leaving this earth,

when climbing that peak.

 

In her heart and in her soul

though she will deny it

a mighty force grows.

 

Bring her your questions,

bring her your fears.

she’ll always try to help you

and clear up some tears.

 

Now you may feel this person, is you

I know first hand, there’s more than a few

Remember, she will deny her third eye

She’s a psychic in denial, but she’ll never lie.

 

 

 

A poet does math

I counted stars once

not for any practical reason

not for romance

they patiently waited for me

to finish, as if they cared

 

I was sitting by a campfire

spitting it’s cinders as

part of the evening’s death throes

they fluttered skyward

before dissolving

 

I could not help but wonder

if that is how stars

came to be; not as burned out

remnants from elsewhere

in the far-flung galaxy

 

stars may be campfire embers

that made their

great escape and were

thus rewarded with eternal life

 

I counted stars once

 

-Mark L. Lucker

© 2016

16

Being a girl is easy. First, you must rarely speak
and when you do, it must be hurried

so you don’t take up too much time. You must be slender
and reach out to those skinnier to prove you didn’t do it

on purpose. You must never say that spiders
crawl out your mouth and across the walls when you pray.

You must never say your body plays dress-up in skin
but it is actually water tension around constellations

of darkness. You must never say your bones are cactus
skeletons full of small snakes and that is why it rattles.

You must say you stay small because you don’t deserve the space.
People know how to respond to that. They say you do.

You do deserve it. You do. Because when you no longer look
like a stick about to break no one asks anymore. Take it from

experience. Because now I say you do, you do deserve
the space, you really do. Because being a girl is easy.

Anne, of Wives

Desk: cluttered shadows –
Baby’s breath stillborn – but not
talking today, hon.

Hour 16

The birds build their nests in the cherimoya trees.

In this semiarid climate,
The foliage offers shade and protection.

The workers begin harvesting in February,
Picking the knobbly, green fruit,
Rarely disturbing the birds.

Lunch break-
They scoop out the milky flesh,
Black-seeded like buttons on silk.

They go back to the groves ‘til sundown.

The birds pick at the husks.

Harvesting continued for several months,
Before new growth was pruned back.

The birds flew away.

The workers built their nests in the cherimoya trees.

Hearty Lives

Veins open
arteries connect
blood pumps
system flows
life-giving filters cleaning
the heart has a very big meaning
No life without it
working hard and moving
pacing itself
for life to stay alive smoothly
No clotting
Aneurisms or closures
Eat health
Exercise daily
Or risk these exposures
No more flow
produces death which we all one day will know