The Poetry Marathon

Charlie’s Endless Dream

Snow-dusted evergreens stretch to the horizon
Silent sentinels, impassive,
Unapologetic, swaying in winter’s ice-gilded night

The Wild’s indifference terrifying
Not some anthropomorphized maternal nature goddess
But harsh brutality of a land rife with danger,
Rife with threat,
The spine-prickling howls of hungry wolves almost inaudible over his chattering teeth

He knows he cannot sleep
Cannot drift into the Dreamworld this icy night,
Knows that if he makes that journey he will not return
His inner fire burning, yearning to survive he trudges on

And on

And on

Until at last he stumbles through icy crust into the freezing white embrace
He waits, body quaking, frozen breath escaping until…
The shivers fade and Charlie enters the Dreamworld
A smile upon his face

Hour 13

7 a.m. and it’s already 95 degrees out.
Hit the road. 
Fred put the basket behind the seat
And got in the truck-
German potato salad and sandwiches.
Starting the trip at an easy pace,
Should be in Canada in 4 or 5 days.
Of course he’d call his parents every day,
They wouldn’t say it, but they wanted him to stay.
May break their hearts,
But 46 was too old-
Single and living at home.
He started the engine and pushed the knob.
Crackling between stations. Smoky Robinson.
Cruisin.
Coffee.
He hated New Jersey.

The Ends of Things

The ends of things can be quite sad,

It means there is no more.

It means it’s all kaput,

No more open doors.

It means that all is said and done,

That is game is finally won.

It means there’s no more worries,

So slow down, what’s your hurry?

It’s finally over you can rest, there is no more to do.

The ends of things had run its course, it’s the end of you!

12/24 ampersand

Since the beginning of time,
I held your hand at night
And watched the shadow of my shape against the wall.
I would kiss myself good night, wrapped tightly in my loneliness,
begging for a sign of change.

I never played, so I was dull,
The writing child is never full,
but also never empty.
I was too far from bland to be mundane enough.
I was never an adequate companion because my name is so ugly with an ampersand.  13/24 9pm

Earth 2016

The world is flat
with a fence
around the perimeter.
Braying, mewling
people scramble
seeking freedom.
But no one
can be bothered
with the gate.

Missing – Fill in the Name Here

too many names

too many friends

goodbye to you

what I miss is the

laughter and nothing

brings back the laughter

the tears are replaced

by so many other names.

Poem 10

Start – Story and Art

 

Story of every art is a Start.
If it is new or old,
Stale or bold.
An art creates the things,
Gives an idea.
While story produce the mystery,
To generate a history.

Story of every art is a start.
Goals achieving, aims targeting
Struggling battles while gathering Petal.
Telling stories of an art,
Shines like bird take a sunbath.
Ocean waves screams after a silence,
That is how a story gives an art, a sense.

No one ever have any story to tell,
Weren’t they ever fallen for any art?
Are they still waiting for a start?
Giving my mind, a chance to show,
Never the less, there is no age to grow.

Come Home

Gone without a trace
Million pictures of your face
No one has seen or heard
You have sent no word
The joy inside is gone
Without you life feels wrong
No laughter fills the air
I wait but its not there
No smile to greet my day
Why did you leave this way
Your future once was bright
Now blotted out by night
How my heart does ache
A smile I cannot fake
Joy filled memories we made
Have now begun to fade
Please just come back home
I need to know you’re not alone

On the Heath

Alone on the Heath, a purple flower

where there once was dry reedy sand,

you, friend, rode the train to dusty plains

with me–and slept through shifting tides

along California beaches, we two, strangers

to this land, and no less to each other.

I watched your sleeping breast rise and settle,

like the rhythm of our first freedom days, lazed

into adulthood, we seekers of flame, depths

of our soulful hearts, walking poetry, youth

alluring to each other–comrades–and evil too.

I saw you leave that day, through cloudy eyes,

music, sand and weed drifting us alongside

our own nature, me, cautious and calculating,

ready to loosen within my comfortable shoes

and you, a riddle’s answer to what is freer than

free? Air. Who has stolen your breath, my flower?

Your forever frozen face stills time in its place.

Prompt Hour Thirteen–missing person

The Shape Surrounding

It was my best friend’s fifteenth birthday, her party held in the garage of her home. I stood in a dusty corner and watched the others, as was my wont, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed, observing as my solo soul required. Warmth bloomed on the side of my face and neck as I felt another gaze and glanced sideways, seeing a tall, dark haired, green eyed boy, watching me.

From across the crowded room. A tall, dark, handsome stranger. And he SAW me.

It was every love cliché imaginable, yet clichés have roots in truth. We would meet, both painfully shy, and attend two formal dances, awkwardly fumbling in the dark, two yearning innocents feeling a deeper connection than teenage words could describe. Shyness and misunderstanding would part our paths, and for twenty years I would endure a painfully mismatched marriage to a tall dark man who resembled my love in superficial looks alone. We walked our parallel paths, my one real love and I, our lives unknowingly shaped round the voids that encompassed one another, until our paths once again intersected. Free to speak, freed to love, we at last filled empty spaces our absences had created. A love begun before our births continues now, renewed, and will sustain us, no longer void, on and on to our next lives.

Tracy Plath