The Poetry Marathon

Where You Belong

Where You Belong

If you are blessed enough to call

yourself My EX You belong in my past

Ex is for no longer wanted, no longer necessary

If You ever had the honour to know

my deepest secrets

You are part of my present

Present means – gift, often a surprise, unexpected goods

With whole amount of mutual trust

If You have the will of acceptance

with no constraints

love without limits

and compassion without rules

You are welcome to join me in my future

I shall share my life’s wisdom, provide a helping hand and a good listening ear

The question is where do you really belong

2023 #7 Chickens

Cheep, cheep, cheep.
Cute little voices.
Baby chickens.
So small and soft.

Growing fast.
Cheep, cheep, cheep.
Dependent on others,
for food and love.

Tiny little wings tucked away.
Small beaks making petite sounds.
Cheep, cheep, cheep.
Baby feet.

Will you be a boy.
Or a girl.
Adorable baby chicks.
Cheep, cheep, cheep.

Air Quality Alert

My friends have been

dropping in flocks

like poisoned birds

 

from a variety of maladies–

breathing tainted oxygen,

drinking water,

 

eating plates of toxic food

disguised to look

like love offerings.

 

All are deadly,

All will do you in.

No way to fly above.

No way to go without.

 

Meanwhile, the news

shrills about protection—

 

facial coverings,

needles of deterrence.

Perhaps they’re right:

 

the air is lethal,

yet too little breath

will topple you

tike a tree.

.

Inhale, exhale.

 

Stay alive for

as long as possible,

 

draw in your own

sweet wind, and

share it with the sky.

 

No one knows

the answer,

anyway.

Hour Eight

Image prompt

 

Beach Song

 

Stars alight in summer sky

wishes fly on ember wings

night dissolves to day.

 

 

 

The Sky Above #8

Sitting wrapped up on the deck under 
a sky of stars.
Northern lights pulsating green.
Sun setting into the ocean, rising 
from the river.
The solar eclipse made crescents on the car, 
the driveway, the street.
A cold, red lunar eclipse.
Full moon shinning through bare winter branches,
barely visible through the summer leaves.
The pink/yellow sky after a storm.
Clouds so low I could almost touch them.

For Dad (Hour 8)

I rub the place between my eyes
The pain from simply feeling

I step outside to view the skies
A hawk, it soothes my healing

I look for you in every cloud
You rarely let me down

I wish I’d said the things I felt
When I could share unbound

You knew I loved,
yet many words
left hanging in the air

You never heard
the words, I cried
when you were barely there

But:

You may have known
How could I know?
Until I’m where you’ve been

You show me, though
That you can pierce
A veil as yet unseen

Until we meet as two new souls
We live here in this scene
With you, your birds
And I, my thoughts

Existence in between.

—

Copyright 2023, SashaS

For the gaping quiet

for the gaping quiet

 I fear the silence of life more than of dead things.

 The sky opens, and pours blue serum into my loneliness

My mother; hope in a gown, curbs  her fear of the dark

Into her chest—the best place to hide a bad memory is where the darkness resides.

The best place to be light is where the darkness leaves you. My father is a home for angels that lost   their way through the storm, my father is the place the earth paused for resuscitation, my father is all the people the war ate and communally tagged heroes.

           I’m by the side of a river,   Carrying all the emptiness and pouring us dark-milky syrup into the palmar crease of the Nile

I swear this isn’t holiness.          I swear I do not seek validation that much.  I swear the day the flowers bloom my body would not succumb to the rhythm of the terror; the silicon silence; the gaping quiet slowly eating through the night, eating through my mothers biggest fear—death.

A summer Sunday

A simple pleasure that only cost 25 cents a gallon was a drive to anywhere
We would pile into the family car skirmishing for the coveted window seat
We cranked the windows down, the car-generated breeze kept us cool
Making our eyes water, but who cared— we were in the car
The journey took us through industrial sites and neighborhoods of black and brown
Through citrus orchards not yet turned to asphalt and concrete
A stretch of winding two-lane highway took us to the top of South Mountain
Where we would find a picnic area that gave us a view of the valley
A picnic of charred hot dogs, potato salad and a slice of cold watermelon sated our appetites
Washed it down with a jug of lemonade or tepid tap water provided by the park system
We clambered over the boulders, played hide and seek, threw stones until exhausted
No one cared where they sat on the way home

It was Sunday and it was summer

one day3pm

Live each day
as if it is your last
that’s what they’ve
always told me
I never paid attention

The years slipped by
unmindful of me running
behind grasping the shirt tails
Time won’t you please slow down

I’m in that position again where
this very well could be my last
What am I going to do?

I’ve never given much thought
to how I would spend my last
day
twenty four hours
what can I accomplish?

I wouldn’t sleep in
I’d wake up as soon as
the day started
I’d shower and eat breakfast

Maybe my family would like
to join me and make it a big
affair

I’d love for you to sit next to
me-
How’s school?
How’s your friends?

I know it’s been ages since we
last spoke. I’m so sorry that time
escaped me.

I have many other things to do-
I can’t sit here all day.
But we will see each other again
soon.
I pinky promise!

I think I would take some time
to clean
sounds silly I know-
But I would prefer to not have
anyone need to clean up after

Then—

Maybe I’d go spend some
time with friends
Or maybe I’d just stay home
and relax

I think I’ll write out a bucket list
ten things I wanted to do before—
It’s really hard for me to say

Before I die

No one likes to think about their
own mortality
we’d rather go on and on blindly
surprised when that moment happens

And then end up saying
why no, I didn’t know that at
some point I would die
No one dies—
Do they?

That’s such child like way
of looking at things
Of course childhood is where nothing
bad ever happens and no one ever
says goodbye

Sighs in Tears 1 – Hour 8

And so the song shall be sung.

A choir calling for the honeyed mass.

Commanding. Beseeching entry to the sermon.

Come you unwashed. Rejoice all who are down trodden.

I am the sigh within your tears.

Call me in reflection. Hear me in echo.