The Poetry Marathon

#5) The Machine

Listen to the radio

Watch it on the television

Read it in the paper

See it on the screen.

 

Watch it on the television

Propaganda as machine

See it on the screen

Believe what you are Told.

 

Propaganda as machine

Read it in the paper

Believe what you are told

Listen to the radio.

School Days

My thoughts of yesterday

constricting stomach pains,

the laughing echoes on

the teasing closes in.

teachers that looked on

they won’t intervene;

you’re left to feel alone

with bullies all have seen.

I wish I could forget

when tears are trapped within.

when memories still hurt

and bullies caused that pain.

 

 

 

Parable of a black coal

Oh my God, my mother exclaimed, she’s so ugly.

Yes, I was the most unpleasant to look at,

with big pouting lips, oval face and dirty blonde hair, with big short legs and arms.. Not a cutie chunky monkey.

The children at the park avoided me and gave me a hard look,

My brain could read their long gazed,”poor ugly baby” from another planet.

One day, I came across a book in the library, entitled “ugly duckling”

My heart started pumping real hard, while I slowly open the page to see who could that be..

Thinking, they must have created an ugly story about me.

To my surprised, I felt relief, to see an ugly duck and the miserable life,she went through.

As a teenager, some changes going on in my puberty and that made me even scary.

A girl with a good heart came close and told me: she likes my red pouting lips and my cheekbones, are well proportion for an oval face.

Then, I began to like my self.

The girl sincere word of admiration, helped me build my confidence.

Looking at the mirror, was the image of an ugly duckling, transformed into a beautiful swan lake.

My black coal skin turned smoky bronze, that compliment my dirty blonde hair.

The black coal beauty, passed through a lot of turbulence in life, from

A dark hard molten lava rock that went  through a lot of pressure,

And turned into a gorgeous and brilliant diamond.

This parable tells us that beauty is more than a skin deep.

A beauty from the inside tells all.

 

 

8

O do not feel this is finished yet but here it is

 

When I work on the holiday album 
I call to mind a ton of laughter and love
Memories of those days a sum
Of days we spent below and above

I call to mind a ton of laughter and love
with photos and stories and tastes
Of days we spent below and above
meals and walks, museums and fetes

with photos and stories and tastes
When I work on the holiday album 
meals and walks, museums and fetes
Memories of those days a sum

Hour 8

Not long now
Just a few more
Hours to go

Need more excitement
To keep me going
Fill the air with fire
So that it burns

copyright 2016 Roxann A Harvey

Hour Seven – I’m afraid

I’m afraid

I’m dreaming

my life

and when I wake up

I discover

I am only

a

cell

in some kind of

organism.

 

 

4 PM

I feel a relief sweeping through me
Like knowing summer’s almost over
And soon I’ll be able to be outside
Breathing in air that doesn’t suffocate
Like soon I’ll have a place to rest my head
Away from the chaos I create

3 PM

Walk with me
And tell me amazing things
Of how you conquered the world
Inside your own head
Slaying those dark thoughts
With glimpses of light
Beams of grace
Illuminating ghettos
Show me your scars
While telling war stories
Of how you barely lived
To see today
Just so you could walk with me

Watching Her

Each day she rises early
puts on her yoga outfit
and bikes to the community gym.

I don’t see her
for another two hours.

When she returns home we have
breakfast together. I prepare
cereal for her, bacon and eggs for me.

Both of us look younger
than we are, although I
do not dye my hair.

I silently calculate the
number of years we each have left together,
knowing she’ll outlive me by several.

Only the good die young?
I think not.

Weightless and Free

Land and sea, I traveled.
Three lifetimes of laying foundations among the clay,
with clay covered hands, far from shifting sands and tidal waves.
My hand to the plow,
my heart intent to see the bloom of change among the walking dead.
But all efforts were in vain. 

My eyes lifted high, seeing beyond all stars and moons,
the One whose hand holds all things,
wondering when it would be my turn?
When would the stars shine for me?
When would the moon glow so brightly just for me?
I knew the answer before I asked.
And yet, I hope, and work, slowly moving forward.
But with legs of concrete, I can never fly. 

Trapped between earth and sky,
no permission to ascend above or descend below.
Broken wings take too long to heal.
With the blur of red and white lights spiraling in the night,
with the speed of wild cats, a different freedom found –
the freedom to do or die, to disappear or to let go.
Motivation has waned, while I covet sleep,
and the strange battle-filled dreams that come. 

Societal dictates have cut me down,
thrown me under the murky line I once lived above.
No time for confabulations, no time for blatant lies.
Time to rise and prove all slanderous words empty and false.
I move through every storm, dragging weary legs through mud filled streets.
There is no quitting, only getting across the finish line.

So I cut the cord of connection, pull it out by its roots,
and toss it into the flames.
Don’t want to want something that can never be.
Dreams lived are lives fulfilled, dreams lost are a bitch to hold,
and yet the spark still tries, like a severed spinal cord. 

But don’t you know, it’s better to let go, than to suffer to loss.
Far worse things in this life than the darkness that tries to swallow us.
No monsters or ghouls shadow us tonight,
only the demons in our head whispering lies.
So I’m walking out, looking to heaven for that miracle.
I’ll hang by a thread over the ledge of reality,
with the strength of a thousand men.
Weightless and free.

 

8th out of 12