The Poetry Marathon

Just Because I Write

the world doesn’t stop for me.
The kids call.
My husband gets hungry.
The chickens need clean water and hay.
I come home from work worn thin.

All day and into the night
I write lines in my head,
leave notebooks lying around everywhere.

Distracted, they say.
Yes, by the world.
Not by the words
and ideas.

Mary Oliver said,
and I believe her,
that for a writer,
it is the writing that matters.
So I’ll keep thinking,
composing poems,
creating characters and plots,
scribbling ideas and snippets in those notebooks,

even as the world comes streaming
through my door.

Better Away

We never really touched…
Yet, we know it was love.
Together only in moments;
Absence makes us fonder.

We were together in mind…
Yet, we are better away;
Togetherness can breed contempt,
Absence was our friend.

Now, I wish I was there…
You have not invited me.
No, I am there, each breathe;
For our souls are entwined.

And here I always sit…
No longer on the road.
Come to me, please…
We will touch and be complete.

Dedicated to my 30-year admiration of Tim Curry which began at the tender age of 18, and continues today (aged 52).

Hour 2

Youth

Let’s run away!
I think there’s a tree we can climb.
I’ll make a bed for you with your favorite blanket.
Yes!
The one your parents would bring to the beach in the Jeep.
It’ll smell of the salty Gulf in the canopy of trees.
I’ll collect morning dew for you to drink.
We’ll forage and keep our promises.
Can’t you feel the life tingling under your skin?
If your fingernails could speak,
They’d say, “Grab it!”
Sing your days and hum your evenings to rest.
Be now!

Heather

On this planet right now, seven billion people are living their lives. In the cubicle next to mine, a woman is living hers. She comes to work every day and then goes home to play. She likes to travel on the weekends and party when she can. She grew up in one place and then moved away.

I, on the other hand, have lived many places, including this one. I still moved away from my family, but not from the place I grew up. I still work and come home to play. But I don’t like to party and when I go away, it’s to books or maybe plays.

We are such different people, living such different lives. But right now we happen to work in adjoining cubicles. I have made a new friend by the chance of a job and our lives have crossed for a time. But there are still seven billion people living out there their lives on this Earth. Most of whom, neither of us will ever meet. Each one just as complex and different as me and the woman in the cubicle next door.

Each Day

I’ve been trying to live my life lately

as if tomorrow’s tomorrow will never come.

After seeing angels fall from grace

and demons grow beards and walk with canes.

I realize my time here was gifted

By a man with no face.

So I take each morning,

fold it up in my backpack

and head out for the sunrise.

I kiss each evening on the lips

and tuck in my fears of what is to come.

10 am

In the morning I went about life
coffee, laundry, reading –
completely unaware that
the world was ending.

In the evening, I fell and fell
deeper into the nothingness
of the chasm that opened
without warning beneath me.

Somewhere between those
pinpoints of time,
the world spit me out into
chaos, into the dark.

Time

No time with all the time in the world. Where does it go no one will ever know. Time is limited yet we have all the time  in the world!

(Hour 02) 11.30-12.30am. PROMPT, song: “Ben Howard – I forget where we were”

where we were

you pointed your gun
at the sea, at the sand
at me. said love was
invincible. pretended
everything was a blast.
so why did it all end …
in a flash of brilliant
bright light & cordite’s
bitter stink

Hour One

Eden’s Labor

 

Glaring at the rusty clock,

measuring minutes between her contractions

with such a fragile hand she wrote them.

Her pain would be no more.

 

Groping into the dark of night, beginning

the thirtieth hour.

no warrior could fathom such a strength

past a normal day’s muster

Her weakness would be no longer.

 

Losing light and blood as

the winds and waters panted along her sides,

the forests aching with her for this small

miracle to be complete:

Their sickness would be no more.
Birds and mountains cried long before she

with a march of bruised but empty arms

a mantra along to a dream promised ages ago.

Soon their tears would be no more.

 

Amidst slashed mirrors and photos with

marked out faces, her deepest desire was delivered

an answer, before she knew to ask for it.

Her hate of self would be no longer.

 

All that was left to do in the end was

to believe.

that someone greater than she

did care, did know, did bear her burden.

bouts of screams had finally ceased, for

Her pain was now no more.

I knew it

I do not have time for self-loathing.

The time is spinning on

Relentless.

The end of the hour comes as fast as the end of life.

I intend to DO SOMETHING!

PRS 2.0 2016