The Poetry Marathon

Poem 18: A Penny Saved Is A Penny

Balderdash. A penny saved
is not even a penny anymore. The
Canadians have stopped keeping them
in the cash register. North of the border,
they don’t even make them now.
So why do we cling so hard to our
Lincolns? Our town cars, our capitol
of Nebraska? We’ll be driving there,
later this morning, to see the original
of Breton’s painting, “The Song of
the Lark,” because it’s there, and we
wonder if it will look different, away
from Chicago. Nebraska’s bright copper Lincoln,
by any other name, would be Omaha, and
we can’t have that. They wouldn’t
know what to do on game day.
The rose garden would die, and the
sower on top of the capitol would
fall and break on the plaza, rather than
move to Omaha or Kansas City.
So yes, a penny saved means we keep
Lincoln free of suicide bombers and
global warming. Next year, and the next,
when the white pelicans and the sandhill
cranes fly over, on their way to the Platte,
let them find Lincoln as it’s always been,
worthy of our thoughts, our care, our kin.

Doubt

 

Doubt swings his ax in midair

I duck just in time

Swings again and I feel my head

Roll across the room

I chase it down and hold it tight

I run

But Doubt is close behind

Laughing maniacally

“You will never do this”

He says

” Who do you think you are?”

I want to doubt him but he is Doubt

It’s hard to do

He is strong

He makes the rules

I try to break them

But I fail miserably

I am Doubt’s greatest student

I learned well and he knows my soft spots

I churn out waves of affirmations

But he cackles back

“You will fail!”

I choose not to believe him

And I run harder and faster

I trip over an insult

My head falls from my arms

Rolling faster and faster

 

He stops, picks it up and hands it to me

“You can have your head

But know I am inside

Always inside”

He walks away

I know he is right

I put my head back on, lower it in shame

Taking my seat with the rest of the class.

Look

Look into the mirror

see yourself

who is that person

one with courage

emotions

ambitions

heart

pain

everything packed inside

but still going on

moving forward

like a soldier

irrespective of anything

you are strong

now take a pledge

won’t doubt yourself

ever!

Me and Myself

My worst critic is myself.
Constantly looking at each action.
Asking if it was the right. Or
Could I have done it better?
Every hour under some misplaced
Scrutiny.

Everyday a inner battle of two.
A battle of one. A man and himself.
Screaming at each other.
Screaming doubt.
Do you ever get anything right?
Do you think you can do that?
Do you even believe in yourself?
God. I want to punch that critic in the face.

hour 23 poem

The poem The Bookmark by Graham Swift shows doubt memories. We know about the issue of screen and false memories in Freudian terms. The poetic persona remembers only in the end that the ticket left as a bookmark in a book was put there by himself after he imagines a whole story about it.

my memories
forgotten
turn
into fiction

17. Possession

 

(Haiku 2015)

Poem 23

My muse was dead

it seemed.

Or perhaps it was hibernating.

I thought perhaps it was dead

for it had been so long since

it had shown its beauty to me.

But then began the experiences

that awakened it…

loss, grief,

forgiveness, patience, grace,

limitless love,

understanding the depths of the human soul,

strength I never knew I possessed.

I also found my muse in

deep, strong friendship,

in gentle company,

in the gifts God has blessed me with.

My muse lives…

in the joy I feel from

those who love me.

 

Eve Remillard

6/14/2015

#23 – Crack in your head

There is a crack in your head

A hole in your mind

Your heart is still well locked though

Nothing can show through

What are your real feelings now?

 

There is a crack in your head

Nothing can stay in

And nothing can reach out

From your heart deep down

 

From the bottom of your heart

Nothing comes through

Nothing comes out

 

That’s why it’s swollen

Like a ripe fruit

 

There is a crack in your head

 

A hole in your mind

 

Doubt it

‘I doubt it’ should be my middle name,

And if doubt was a game

I’d be on the leader board

For every decade since the eighties,

When all of the world’s issues

Became weighty on my shoulders

Gaining at least a metric tonne for each year I got older,

And I should have been bolder

And done really brave things –

I don’t mean joining CND and blocking a road,

Hacking computers and cracking a code,

Hitch-hiking round the country alone –

I did all of those.

 

I mean acts of true bravery

That might just have saved me

From not ever feeling good enough

And never really being half as tough

As I seem.

 

Triolet for my father

I live on the old farm where I grew up with my parents and which I worked with my father. Often, he’d walk up the road to check on the cattle that were out in nearby fields and I’d sit on the wall in front of the farm and watch him walk back down to me. I knew, even when I was young, that I’d have to store those memories away, for one day the road would be empty.

I watch my father as he walks the road
And memorise each step he takes,
I need to remember how he strode.
I watch my father as he walks the road.
Later as we walk, his pace is slowed;
I help him then: we share the load.
I watch my father as he walks the road
And memorise each step he takes.

(c) Anne McMaster 2015