The Poetry Marathon

Hour #7: Viator + Sunflowers of Childhood

Sunflowers lead me back to childhood 
when I had to look up, up, up to see petals
waving and pressing high against the bluest sky.
Golden dreams were the clouds' outlines. 

Heartbroken and jaded, I quietly plead, 
"Sunflowers, lead me back to childhood" 
when despair was never larger than sidewalk shadows
or the lightning bugs' nighttime shows.

Summers of healing turned to winters of deep sleep.
As I learned grace in slowing down, I'd let memories of 
sunflowers lead me back to childhood, 
sipping elixers of nature's berries, herbs, and flowers.

Sighing in these silent years of distance and stunted dreams,
I don't mourn challenges and losses along the rock-strew road.
Grace comes quietly and with her gentle invitation to let 
sunflowers lead me back to childhood.

                                                                                    Image by Martin Torrez

Swinging in Sunflowers

Swinging in sunflowers

Brings memories of nostalgia for summer days

Sunny and hot.

when cold ice cream could quench a thirst

 

Feet high to the sky,

Swinging in sunflowers

Free as a bird in the sky

when summer seemed like forever

 

Back and forth

Going higher and higher

swinging in sunflowers

when summer was time to spend with friends

 

Playing in fields of summer,

time stood still

when we were kids

swinging in sunflowers

Hour 7 – My Swing

I remember many things

Like the time I had my own swing

 

It’s rope and wood and hangs on a tree

He’s always there to set me free

 

I’ll swing so high that I can see the next road

Going back and forth on foot to climb higher is fun

 

Sometimes I’ll be brave and take the leap

Fly through the air and land with a thud

 

Many times this trick really works

But sometimes it really hurts

 

I want to go back to simpler times

When joy is fun and it’s not a crime

 

When we are humans and jokes were jokes

No one is angry at what life has in store…

Edge of the world

Swirls of colors zoom past my head
Filling up the space above and below

The edge of the earth

Where void and expanse
Touch
Tempting peace and time
Like the creation of Adam
Always in each other’s orbit
But never touching
Never connecting

I hold my breath in my chest
Feeling it’s warmth spread through my limbs
The sun is so close
But it’s blazing fire keeps burning

The chill of emptiness
Penetrates beneath my skin
Burrows deep in my meat and bones
There won’t be much more time here
And I’m at peace with that end
At peace with this choice
To sit at the edge of the world

9am  Poem 7 Lahainatown (a two part viator)

Lahainatown (a two part viator)

Lahainatown (a two part viator)

1.

… and then they died
alone in cars
running through smoke
leaping for sea

huddled hopeless
and then they died
unthinkably
along the streets

trapped in their homes
screaming, pleading
and then they died
prayers in their throats

unanswered prayers
swept up in flames
burned with their flesh
and then they died.

2.

Lahainatown
oh, Maui’s heart
lies desolate,
suffocated.

Unmarked graveyard
Lahainatown
of bone and teeth
in powder silt

still and silent
host of fireghosts
Lahainatown
welcomes them all

to stay among
the healing arms
of Banyon roots,
Lahainatown…

.

Hour 7–Funny How…

the group least acknowledged on Labor Day is labor.

Hour Seven: An Empty Pod

Seek and you shall surrender, the old sage sang,

but I turned away, mumbling in response, “Oh, yeah.”

The eager ones agreed and kissed his brittle, sun-crusted feet.

 

Keep walking the straight and high, narrow and low road;

Seek and you shall surrender, the old sage sang, and

The rebels tossed stony glares at the old man’s knees.

 

No path is too steep to fall on, no caves too dark to see,

but I had nothing, a mind blanked out, an empty pod,

so I turned away, mumbling in response, “Oh, yeah.”

 

Peace is one step more, two to each side, a dance,

but I only shook my head and snorted, “Sure.”

The eager ones agreed and kissed his brittle, sun-crusted feet.

Marked

Yoked with responsibility
Void of compromise

A second hand sweeps around the circle

Beauty of days and nights are lost

Only the grist between the stones

Flours the future

Sunflower Swing

A rusted memory of a childhood laugh

A rusted board that held a child high

A field so vast, flowers barely grown half

A field that carries yet carries the bright innocence cry

Now old and brown, it stands empty

The breeze, the only melody heard

For maybe years passed a ten or twenty

Awaiting a laugh from third

Until then, the sunflowers shall shield it’s innocent memory

Standing guard of the distant laugh from what felt like a century

Until the Last Day – Hour 7 (viator)

Until the last day

I will swing for the fences,

tack hard into the wind, and

climb to the top of each mountain,

 

Where surely there will be more.

Until the last day

I will hold my head high,

stand tall, and drink the last drop,

 

Filling my days with wonder

and joys meant to last

until the last day.

I want to wave a victorious flag

 

Give inspiration to the young,

and consolation to the old,

holding nothing back at all

until the last day.