The Poetry Marathon

(Hour 10) 7.30-8.30am — #20 “One Score”

Hitting double digits on the poem count, the spoonfuls of coffee are getting bigger & I’ve had to do something I was hoping to avoid — making a kind of list poem using occurrences of things twenty — but I can’t get bogged down here… still 14 to go.

#20

20th in the letter lineup
T & the hebrew kaph

double x
in the roman way

two times double x
is perfect sight

6/6 the metric equivalent
(which doesn’t sound as cool)

a very fast form
of rock star cricket

the number of questions
you may ask me

the end of teenagerhood
the beginning of true angst

the third magic number
in physics

for calling egypt
calcium’s weight

the IAU shower number
for Coma Berenicids

(also not that impressive
it’s only a minor meteor after all)

& the number of matchboxes
to make a crap pop band

#55. Jackpot!  This better be a goodun’.

a dog’s tale

born as pup

bewitching to be a puppy

so cuddling and lovely

restlessness brings forth vitality

unending surprises

closing in

barking around

growling if it needed something

grasping further in defense of its owner

often pampering with due care

insuring life anew

a dog sharing such delight in this world  today

 

POEM 10-A familiar face

A familiar face-my face.

And yet not thoroughly known,

not even to me.

 

What a pity that I can’t see my face

when I sleep;

I am sure that it’s the most serene face.

 

My daily face is that of a person

who fights against time, fights to win time

because there is never enough time.

 

Maybe it’s not the most beautiful face,

but it’s a kind of face and I accept it.

Though, I would prefer my night face in broad daylight!

waiting

I am the roots of the oak
growing in your front yard, reaching deep
into the earth, stretching under
your feet, beneath your house
and your bed.
No one sees me there, aching
for you. still
I move through the soil and rocks, listen
for your voice, sing love songs
into the night,
waiting for you.

#11 – Self Love Free Write (8 minutes)

No one ever said learning to love yourself would be easy. It actually seems to me possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. That’s saying a lot from a rape survivor, someone who has placed two children for adoption, has been a victim of different forms of abuse over the years and has dealt with loss & heartache/break in many forms, many more times than she can count. To say that learning to love myself is the hardest things I’ve ever done is HUGE. I don’t say it lightly. I’ve had to unlearn so many lies I have told myself over the years, either that others have instilled or planted or gone along with or played into, or that have manifested from different events in my life that have spurred them to light, boring themselves into my head, taking up residence and getting so comfortable that truth became foreign, weird, incorrect and even seemingly lies, to me. I have had an off picker when it comes to relationships. I have chosen people who were incapable of loving me the way I needed to, deserved to, or even realized I could actually be loved. I sabotaged myself over and over not only choosing wrong but by subconsciously telling myself it was right because then I didn’t have to hold anyone accountable for not being able to love me, seeing as I couldn’t even love myself. They didn’t have to take responsibility for anything that happened because I took on all of the blame every time, whether it was placed on me or I shouldered it willingly. Never did I hold someone accountable for how they treated me, spoke to me, used me, mislead me, walked all over me or abandoned me. I took the blame. There had to be something wrong with me, not them. I was the problem and needed to fix myself, but instead of working on focusing on me, I just continued to invest in helping others to fix themselves and in turn continued to unfix myself to the point of not knowing if I was even fixable anymore. As if fixing others would somehow banish my need to fix myself anyway. That I could save myself through saving others. I lost all love I may have had for myself. I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened either, or if it was simply a gradual over time progression of one thing after another that just kept me down and berated and feeling not enough or unworthy of genuinely finding love and compassion without judgment from someone who would truly choose me back, without my having to convince them I was worth it. I’ve always given so much, tried everything in my power, gone to the ends of myself in every way possible, to make others happy. I never considered my own happiness or that maybe pursing making others happy would deter mine even further, stunting my emotional growth for so long and making me feel like I was unlovable at every turn when it ended. And it always ended. You can’t love yourself when you surround yourself with people who don’t love you, who can’t love you, who will never love you and/or are even incapable of loving themselves. I had to learn that the hard way. And not just once. Or a dozen times….but over, and over, and over again. The fixer had to finally become the fixee. To come to the end of herself and have nothing left but herself. Learning to love myself again has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Ultimately, it was the most worth fighting for. I had to learn to fight for myself before I could expect or even be able to have the knowledge to properly select someone who would also fight for me. Now that the love has returned though, I can finally see myself for who I am: someone who is loved, lovable, loving, so worthy of love and on a mission to spread love to others effectively now that she has once again learned to love herself.

The Lost Ones

No, no, not the children, who’ve long been found,

nursed and fed, clothed and bundled off to the treadmill.

No, not them.  It’s the mothers who are missing.

 

They’re wandering somewhere out there, thinking

they’ve found a new life, not at all like the old one

but not new, either.  Still in hiding, still searching faces,

 

looking for their children to bring back their innocence.

The children still care but that was such a time ago,

and real names are hard to come by.  It’s all too much

 

to try.  The lost mothers have found themselves

new men, they’ve made new children, new hiding places.

They never look back.  They refuse to be found.

 

(c) Ella Wagemakers, 00.59 Dutch time  (= 18.59 EST in the US)

Generally (7:00 PM)

I love you for who

you are, and

not what I wish you to be.

The 7th hour

Brick house red

Glistening glass stem

Subtle movement

Light Spring wind

Texture so smooth

Dolphin’s silky skin

Sweet fragrance

Grape vinyard, leaves thin

 

 

Where ever you are

Where ever you are.

You are always in my heart.

In the warm gentle breeze ,I  know your love.

Is always around me know matter how many years.

Our love is lost there is always a love that will never.

Be lost.

Because you will be always in my.

Soul.

 

Autobiography of a Face

Autobiography of a face
Is the Prompt for hour ten
But is the face not
An autobiography of the Prompt?
Time and transition, the ancient Janus
The personification of duality through rhyme:

From the line dividing now from then
Came the greatest pursuit undertaken by men:
The question that asked if not now, when?
Giving rise to the notion that what happens will do so, again and again
Clocks are just flattened spheres, that model the earth’s spin
Around the clock face we move our lives and further into madness we descend
Meandering about through time, with a false purpose and convention,
Wandering through life until our time is up, lamenting this construct of sin.
Yet we move through time as time moves through us,
Each containing the other, within.