The Poetry Marathon

Hour Nine Autobiography of a face prompt (Untitled)

I won’t do it!

 

I will not write another woman’s poem

any more than I will wear another woman’s face.

 

This is my voice,

my words are my person-hood.

 

Buddha suggests that, in the time before my birth,

I was no one. I merely was.

 

The Watcher-Behind-My-Eyes,

nameless, thoughtless, full of empty

 

but then! I tore screaming into the conscious world

on a spume of blood and light.

 

Since then I have been Sara,

fought for and won,

and this has been my birthright:

 

to say my own words, tell my own story.

Troubadour

I see in myself a troubadour;
a mute, wandering minstrel.

For though I have not the courage to
read my words to you aloud,
I could write to you until the end of days.

I could write for you all my secret tales –
some real, some imagined; all delicious.
Or scribble my wildest wishes on a note-scrap you
dropped when you left me behind for your day.

My typewriter and I would be in cahoots –
me hiding behind with my whispered words,
it standing bravely forward with its mechanical strength;
each covering the tracks of the other.

We could travel the world this way;
filling in each other’s weak spots –
and eventually, if I am lucky,
end up at a beginning.

Autobiography of a Face

Female, Age 88, Late Stages of Dementia

Fall risk, visual hallucinations

Eyes as blue as night

 

What if the sky melted into a blanket of blue

And washed all the gray away?

What if the night broke into a thousand pieces,

And the stars became diamonds floating to the earth?

 

What if all the laugh lines formed together

To build a bridge of memories of happiness?

What if love could tear down the fortress of disease?

What if every breath had meaning?

What if life were an orchestra of experiences?

She mumbles, “Keep the music playing. And play it loud!”

 

But no one hears

Autobiography of a face

I see her standing in front of the mirror
Striking her hair in fishtail
The moment she puts on a lipstick
She thinks she have just painted
Another story for a brand new day
It adds colors and sassy look
She models her scarlet veil and her crimson doll shoes
She likes the way her cup B sized bras are kept
With tags of memories of battling the battles within her battles
It is like her cry conquers the rhythms of liberty
Garlands of hopes reverberate in back to back trends
Of surviving the daily wars inside and outside
She makes her oncologist feel
She can stand and be back on her mountaineering
Her force is beyond a millionaire’s wish
Just like her, the host of outnumbered dreams
The reward is priceless- LIFE
Another life in joining miracles
When one-roofed litanies of women warriors
Trying to save the clans of goodwill and heralds of compassion
The milestone have just defined the voiceless
From the selfless
Even the yellow and pink ribbons could praise
The wakes of black and white in their deathbeds
That’s how she reflects, that’s how she fights
She displays her flag of courage
Before the billion innocents’ eyes

Autobiography of a Face

Pale and spotted with age,

marked and ragged each passing day.

Perspiration gleens with each new trial.

Brow furrowed while hunting in style.

 

Teeth gleam white in the light of day

Jaw squared, he sees his prey.

Long dreadlocks flow in the wind.

While beady yellow eyes search for its kin.

 

Mandible’s part

in a terrifying scene.

He kills his prey

without being seen.

 

He is a Predator.

Poem #9: Sleep Eyes.

The echo from a touch,

The rippling of your godly frame against mine,

That stirs even the the mountains awake,

And being only twenty-one, we think this is love.

I still feel you in the air conditioned room of that summer house,

And I still feel you in that dark booth with the lights against us,

And I still feel you with the awkward prayers for the departure,

To the changing roads we both went on.

I still feel you even when you don’t want to feel me.

I think, this feeling, being twenty-one is only temporary,

But goddamn,  goddamn does it feel like yesterday,

And today, has crept up and forced me down,

Pinned me to you as my only lover, my only friend,

That caused me to give up the romantics of telling someone,

How badly you needed them.

I needed your pale frame,

Here, with my sleepy eyes and drowsy excuses,

To tame this ravaged soul,

I am the poor lover in your rich world,

And I want none of it,

Just you,

Here, these thoughts subdue me,

My sleepy eyes wanting your static frame,

And brown eyes and brown hair.

To smother me again.

Basic Needs

We need more truth in this world.
More truth. Real truth.
Truth that doesn’t hide behind
The spin we have to mind.

We need more love in this world.
More love. Real love.
Love that doesn’t pretend it’s real,
Amid the foghorn’s peal.

We need more trees in this world.
More trees. Real trees.
Trees that don’t get chopped down
For all the paper crowns.

We need to let go of God.
Each God. Real God.
God that doesn’t need our fist
As reason to exist.

We need more life in this world.
Just life. Truly life.
Life that doesn’t imagine death
As means to keep our breadth.

Autobiography of a Face

Her lines had become creases now,

Deep caverns of deeply rooted emotion

Scarring what had once been pristine skin

Each line was a memory,

the painful emotional divorce,

the lost child taken without a chance to fight,

the loss of parents and grandparents that made her

feel like an orphan even in old age

Loneliness across her jowl

Years of unquestioned worry on her brow

The gray hair that fell in deep snowy mountains

when she cut her hair

It was all there

Lost lovers torment

The suicide that never went away

The victimizing and the victim

The deep love, the unrequited crushes

Harsh words that cut her skin

Black memories that became craters

Her eyes sunk low from years of tears

Her smile cultivated but hardly real

Each day longer than the one before

Taking the blood and sweat and turning them

Into pale lips and ghostly skin

She wore it all

Proudly

Without makeup

Her wrinkles were her own

No one could take them

No one could iron them

No one could rearrange them

They told her life’s story

 

 

Napping

Recharging my mind.
Warding off doubt and negativity.
I dream in metered verse,
Only to find
my words leave me,
Replaced by visions that do not contribute to my well-being.
Unfit slumber leaves me.
I am awake once more.

Hour Eight. We need…

We need a change of pace.

We need a new found place,

In our hearts and in our minds,

Of our own fashion and design.

We need a revolution but it has to start

In our own self and in our own heart.

We need to start a fire a burning desire

For knowledge and truth

for the sake of itself.

Unabashed, Uncorrupted, Untainted by our ego’s.

We need to put people in their place.

We need less bullies in this place.

We need innovation and creation.

A place without devastation

We need more peace and less war

We need to open another door

We need more love for all

we all need to stand tall

Let no man stand above the other,

but let us all serve one another.

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