The Poetry Marathon

Hour 9 — On Being You

The world at large neither knows
nor cares how you feel
Yet, for reasons unknown,
it stands silently and indifferently,
Watching the spectacle
of your wanting to exist.

Were you but a lump of modeling clay
Would you have cared for your formlessness?
Or, if you were just a molecule,
Would it have made sense
if you complained
Why you were a component molecule of water?
Or, maybe a molecule in some underground mineral alloy?

Probably not.

Yet, being human, you have grown used
To the will of being You.
And unrepentant,
you keep asserting your will to be You.

Your you-ness has cost you worldly affiliation
No doubts about that
However, does it give you great joy
to be You?

Hour Nine – Clack Clack Clack

 

It was daily occurence and nobody seemed to notice how many times it had happened over the last 20 years. That’s 20 by 365 not accounting for a leap year. Who knew that it would lead to madness. That after 20 years we could find ourselves here, in this crevice, hanging by a thin strand of finely woven nothingness in a place where no man would dare fish around for answers. Why had it come to this? Inevitable calamity. There was no other meaning to be found. Snakes and ants could survive but not us. There were too many variables. Too much sanctity prohibited. Just enough love to shed light on the aspirations darkened by scepticism. Healthy scepticism, lateral scepticism and farnarkling laughter. There was no such thing as parable in innocence. There was always a baddie protesting his or her apple grove. Feathered creatures lay in the mist developing a hatred for slip streams. It had taken too may of their family members. None of them could see any more what a gust of wind was and what was certain death. The birds were wary, watching the ants and snakes from a great height, wondering how many times they would have to screech before the madness would end. Clack Clack Clack. The typing fingertips issued another warning. Clack Clack Clack. There was no other solution but to sever the fingers and let go of the thread that held the remnants of humanity above the teeming wilderness below.

Hour Ten – Peace

I asked for peace first,

but peace did not come to me.

So I became Peace.

Judy Klemos

While Waiting

Crow call,
Somewhere Behind the sun where eyes won’t go,
Feel the light but see no wings.

poem #9 attachment & desire

we need more bombs
more incendiary devices of the verbal kind
we need the righteous anger
of my well-spent youth
cranking handbills on handpresses

we need the fervent furor of the zealot
who will fight the good fight
no one seems to care about
in Baltimore in Ferguson in McKinney
we need more passion more rage

we need this for the righteous
for the broken-hearted idealists
whose hells are paved
with others good intentions
we need for them to rally

Buddhists say to let these attachments go
to leave behind desire for what is not
and yet     engaged Buddhism
we need engaged Buddhists
we need compassionate anger

we need more bombs

Creative Death Mystery

Our lovely and brilliant creativity has met a most unbecoming fate.
She is dying.
The suspect, it seems, is a succubus, using her vitality and strength in adversity against the unsuspecting among us.
We erode, our minds blank.
We can’t remember usernames or passwords. Please help us!
What time is it? Does time matter in limbo? It does matter. There is an app to help us understand, to start, to keep on track.
It’s hard when it is only around the world and 24 hours. Time puzzles away my creativity and I’m stumped.
How do I post?
Cutting and pasting seemed the preferred method.
The personal preference is draft and publish.
What in the world of creativity does tags and prompts have to do with anything?
The pen slips in, just a little deeper. The slicing silence sickening. Think.
Think. Think.
Happy and encouraging Facebook posts are counterintuitive to the surrendering to the solitude of death.
If you quit, are you still in the group? Do you exist differently.

Give me a sign!

“My Own Destruction”

I am spinning, spiraling out of control.

Lost in a world of my own making.

A prison of my own construction.

I pillage and burn all who get too close.

Thrown stones,

A garden of thorns,

Trapped in the throes of pain, not pleasure.

I am my own destruction.

Prompt for Hour Ten

Autobiography of a Face is a famous memoir by the poet Lucy Grealy. I always thought it was excellent and intriguing title as it can be interpreted in so many ways.

For hour 10 your prompt is to write a poem with the title Autobiography Of A Face.

Dreams

For every tomorrow.

We had.

Together was the most precious moments.

Even if those moments.

Faded away.

Into a dream of yesterday.

Hour 9–Arguing With Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that goodnight. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Why? Huh? That’s what I want to ask. Shit, I’m dying! Don’t tell me to pull back. You moron, I’m a toddler in the doorsill. Don’t tell me to change direction. You think you know more about this shit than I do? What the hell? Why shouldn’t I go gentle into that goodnight? To please you? It’s always gotta be about you? Fuck! What more lovely way to go than to go gently? What comes next? You don’t know any more than I do. Don’t tell me how to do it. Why do you get to define what experience I have? It’s dishonest. Why should my dying be about you? Get out and don’t tell me how to die. I was halfway there, and you pulled me back. Don’t tell me to rage. I’ve fought, I’ve struggled all my life. This is my time to relax, shithead. Get real.]

Go ahead, feel free if you like. Go gentle into that goodnight, embrace as you wish the dying of the light.