The Poetry Marathon

Family Recipe

Almost lost, that recipe all pressure cooked at Sunday noon

The burner cools for a while for everyone to savor some

Write it down; Do not hesitate – My family gathering

 

 

by Karen Sullivan

Form: Sijo

5 minute poem

Stalking, violent, darkness, despair

floating, flying across the air

wicked men whip the lash

as innocence fades into the past

 

Blood stained roads and marble floors

monuments built on war

Bleached white bones line the stairs

yet two by two we follow in pairs

 

Death becomes those that follow

without care, without sorrow

fetch your friends and feed them to the grinder.

let’s make these skyscrapers higher.

 

Tear filled valley’s reflect a past

when choice and freedom were vast

forsake what’s given

change the game!

 

Challenge those who are to blame.

hour nine

ok…here it goes…what ever comes to mind…

It will be interesting to see

what my brain can find

to talk about…

it certainly loves to talk,

at least to me

not so much to others…

my brain’s tongue falls over

its eye teeth and it can’t see

what it wants to say,

as my grandfather

would say.

I can’t smell cherry tobacco

and not think of him.

He had the biggest smile.

Almost as big as his belly.

I wrote a biography

about him when I was 8, in the 3rd grade.

It made my dad angry.

He said I made things up

and, yet, he was the one that

told me what to write.

I love to write.

I want to write about my dad, but

he wouldn’t like that.

So, I guess I will just have to make things up. 😉

Compost

Leaves and grass
Kitchen scraps
Sawdust, chicken shit mixed with bio char
Old horse manure and peat moss
Keep turning it over with my own compost
Bags of leaves in the fall
Turn it over and over every day
It will be ready next year

A Poem about Nothing

When I should have been composing poems,
or at least thinking about them,
I folded laundry
had a snack, and
did the lunch dishes
that had been taunting me
for the past three hours.

Life gets in the way of art,
even on those days when
I’ve committed myself to art.

But there’s no art without living.
Writers who lock themselves away in the garret,
even metaphorically,
have nothing about which to write.

But laundry? That’s what I get?
Not even dirty laundry,
not that I care to air that
even for art.

Driving North

I don’t recognize anything.
Have I been on this road before?
Why does it look so different?
What the hell is that smell?
It isn’t even seventy degrees out.
It will be a great trip, if this smell goes away.
I hope we get to internet soon.
Is that commercial? Am I a sell out?
Listening to an oldies station that plays music from when I was in college.
You’re killing me, Mick.
You’re old now. I know.
You’re old because I’m younger.
Comparing; judging.
John reads signs for pot pharmacies.
What is the French word for Marijuana anyway?
God, there are a lot of pot pharmacies.
Are people in that much pain?
Halliburton – do you suppose Dick Cheney comes to Northern Michigan?
I don’t know. He looks like the penguin.
Everything is green under a sky of gray.
Maybe we’ll stop at a casino.
Wayne State University billboard in the middle of the trees.
Detroit is closer than you think.
Rich people have deeper front lawns;
More flowers.
Pass that truck. Where is it going on a Saturday anyway?
I don’t really want to buy anything but I want to look at the lawn ornaments and junk in the yards at all of the garage sales.
There’s a whole lot of oats in the fields.
Poor people in the county have a little land and no gardens.
They must live on dreams.
Cows with horns.
That joke always cracks me up
Half-baked money makers litter the country road.
It doesn’t make sense to me to live in a junkyard in the country.
People get tired before getting to their dreams.
Old Alba road is a dirt road.
Fast, straight away and we miss our turn.
Nothing about this trip reminds me of France.
Where the heck is the road?
Spinning tires; deaf child area.
Family to visit and food to eat.

She

Nine months

in her womb

didn’t realize

how strong she is..

 

Other than different roles

played by her

she does

multitasking..

 

She loves

like a child

you break her

she gets up..

 

There are flaws

you have them too

so treat her right..

 

You can’t be her

can’t touch the mark

but she could play your role

better than you

Coz she is a women

Wohooo !!!

See

You are tossed into it like a piece of meat to a swarm of carrion flies or a murder of crows

The human condition, I mean

You Walk

In the cold soft blue winter light, morning,
You Walk.
No arm no more to hold you back in bed,
You walk.
No longer fighting days awake with “five more minute” sleep,
You walk.
The empty house you own, empty bed and empty thoughts,
You Walk.

You walk to be seen, to know you didn’t fade in night.
You walk to see and hear the voices full of life.
You walk to fix a point of motion, always moving forward or fall behind.
You walk to run from age, from dark night grave, from helpless plague.

In morning, so open, quick, the door, and to the street, to left or right maters not, only forward, away for all the still,
You Walk.

Scabbard Moon

Tis the sword of the good Lord
That which he hung of his own accord
Just something to do because he was bored
Radiant glory is his divine reward
But then, the sun!
Now moon ignored.

From the scabbard twas pulled
Placed against darkness bejeweled
Left to make sure that Earth doesn’t cool
Held opposite the sun, in darkness she rules
Mover of tides
Iron core refueled