The Poetry Marathon

Hour 8 — Wish Fulfillment

The Charter of Wish Fulfillment called for a consensus
of people’s needs and wishes
In order to better understand what we want
From life, from the government, from each other

Every evening
An elected spokesperson stands on a box in the townsquare
and reads out our collected needs for the day
We need aerosol dispensers for better distribution of fine particles
We need ergonomic baby helmets to keep their brains safe and cozy
We need kevlar-reinforced sleeping bags for peaceful nights

We stand around the spokesperson’s box
and nod our agreements
We need radiation-resistant, acid-repellant tarps for schools
and daycare centres
We need more minimized-labor days annually
…
As darkness begins to fall, we return to our living quarters

 

At the dinner table we now keep
A pencil stub and an old sheet of paper
Just in case we remember some need we had missed before

Hour Two Poem.

In soft moonlight

On a clear

Calm night

The trees

Silhouetted by the stars,

I met the devil

A handsome fellow

He was quite charming

A trifle alarming

He greeted Good Morning

I should have taken,

Mothers warning

To never trust

A man past midnight

Riches I can bestow

upon you he said

A treasure island

He whispered

The air suddenly crisper

the soft moonlight

waning in after hours

my prospects sour

I asked him dour

Be honest now devil

Of what do you speak?

He replied

Up the River

An Island betwixt

The two river branches

Lies the treasure

but you’ll measure

it’s worth for yourself…

Freestyle (Prompt 9)

The noise in my house is nerve wrecking. I had it all planned out before. I knew it would be difficult with the baby. I can’t focus enough to get my thoughts down without being interrupted. “Wait!” “huh?” Thirty seconds of silence is what I get before the next “MAMA!” interruption. Kids under 13 are different from teenagers. My son tries hard to stay out of my hair but baby girl doesn’t care. She takes off her pamper and runs around the house. She just peed on the floor like a puppy, comes back and tells me to sit down. “Sit down Mama.” The Microwave just went off and I realize this is what my life is now. Frequent interruptions “Oh No!” she fell down, now I tell her here I come, anything to quiet her down. To give what she says some recognition as I continue to write because I want to. It’s my only sanity, “Huh?” “Get away from there!” “What are you doing?” “PUT THAT DOWN!!” She’s into something else and I’m still writing. My five minutes is almost up. Why didn’t I get a sitter today? Oh because I can’t afford it. There you go again answering your own damn questions. Crazy girl stop feeling guilty this is your human experience. The pathway to whatever or wherever you are going. You are going regardless so it doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the ride and hope you don’t get any diseases along the way. Where the hell did diseases just come from? Oh Geez, I’m a hypochondriac and I didn’t even know it. Purrfect, purr really? now I’m a cat. I’ve gone bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Baby girl is back in my face. Her finger is stuck in a jewelry box. Yep she’s doing whatever and I’m still writing. She looks at me and says okay. I say thank you. She just walked away….my five minutes.

 

Ode to San Antonio #10/24

Ode to San Antonio

I remember backyard barbecues
by downstairs neighbors
Tejano music blaring for hours, infiltrating every inch
of the apartment on floor number three
where I’d sit stoned and spaced out.
Becoming overtly disturbed when I caught
my toe tapping happy to distant festive
relentless accordions.
Songs from a place I’ve never been
in words I can’t know
filled my empty downtime
daze of nothing pressing too hard.
Nothing really pressing at all.
The siren symphony never ends
in this fix-it shop city of specialists.
The sound became comforting to me
during darkest times inside my own
bleak landscape of sad pretty girls.
Starting distant then growing closer, louder.
Help is on the way.
Someone is coming now to save you.
They’ll know just what to do.
I’m not sick enough to call for sirens,
only suffering from a disease of lifestyle.
A fever induced by choices.
The heaviest of shameful baggage
hangs from my shoulder
because I’m packed and ready
for someplace simpler

 

Random Thoughts……

 

My fingers fly over the keyboard. I hear the sing song of the sparrow, one of my songbirds in the background. The songbirds are more hushed today./ The weather is warm…the sun is climbing the sky and casting down bright light and bathing us in brilliant light. Summer is here-at last.

Ingrid

5 pm Poem

Writer’s Life

Words fly across the page

Images brought to life

Thoughts ramble

Meanings jumble

Words fly across the page

Setting characters free

Heroes and villians

Friends and foes

Fleshed out in prose

Words fly across the page

Heart and soul pouring out

For all to see

For all to critique

Words fly across the page

The writer’s life

 

We Need!

The hours pass bye
When my friend’s mother almost died
Taking her last
Breathe,
Ambulance and police
Take over
But
The mother breathes
As the hospital released,
The darkest hour
We need, doctors to shine in the purest moments in life
Her beauty resigns
In the hands
Of nothing and no good doctors
Why?
We need, the doctor to reply
Sighs
Air pump holding her alive
It’s time to release
The mother
I cry
And saw the man
Scream for his mother life
On whom almost died
Doctors just released her
Why?
Screams the son
To the doctor
We need, you to bring her home alive
You were going to leave her
Dead and not alive
We needed you
Doctor
Explain my cries
Cause you left

Forgotten Progeny

When last I visited before Oblivion,

I hoped you would see me –

For a moment while lucid

I am forgotten progeny.

I hung on the wall like my photograph.

I was within reach but could not help.

 

I was within reach but could not help.

When last I visited before Oblivion,

So, I touched my photograph,

But you said, “Oh, this is a photo of me.”

I am forgotten progeny.

You were sure you were lucid.

 

How I wanted you to be more lucid.

I was within reach but could not help.

I am forgotten progeny.

When last I visited before Oblivion,

You were staring down at a picture of me –

That tacky yearbook photograph.

 

Dated hair, dated clothes of the photograph –

How could you not be lucid?

Didn’t you know it was me?

I was within reach but could not help.

When last I visited before Oblivion,

I am forgotten progeny.

 

I am forgotten progeny.

You jabbed, “This is me” into the photograph.

When last I visited before Oblivion,

I was within reach but could not help.

My love was not enough to make you lucid.

You yelled how you were me!

 

What did you mean that you were me?

I am forgotten progeny.

I was within reach but could not help.

My name was embossed on the photograph,

Was scratched out while you were not lucid,

When last I visited before Oblivion.

 

I wanted to help; did you see me?

On the edge of Oblivion – your progeny –

I gave you the photograph to keep you lucid.

 

 

by Karen Sullivan

Form: Sestina

 

 

 

Truth is…

Most times
We don’t even know what we say
We assume we have it all right
When reality is…
We’re just cherubs trapped
In a grown body

Our minds play this game
Of
Cat and mouse
Is it mind over matter?
Or
Body over mind?

We claim to have all the answers
In just the little time of being alive

We boast about
All the achievements we’ve made so far
Yet have no clue that
There’s so much more to do

What we’ve obtained
Means nothing in the grand scheme
Of things

We claim we know what life is all about
Truth is…
We don’t

We’re all just learning
From past mistakes
That were made
In our previous
Lifetimes

What we do know
Is how to put others down
We act like everything is rightfully ours
We quickly become defensive
And act like
Others have ulterior motives
Ones that might put us to shame

Too many of us
Live a life full of fear
We don’t know how
To just let go
And know that in life
We can never be without

We have an infinite supply
To satisfy all our means
All we have to do is
Reach for what we dream

Hour Nine

Spontaneity is the hand of Hadit,
we live in a time of polished nonsense—
bunkum at every turn.
Well I say, Good Riddance.
Who needs euphemisms anyway?
Compelled to express a variation of
madness that seeps from the corners
of consciousness, I will manifest
an unwavering movement of action.
Willpower is spirit, spirit is me.
My outward expression is not representative
of who I am. My thoughts, speech, and deed
Will quantify me as a wanderer.
Can the magick of words bleed through
without the tone of the writer heard?
I want to divulge a secret… I am not me,
and you are not you. You are not your
job, automobile, prized possessions, family name;
You are not your fucking Khakis.
We are the all singing all dancing crap of the world.
If you have time to dance,
sit quietly you happy lucky idiot—thanks Ninao.
I ride a tide of emerald river water. Surfing
through the cosmos as a salmon upstream—
against the flow.