The Poetry Marathon

Hour 8: Bend

They call us witches

So let’s set ourselves ablaze

If they turn away

We’ll just watch each other burn

 

They say we’re useless

So let’s make ourselves lame

If they watch us crawl

On our neighbours we will turn

 

They say we have no morals

So let’s behave in sinful ways

If they think they know us

Then we’ll lend truth to their lies

 

They call us cowards

So let’s point away the blame

If they point right back

We’ll elect ourselves their spies

 

What they tell us

We’ll make true

 

What they give us

We’ll make do

 

Whatsoever they might make us

We will make each other, too

Poem #7: Belonging

Belonging

opening up and sharing as the ground is met
it’s about being heard – my whispers go right through
the dead air or even the occasional “hmm – hmm”
no longer affects me as it once did
there is a time and the moments have come
a breakdown is about due
but sometimes that is the only way –
to clean the slate, to break it all down
then putting it back together
(with some new parts)
but why does it take this each time
to understand we belong in flight

@ Renee Avard-Furlow
June 13 2015

Needing is the Worst

Hour Eight

We want the things we can’t have. We want the illusion of happiness
painted in tabloids, pop music, and reality tv. We want to know
that love is real—trying to grab air with bare hands. We want to
be in control. We want our bodies to look like those photo-shopped
Barbies and Kens that are constantly bombarding our self-respect.
We want to live on through eternity in a fantastical paradise where
everything we couldn’t acquire in life is bestowed upon us in death.
We need. That is the nature of man—to need.
We consume and abuse the elements around us.
We need to feel to be real. Zombie minded dullards,
they can get by tasting less than Love, less than True
Life, less than Will. We need words that make an impact
like a sawed-off shotgun—we need to blow the minds
of all the “sames” who creep around in the night of day
looking for more to eat, use, and rob. We need fantasy,
we need reality, we need to dream to be alive.. Can you recall
the darkness when you looked in the mirror? That black
pit in the center of your eye? I saw the nothingness there.

Ominous

“We need to talk.”
A phrase to chill the warmest blood.
“We need to talk.”
The peril of the neighbourhood
To make male faces pale as chalk,
Suburban couples shorthand code
For “Mister, you done messed up good!”
“We need to talk.”

---

Prompt: Use “we need” as a refrain.
Form: Rondelet

 

Untitled (We need poem)

We come in threads of silk and tweed

with lists of all the things we need.

 

Clipboards high, we requisition

goods befitting our position.

 

Through honest labor, never greed

do we collect the things we need.

 

Ownership’s a tricky dance

when what should be mine is yours by chance,

 

but on this we’re all agreed:

none may deny us in our need.

 

Do you see how well we dress?

Does this not in and of itself impress?

 

We’d be sore ashamed to make you bleed,

but we need all that we need.

 

Your cries of want fail to move us,

we are short on pity, long on purpose,

 

likewise your communistic screed

will not change the things we need.

 

So though you may attempt to court us,

do not think that you can thwart us,

 

for shake a hand or draw a bead,

we will get the things we need.

Poetry Prompt Five: A Persona Poem

She doesn’t speak when you ask her to talk.

She won’t take one step if you asked her to walk.

Her eyes would never catch yours.

She’d not want to touch you whatever the cause.

She’s hurting and broken and thinks you forgot her,

She thinks badly about herself and would sooner be…not her.

She doesn’t know which words to choose, so she doesn’t deign to choose,

She feels like a loser, she’s confused, her heart is broken and bruised.

The reason for this, she would never tell.

Her agony, her problem, her darkness, her hell.

She hides it, stuffed into the nighttime, but she won’t weep even then.

Even though the movie of it replays over and over and over again.

She’s hurting and broken and thinks you forgot her,

She thinks badly about herself and would sooner be…not her.

She doesn’t know which words to choose, so she doesn’t deign to choose,

She feels like a loser, she’s confused, her heart is broken and bruised.

If you wanted her to let you in, you’d be mistaken.

She’s not been the same since her innocence was taken.

There’s nothing for her, she thinks she’s already in hell.

And though she won’t say it, you can already tell.

“We Need”

We need to be free of prejudice.

We need to be free of pride.

We need to feel peace.

We need to feel love.

We need a reprieve from war.

The Gateway

The gateway beckoned

the traveler knew its story well,

with promises of adventure,

the Sun’s rays worked to close the sale

 

On the other side,

a deep warmth dwelt,

offering whispers and caresses

of forgotten hurts, no longer felt

 

The traveler was wise though,

and did not heed

for the Siren’s lusty call

was full of lies and misdeeds

 

“I have been that way”

responded the soujorner

and turned back to

where the path was known and clear

 

(hour 8)

The cute way the light shines off the side of your face, it grips me like pliers and draws me in.

From head to toe your beauty is unsurpassed, how lucky am I to have the fortune to have you as part of my life.

Your hair as it flows like a river straight down in a over the rocks which led me to your shoulder, attached to those beautiful soft pale skin arms, right down to those cotton soft hands.

I look but i want so desperately to touch, your nape of your neck wrap my arms around you sculpted frame and as I think that I notice the lovely way you cross your legs in that skirt

Your flawless exterior has captured my eye  but your passionate ways have captured my heart, the total package standing as one with me so rare to find,and I’m not sorry guys because she is all mine