The Poetry Marathon

In My Minds Eye

Sitting and watching the boats sail by brings me peace. Listening to the waves gently bounce off the shore, feeling the gentle spray touch my face and arms. I close my eyes and take myself far away to a beach of tri-colored sands and the warmth of the sun beaming down on the land and me.

I imagine a house behind me;  salmon and tan in color with a screened in porch that wraps around three quarters of it. The moon makes the house look peaceful and quiet as it shines it’s rays down as if it’s the only house on earth.

On my porch I sit and smell the fresh night air. I hear crickets chirping and the last of the birds calling on their way in. I can still see ships and boats making way through the waters and sending small gentle waves towards the beach. It’s just peace in my mind’s eye. I use my imagination to transport me many places. That’s my coping mechanism. I can be peaceful. I can be alone. I can write. I can concentrate. I can read. I can pray. I can love…

imagine

 

Channeling Audre Lorde Hour #6 9/2/2023

Stuck. In a rut.

I called for a muse

The gods sent Audre Lorde

 

World-weary and wise

If silence will not save me

then confusion will not salve me

3 PM – Warning Label Draft #1

If you’re reading this, I’d like you to be cautious because I’m still learning about the man I am.

I don’t love myself, but I wish I did.

 

Opinionated, I’ve been absent to my world,

too early, too late, – never just in time.

 

Someone shows me love and my fight or flight kicks in,

bear witness the lack of acceptance I hold for myself.

 

I am poor with a capital PO, 

weight of a capitalistic society leaves me

bitching about how life isn’t fair.

 

Tender to the wrong touch,

nauseous over my own white savior complex

and how my best will never feel good enough.

 

I can make a decision when there’s a gun pointed at my face,

but never about food.

THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE (HOUR 6) PAMS

at the edge of the earth

where the universe stops

humming

and the hush

of the end of the earth

begins,

what is it

we will hear?

The end

of gravitational waves,

created

by two people,

or a collective, humming

at much lower

frequencies,

everywhere all at once?

The super binary

pulsars

of massive

black

holes,

the source

of gravitational waves

Without you

I’ve been on so many times.

You name it.

Theme parks, sporting events,

the occasional spartan battle.

But none of it’s quite the same without you.

 

We used to paint the town red & pull

all-nighters in the name of mankind.

For close to four years, the nights were

ours.

 

Now it all just feels so fruitless

without you

but I know we’ll be back someday;

it’s only a matter of space.

hour 6 – hell

It will be not pyrotechnic but arithmetic:
the final tally,
what you’ve done, what you’ve failed to do.
Peering over dispassionate columns of unregistered evils,
it’s God, Peter Singer, and a bottle of whiskey
making good use     of heavy brass scales.
On one side, love – the other
a vast and colorless wasteland
of infinite regret.

Hour six

Turtles

It’s turtles all the way down,
They say,
Peering carefully over
The edge of the world,
Standing on the backs of each other,
Towering down into
The emptiness of space.

They plod along silently,
So smooth the world above
Is unlodged and undisturbed,
So that we can keep on living
On this flat disk,
Till we reach the very edge,
Hoping not to tumble over,
Waving at turtles as we go.

Bisbee Roadside Attraction

People gather in the parking lot

beside their rented automobiles,

staring past the pit’s edge, straining

to catch glimpses of the bottom.

 

Tourists pull over, slam

their vehicles into “park”,

and run towards the hole.

 

“That’s it!” one of them cries,

reaching into their purse or pocket

for a camera. The abyss starts wide,

then becomes steadily narrower,

 

each scoop towards the bottom

greedier than the last, like somebody

dug for extra bites of ice cream

until the tub ran empty,

and no one can lick it clean anymore.

 

When the copper was gone,

miners packed up and left town,

penniless, health shot forever,

but no one wants to remember that.

 

It doesn’t sell postcards, or

put money in merchants’ pockets.

 

Each night after the bars shut down,

patrons head someplace new

for an after-hours party.

 

Maybe they can extract one more drop

from an otherwise depleted evening.

Maybe they can stay above the pit,

long enough to avoid looking at the bottom.

 

 

 

hour 5

imagine earths’ edge

far off horizon

defined end

sharp corners, hard lines

a tipping point 

 

what’s over the side?

all the other earth’s this one could’ve been 

 

if this were a different world

different humans

different histories

different systems 

different beliefs 

different theories

different realities 

different truths 

different possibilities

 

tipping point made endless edge

made ongoing expanse 

of what could have been 

of what might come to be

Out of Focus

HOUR 6

(using the photo prompt…….having a harder time today…..but it will come

I have faith!  But for now, another haiku!)

 

 

Confused where to go

Like this marathon poet

Our focus now blurred.