The Poetry Marathon

I. L. Y.

Maybe it was out of my loneliness?
Or the phantom he left behind, ever day?

You were here when I needed most
A face that smiled when I smiled
Got all nervous and shy, whenever our eyes met for longer than a pause
Or just a single breath
That’s what drew me into you, I think.

That and our rapport that could segue from nothing more than a look
My look, as I walked past on my day to day routine
While you sipped your coffee and smoked
Staring back over the rim of your cup and your glasses.
A smile. My smile.
All for me.

I remember the first time we kissed
At the pier, in the dead of winter
Freezing and shaking
Though I shook for more than just the cold
Anticipation?

I still have that shell you found
The one you searched for
Just for me.
The inscription you wrote
It’s still there
Faded
But still there.

As am I.

 

 

#5 – Prompt: persona poem

Man on the Street with a White-Tipped Cane

(an ovillejo) 

I cannot see these blues.
Do you?
The sky’s an empty sea.
See me
with all that I hold dear
sitting here?
A truth I must hold near:
My light still shines,
but you may be blind.

Do you see me sitting here?

Hour Five

You look at me with your young eyes

and you do not see me.

You see a crippled old man

hobbling over a walking frame

legs bowed from Polio’s kiss

spine curved from Gravity’s cruelty.

You watch me manoeuvre that frame

from road to path via gutter

and wonder if I’ll fall backwards.

Well, so do I. Every day.

Still, the perils of an old, broken body

cannot stop the muscles controlling my joy

and if you look closely, beyond the liberal creases

of the years I’ve lived

up through the crevices of endurance…

if you guide your gaze to my eyes

you will see they are still dancing.

Oh yes, they will never stop dancing.

The Mother Age – 5/24

my mother- her face ages

from cigarettes and smiles

middle-life women call them laugh lines

in bitter humor

on their eleventh anniversary of their twenty-ninth birthday

and with age, comes tears

a sort of sopping heaviness,

leaking out like a dirty mop over the edges of youth

filling the cracks that the smiles made-

ruining the edges of the pictures

each year, another pound for the heart to carry

in a life anchor

no wonder she looks so tired.

she’s tied like a ship by the years,

slowly sinking,

bated her breaths

In his eyes

I see her in the light
She refuses to see herself

A beautiful masterpiece
Her flaws
Become the magnifying
Glass
To the infinite possibilities
Of her being

When she looks in the mirror
I see that she’s staring
Right
Back at me

Our eyes lock

Through me
She gets a glimpse
Of her reflection

She finally recognizes
The magic
She holds inside

She is my
Counterpart
My universe
Somewhere lost
In our space

-Angelica Villarruel

The Off-Sonnet of Norma Jean

I imagine my mother’s hateful life,
how she wishes she could be someone else,
and I, too, wish I could be someone else.
I imagine stardome like my idols,
how everyone loves to see them preform.
I do want to deviate from the Norm.
I yearn for the beauty of Jean Harlow,
how she glows from within to everyone.
I, too, want everyone to see my glow.
I have what it takes to be a true star.
I will show the whole world what I can be.
My name will echo from near, and to far.
I pray this now: to stand the toll of time.
May I never be forgotten on earth.
May I be remembered by all from birth.

Hour 5

Here in the desert
I dream of orcas
rippling through water.

Awake, their memory
undulates rhythmically,
deep in my chest.

I am as vast as the sea.

5. This all Painting

 

 

(Persona 2015 @ 1:15 p.m.)

Like Trains In The Night

Sometimes I think the game is rigged.
Have you ever really seen a happy actor?

And I don’t mean a rich one, I mean
a truly happy actor, content with his lot,

a lot that (ironically) constantly shifts.
One production after another, one script,

one hotel, one mistress after another
(though I could stand to settle down),

and I keep wondering if women are magic,
if films are magic, too–in film things go

so smoothly, it has been said to me that
they go like trains in the night. The picture

is more desirable than the process
we put ourselves through without regard,

it seems, as to whether this will be
the last film we make, whether we will

find women disgusting, life disgusting,
decide to leave, decide to live alone.

---

This poem is based on the film La Nuit Americaine (Day For Night), told from the perspective of Alphonse, who is played by, and who is a fictional surrogate of, Jean-Pierre Leaud.