The Poetry Marathon

Time Travel

In Denver, Colorado grown and raised,
in the laboratory’s where I spent most of my days;
flippin’ switches, linkin’ gadgets, mixin’ potions so neat
makin science discoveries that couldn’t be beat.
Then a couple o’ dudes who were bein’ so rude
started talkin’ smack about my Hubbard Review
I made one little threat and my peers got scared and said
“We’re shuttin ya down, then we’ll get outta your hair.”

I knocked em out cold and when they came to
they were in my time travel pod halfway through.
Where exactly we were I had no idea.
I said “who remembers your prehistoric trivia?”

We launched outta the pod around 150 million BC
and I yelled to my colleagues “check these sphinx moths, ya see?”
Looked around at my jungle and visited time and again,
tamed me a dino, became the first of cave men.

Genre: self help

sometimes

HOUR FOUR

POEM # 4

24 HOUR

POEM

MARATHON

SOMETIMES

Sometimes!

Sometimes I don’t know the day,

Will my body give permission to stay.

Sometimes I’m not sure how to think,

My body cries for one more drink.

Sometimes out the window I look,

I try to sit in a chair and read a book.

Sometimes I wake up and salute the moon,

My head feels heavy, larger than a balloon.

Sometimes I hear people call me a drunk,

I have a date to be placed in Earth’s trunk.

Sometimes I ask who I am, I know not me,

I look in the mirror, a shadow do I see.

Sometimes I’m not the person you knew,

Always be my friend and bring the brew.

Sometimes when the parties over I’m awake,

I promise no more drinks will I ever take!

Sometimes!

Written by Carl Mann

The kurlman

6-13-2015

Hour Four

They, with lips tangled,
grasping at the nothingness
of Love—ultimately only
tasting lust—seize a moment
at the sun’s wake.
A procession of coffins,
filled with nightmares,
trips into the scene.
Traffic jams are stemming
out, branches on a tree of
confusion… And the light
reads red.
Lovers tick away at old
cookoo clocks, greedy for
another bird song. But
no birds will wake without
a greeting from sunrise.
Slipping into a deafening
chorus of cosmic composition,
three lovers grip at their hearts
trying to resuscitate their souls.

The Five Singers

1. Amy Winehouse
Dead before I ever heard
your name, that voice.
Did you die in vain?

2. Tracy Chapman
I want you to sit down,
have tea, sing some poetry.

3. Ronnie Gilbert
You can’t be gone.
Not now, not ever.
Even if I forget my own name
I’ll close my eyes and hear “Goodnight Irene.”

4. Joan Armatrading
Ma Me O Beach, lucky enough
to walk under ladders, I’m taking
my baby uptown, leaving the
empty highway behind.
Thanks to you, I know
when I get it right.

5. Hildegarde
A 93-year-old woman in
Hospice care, speaking mostly French,
remembers you singing in a cabaret,
circa 1952, the big war over, the cold
war just begun. You charmed the men
and inspired the women. First to sing
“I’ll Be Seeing You,” how is it possible
you never recorded it for posterity?
We can only listen to others sing it
and pretend it’s you.

Hour Four – The Traveller

He came to town one Thursday

all dirty, wild and worn.

His steed was lithe and sturdy

His clothes were slightly torn.

 

People started whispering

as townsfolk often do:

Was this bloke a traveller?

or from that mining crew?

 

He settled in the local pub

and hogged the bloody fire

brooding over middies

until he’d then retire.

 

The local folk were edgy

at this silent, dusty stranger.

He seemed to carry with him

an air of sullen danger.

 

Just a few days later on

the whole town met to ponder

the man who’d built their township

and another one just yonder.

 

Old Man Age had taken him

a week or so before

and everyone who knew him

felt a sadness to the core.

 

So as the speeches ended

and the silence fell around

the Stranger put his hand up

and his voice he finally found:

 

“I’ve come to town to pay respects

to the man who gave me life.

I have no other siblings

nor a mother, nor a wife.

 

And now I have no father

with whom to reconcile.

Stubbornness and petty pride

made me a imbecile.

 

30 years ago we fought

and 30 years have fled

with not a word between us

and now, my father’s dead.

 

So take my words and listen

for I’m leaving town today:

Never let the curtain fall

on a half-arsed written play.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heart Murmur (prompt 4)

I heard my heart break

shards of glass were left inside

my left wrist

I cut myself

staring at the pain I couldn’t feel anything

It was perfectly placed this time

Maybe it has finally left me,

my imagination

was a tool unneeded

My heart dared me to love myself

the mortality of what I enjoyed confronted me

it was stone cold

foul mouthed and closed

seconds rolled by like miles

I realized I dreamed of this ending differently

My mind lingered in corridors

the sounds of love echoed in my consciousness

thickening my vulnerabilities as I sank silently

all I could think about was my pleading eyes

as I placed my heart at his feet

leaving me to stare at my own reflection alone

a minute long conversation was all it took

and I knew we were done

scratching the surface of my strong self

I dug inside deep enough

to remove that pain

like candle wax it warmly dripped

as I painted the canvas of the unknown

with a fading ache and fear

of knowing I would have to live

without his shadow

Hour Four

I blame the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson for:

Delusions of happily ever after

Princess and castles, true love and fairy godmothers, for leading me to believe a frog is more than a frog.

I blame George Lucas for:

Taking me to a galaxy far far away

Good over evil and evil over good and round and round, for showing that evil is grown not inborn, that destiny and force lead us, and scoundrels are sexy (yes, bad boys are good!)

I blame David Bowie, that fabulous Goblin King, for:

Showing me a magic dance of seduction and escape

Being wicked and kind, bringing fantasy to a mundane world, and teaching me to be careful what I wish for

I blame the Dread Pirate Roberts and the farm boy for:

“As you wish”

The most desirable words in the world, demonstrating that true love conquers all, giants and Spaniards have the biggest hearts, and to the pain is so much worse than to the death

Yes, there are many to blame for my ideologies of

True love, wishes, and happily ever after

My fascination with bad boys

There is good in everyone, if you just look

Fate and destiny and magic and the force exist for us all

From fairy tales to galaxies, to labyrinths to kingdoms~ my education from child to adult, I blame you….

And, honestly, I thank you

The news I don’t want to hear (4th hour)

There is some news you get that makes you happy like we’re getting married, I’m pregnant, or I made the team.

Then again there is the news that makes you sad, miserable, angry, depressed, and scared.

Like the news that your son need brain surgery.

The kind of news you don’t want to hear, the kind that slices through you, gutting your insides causing you pain.

Like a butcher with every slice an organ removed the emotional slaughter.

I need you to sign this concent and release form, but I must explain as I’m in doing this surgery I’m between his scull and main artery if an anytime this artery gets cut by the laser your son will die on my operating table.

Slice goes the butchers knife.

Hey may lose some memory, another slice!

We will cut a piece of his scull to access the brain, oh God stop this knife is too sharp.

This operation though preformed is relatively new and not a guarantee, slice there is no more to cut, I can’t take no more this news you give I don’t want to hear.

I absorb but I am lost now theres nothing inside, can’t look towards the future when I heard you could die.

I ask God’s forgiveness, I ask him to trade my life for yours so all of this pain you would not have to endure.

My son I have no option with faith and trust in God I put your life in surgeons hands.

I want you better, I need your pain to stop, this operation must not fail because that’s just be the news I don’t want to hear.

 

 

 

 

 

Friend Lost

There’s no goodbye

Just awkward exits

Until we meet again

For again is too long to me

If i die today

Would you give me a second thought

For intimacy we shared

Came at acquaintance lost

What happened to your smile

The chuckle that carried through the air

A squeeze that never wanted to let me go

Has lost its hold