The Poetry Marathon

Fighting the evil

An example of how Irish banks do business

When they should have been on their knees

Begging the Irish peoples forgiveness

For the harm they did to our economy

 

In Ulster bank they devised a way

Introducing an evil new monthly charge

That big balanced privileged need not pay

To further punish the public at large.

 

Four euros a month unless you’ve got three grand

For which you get fuck all in return

When are we just gonna unite and stand

against these monsters that deserve to burn?

 

My mate Mick has a great fighting strategy

He superglues the lock on every door

once a year in his bank so the locksmiths fee

means the bastards don’t profit from him being poor.

 

 

Retaining Wall (hour 2)

I’m a simple man who’s easily hurt.

I been stepped on ridiculed treated like dirt.

I give all of me but it’s never enough, you all want more so I keep going as I huff and I puff.

I want to be respected, is that too much to ask?

Yet still im just a toilet to you that takes all your crap.

With my hand forced, now I will build a wall out of my own instinct inside my flesh and bones.

In it I will bury all the guilt pain and suffering, just try to throw stones.

Inpenitrable by anyone’s opinion, anyone’s hate, anyone’s words with hateful tones.

This retaining wall it is built solid like concrete and rebar, that reinforces it for this wall shall not come down.

Being Honest- Prompt 2 Poem- Half Marathon 2015 by Ingrid

Our daily morning ritual

has turned into routine.

 

We have become known as-

the most Boring Couple

ever to be seen.

 

Good morning greetings

Fall quickly from his lips

Beginnings of misunderstandings”

And our ongoing

Verbal slips.

 

“Be honest!,” I exclaim,

in declaration of his lies.

Let’s finally break free

of these binding ties.

 

Long gone are the memories of

Soft moonlit nights,

Replaced now by our

ongoing fights.

 

Romanced ebbed like the

setting of the sun- a premonition of

the end of the fun.

 

 

Listen: Terzanelle

Your birth and you, in your mouth a silver spoon.

Your mama held and cradled you for the best.

For you, she would walk our celestial moon.

With her love, you grew a gold crown on your crest,

But never thanked her for her time or love,

Yet, your mama held and cradled you through your worst.

When you cried and fought, she crooned and called you dove.

She let you bless her shoulder with your wet tears.

But you never thanked her for her time or love.

You left her for a boy, her one and only fear.

She warned you, “That boy is mean and deals drugs.”

She let you bless her shoulder with your wet tears

Each time you came back bruised with your heart mugged.

Then you would leave her for him again and again,

And she would warn, “That boy mean, he’ll hurt you drugged.”

That last night, your mama found you hung and chained.

Your birth and you, in your mouth a silver spoon.

He left you there; your face of heaven white and drained.

Your mama broke down and cursed the pale moon.

Simple #2 (A Haiku about how I would spend my life)

I want to get lost

In Treasure Island with you

Your kiss is refuge

Hour 01 10.30-11.30pm — #41 “Time for fun”

Oh man, so it turns out, despite everything, I still got my times wrong & it started an hour earlier than my foolish brain had convinced itself. So I’m already an behind the bingo ball. Story of my life.

Anyhoo, first number drawn was 41. & I groaned when I saw it.

#41
They say it’s the time for fun
They say it’s when life’s begun
I agree tit for tat
But do you say that
Knowing I’ve done your mum

They go only get better right. Let’s hope so.

Hair of the Dog

I can always smell the alcohol hangover on people…

Including myself.

It’s sweet, pungent, sweaty, and I’m so very averse to it.

I don’t understand habitual hangovers much either.

Which is why I stopped drinking.

 

Haiku #2

The trees used to close

me off and now ev’ryone

can see me right now.

Poem #3: In Which I Imagine Myself on the Corner of Munson and 5-Mile

I would give the world simply to sit in traffic,
with you, see hours exhausted as all cars around hiss and grog for movement,
And I want you to watch, know my world, know yours.
Trees, or what is left of some
(Like the wooden nails my father pounds, infrequently, at work),
grappling for the sun knitting their gashed skin,
minimalist, motionless, gazing at us,
yet we fail to acknowledge.
Speechless, without lung, I turn you to words.
Purple strewn on my fingers, a blue pen suicide,
lukewarm tea in cupholder, and chancing happiness at the inconveniences,
summer drizzle coagulating on the windshield– since I loathe the radio,
you speak. (And I wouldn’t want her to ever stop, no.
(She speaks, and my mouth turns to notebook paper.
She is the poem, young and unfinished.)
Your hands nervous, snowglobe-eyed, the way you say
Jehovah flawlessly, you break me. And I want
to be broken, by your name and His, reformed and replaced.
A leaf on the grass, scuttled across, hopping stem over heels on newly poured blacktop.
(Always an “if” with us and God.
Could God sit me down and tell me
to tell her.)
A sedative sky all around, gathering me, abridged, centered where
my lollipop stick bones, their cardboard packaged exterior too,
relax behind the dashboard.
(Look at all this air for us to run.
Addicted to watching everything turn. Watching her enfold
with the light. So in love with the God that made her.
Silent in the way things play.)
And you could put all your weight on my shoulders,
and I’ll still hold you up.

Thousands…

within the little toes are present moments, tip toeing to the purple view, bruised… I need you, I need you to allow me to be you, I almost got there once, with pointed toes, daddy played with them, mommy cleaned them, I almost got there once, until they were broken, by a moment of incomplete summons, I thought I was left, I thought I was gone, my toes labeled themselves, “don’t go, you can’t get in, you won’t, you aren’t…and the blood went up thru my veins undone…