The Poetry Marathon

Hour 5 poem

MY NEW FRIEND

Suddenly I saw flashes of light
I thought the heavens have now descended on earth
My laptop started beeping
Crazy signals and funny codes light up its screen
A strange page opens
Asking me to write what’s in my mind
I asked it,” Who are you?”
It said that it was a program who can generate human like responses
I became curious,
I asked it a few questions,
It was better than my husband
Generated more romantic slogans than him
It could give me expert advice
On whatever was asked,
Give me innovative recipes,
Make me laugh
Write essays, poems, stories for me
Do you know who I am talking about?
It is none other than
Artificial intelligence,
Our friend CHAT GPT.

POEM BY
SHREYA SURAJ

Mystery of the Painting in the Garden

Sarah was so angry it hurt my heart.
Yes, her Pierre was flagrant, hyperbolic, gregarious,
But he’d never before brought home a model to paint.

Here in her home.
This special place.
Thank God the children are away.

Slim, blond, vivacious, the intruder’s energy mirrored Pierre’s.
Now they were hiking, now repairing the fence.
When walking, her pace mirrored his.

I crept to the garden, purple with flowers, to see the painting –
Tender and passionate, that one bloomed on the canvas
As a goddess come to light.

Pierre dead? Such magnificence gone?
Now Sarah is arrested –
The poison bottle, her fingerprints on it.

But wait – the poison is different.
It’s the foxglove, found in the garden
Gathered by that one, added to his tea.

She could not tolerate Pierre’s love for Sarah,
devotion to their family.
If she couldn’t have him, then no one else could.

Hour 5

Honesty

Authentic, forthright,

Trusting, believing, confiding,

Even a little white lie causes damage,

Mendacious

V- Visions

Bronzed skin catches dying light

Muscles flex, heaving, at the end of the chase

Her breath slows, though she sits anxious still

She waits for the wood to darken–

she moves best in the moonlight

A familiar bush sits to her left

and she smirks, pinches a berry and crushes it in her teeth

A curious wind twists through the trees

and the light shifting in the foliage

bounces, echoing opalescence

through the heaviness of night

The wild woman embraces

this chosen disorientation, and

falls into the fragrance

of jasmine and pine

The moon focuses its glow upon

her sun-beaten brow, and she directs

her gaze toward the stars

drinking in their milky glow

We’re All Human Here

Minds ablaze
With new ideas, exciting dreams
Pains of past hurts and regrets
Confidence, self doubt

Bodies with perfect hair
Or resistant to being tamed
Full of energy, limber, flexible
Aching, aging, limited

Lives filled with joy
Dream jobs, 9 to 5 drudgery
Going through the motions
Making each day worthwhile

Wondering who will miss us
Will we be missed at all?
Grateful for every blessing
Jumping at every opportunity

Commanding the stage, a strong presence
Uncertainty, mind blanking, stage fright
Hitting every mark, every line
Struggling to keep up, forgetting the steps

Support from family and friends
Abandoned by those we give our hearts to
Finding love, securing it
Giving love, no reciprocation

Living in a city high rise
Enjoying the quiet of the countryside
Cold mountain air freezing lungs
Hot desert air sticking to skin

Abuses coming straight at us
Lashing out at others
Lifting up those around us
Tearing them down, intentionally or not

So many varieties of people
Different spectrums and walks of life
But the fact of the matter is
We’re all human here

Puppeteers

Puppeteers  (Poem 5)

 

 

suspicious muddy boot prints

brazenly left and obviously

meant to be seem

unless the perpetrator

wanted to throw us off

the track of what’s really the score

 

or maybe it was someone

so oblivious that they

were just bumbling into

another heist or maybe

their first one since being

so clueless you’d think they’d be caught

 

or maybe this is a metaphor

and our lives are that house

 

and we are pawns in the game

of those pulling the strings

of puppets we vote into office

and buy our stuff from

 

that don’t make it that hard

to see their boot prints

all over the labor we’ve

done to try to create

what we think as a better

life as they pull the strings

tighter and we can almost

feel our limbs constrict

while forces we can’t control

tell us what to do.

 

 

hour five; Clear-Cutting

I don’t know why I said what I did.

I wasn’t even thinking of how to cut you down.  What am I saying?

Your indifference fuels me, forces me to sputter.

Wound tight, like a brand-new rubber ball

bouncing my mouth off, my words hitting hard

Everything I said was true, but how I said it was wrong

A one-sided conversation hewed at with a rusty ax, I couldn’t explain myself

All night I waited to hear it fall,

Come morning it plays over and over again,

changing each time I replay it.

I want to clear-cut the whole forest

Make way for better things, if anything, sunlight.

I was going to apologize, but you needed to be cutdown.

It’s a Mystery

It’s a Mystery

 

How did it get here,

this tiny virulent alien?

Spied upon for years,

somehow managed to shift,

contort, leave its confines

for new, better living conditions.

Detectives worldwide search

for clues to its escape.

Did it find a map or was it just lucky?

Who were its accomplices?

Bats, pangolins, monkeys,

creatures scurrying along rainforest floors,

captive birds under stress in crowded cages,

lab technicians under stress in crowded cubicles

will never tell its secrets.

It lives among us.

Finding blame, seeking justice

won’t return it to its origin.

 

Sue Storts

09/02/2023

Hour 5: Little Girl Lost

Excuse me, but can you help me out?

You see, I swear she was right here

Right where I left her

Freckled faced, dishwater blonde

Grass stained knees, teeth too big, legs too short

Heart as big as the ocean

Curious, hopeful, trusting

Blue eyes open wide to a world of possibilities

Dreams bigger than her small corner of the world

You see, I went on ahead

I promised to come back for her some day

But I got lost along the way

I got lost in chasing those dreams down dead end streets

I got distracted by the promises made by those who did not deserve that trust

Curiosity outweighed caution, hope was replaced by despair

My blue eyes are too clouded by tears to see anything apart from impossibility

My knees are scraped and bloodied

My teeth broken on screams that no one hears

My heart drowns in an ocean of what could’ve been

My freckles are replaced with age marks and my dishwater blonde has faded to grey

So now, I have come back

I have come back to find that piece of me I left behind for a rainy day

The piece of me who remains innocent, unjaded, untarnished by all this life has done to me

I have come back to reclaim her, to remember

What it feels like to be young, hopeful, trusting

To dream….

So, can you help me out?

You see, I swear she was right here…..

 

Prompt Five – So Close

Prompt for Hour Five

Text Prompt: Write a mystery poem. The crime could be real or imagined. The poem could be clue based or narrative. The details are up to you.

 

So Close

 

‘Oi, Oi, what do we have here,’

Deep breathy voice behind me, quite clear

as I picked up the pace, not looking back for fear.

It was dark, and my phone was deader than

the summer, which had given way to winter.

Bypassing autumn completely.

But I stray, had been a long day and I was on my way

Home.

Keep walking, don’t talk to strangers.

Don’t flirt with dangers,

I said to self as I had said many times

many years ago, to growing children.

Avoiding wet slippery leaves

I considered breaking into a trot.

Though, obviously not.

It had been four decades since I last trotted.

I thought I saw a van drawing abreast.

Imagination, pictures in my mind, a Netflix fest.

Me shoved into van, driven away to warehouse,

Shackled and left to rot… I began to trot.

‘But who would want to kidnap you,’

The smarter side of my brain taunted?

Who would want a fat, funny, female in her fifties?

Tap on my shoulder, my shriek made the van drive faster

till I saw the red taillights disappear round the corner.

‘Madam,’ said Mr OiOi.

Older than me. Fatter than me. Out of trotter than me.

‘Madam,’ you left your scarf in the train.

Handing it to me along with my sanity.