The Poetry Marathon

our love is a choice

we made many years ago

we are still at it

Chained by time and
choice, they move forward
slower now, but still

together.

The strains of Danny Boy

play shrill outside my window,

my mind fills with unbidden images

of sunlit glades and rocky, fissured shores,

the sounds of battle cries, thoughts of long-lost loves.

It must be in my blood,

this land my eyes have not yet seen

for whene’er I hear the bagpipes played

– a sound some cannot bear –

my heart is stirred and set afire.

I must needs travel one day hence

to survey those sweet heathered moors,

the deep dark lochs, the fertile glens,

the forests filled with fairy folk,

the haunted towered castles from antiquity.

My familial roots lie in this Celtic land

of fidelity, acceptance, inclusion,

morality, modesty, humour.

I’ve inherited their inner fire

that stirs when anyone is wronged.

Oh Caledonia,

the pipes, the pipes are calling me,

from glen to glen, and down the mountain side.

I bid you bide, ‘til I arrive

upon the ebbing tide.

Everything will change they say, half

Are doomed, ventures that end nowhere

Or bear fruit that turns poisonous.

Outdated, based on slavery, dominant

Wills that trade freedom and sex for

Comfort and banality.

To beat the odds then, to have rolled the

Dice without realizing you were in the casino,

Is to be thankful and pray the house doesn’t win.

The only catcall whistle is the squeaking of the local grocery store’s automatic door echoing into the almost empty parking lot when a few of us stragglers are making the almost-forgot milk run at 10pm 

And we all compare neighborhoods by how many traffic lights they have, how many drunks there are next door, how wide the shoulders are 

And the asphalt has memory here, more specifically the potholes, that we timed on the school bus like advanced physicists because if we got it just right, we could fly 

And the tax dollars take decades to trickle into road repairs letting our childhoods linger a while before they are paved over  

And the boredom is a tractor tempting our engines, it’s all gonna take as long as it takes, and what are we in such a rush for?

Small towns move slow but fear rest 

The clean unclobbered hands a sign of shame 

And the forests have needles of metal on their floors to accompany the beer bottles and the cigarettes. Nothing grows from this kind of compost it just sits and waits and waits 

And they were going to make ‘Born to Run’ our state song 

Springsteen had grown up in a small town like mine 

Wrote about his father becoming one with the local dive barstool 

About the teens who married first loves because there weren’t others to find  

In the final vote on TV, a Senator stood up and asked a question:  

Why would you choose for an anthem of your home 

One that sings only of running from it?  

And just like that, every radio dial dived in protest 

And the kids in the abandoned viaducts sprayed the chorus in graffiti notes 

And the older couple that owns the farmstand began to waltz 

And the cornfields became soundwaves from the river to the summer camp 

And the diner windows quivered in syrup 

As the old methodist church choir switched faiths a moment in praise of our small, our stuck, our one-road masses 

But the vote was lost anyway, so we shook our heads over bad coffee 

And spat one resounding, tobacco coated ‘Cityboy…’

He cannot know 

That running and arriving have no meaning 

If you do not know deeply the soil from which you started

That town which, despite you never choosing it back 

will still hold you close when you return. 

The meandering rivulets forming the stream of my consciousness
belies the constraints of time
“Turn in your quiz!”
The smooth feel of the purple printed paper
scented with the toxins
and addictive taste of the ditto copy machine,
clicking each paper that steals my time.
The headiness of the scent linger, coating my sinuses as I breathe it into my lungs.
Carl T.Johnson is both a name and a place.
Did you know?
Breathe, I have as much time as there is time.
An analog timekeeper is not a referee, is he?
You’ve got this, just use your superpower.
Stand like you are using your superpower.
Stand up.
Stand.
The sharp blade of the pen duals
The silver embossed edging of the paper slices easily through the moonlight room
floating under the writer as she hovers in concentration
Bloody Ass closes her eyes
gathers wisps of knowledge and coherent thought
She has finished within the time frame.

Feeling the same,
wanting to be together,
I live far away
but you hear my
beating heart,
I love you,
I am vulnerable
for exposing
my heart and mind,
but I accept this fate
because I chose you
back then and
I keep choosing you,
I feel it deep down,
I want you next to me
in this life and the next one.
I want to hold hands
and feel your warmth
next to mine,
skin with skin,
lips with lips
and my chest
against yours.

It’s like ripples in the water but, I’ll be honest, it’s not linear

Sometimes they move and move again and the confusion runs in

and I’m running out but am I actually sinking deeper?

I’m drinking coffee or maybe it’s drinking me…
Time often feeling like pain, a look at the clock is jarring in most ways

I’m hurting and healing

But how do I sit still

Love is a Geppetto, and

Wooden-mouthed dummies wish to be real –

To smell musk sharp and familiar;

To taste the salt of flesh;

To hear damp, ragged breath against the ear;

To see beads of sweat hanging from the hairline;

To drag fingers along solid dreams.

A thousand Pinocchios roam the countryside 

Running from Geppetto

Slamming into each other

in a mad attempt to finesse Love from its hiding place.

Because of contusions, Love evades them.

“I am ready for Love. Why are you hiding from me? I’d quickly give my freedom to be held in your captivity.”

At night, the desperate babbles of loneliness sound 

Cacophonous screams in cotton drift down to the streets.

Pinocchios lie to themselves during the day about their deplorable state, and no one knows

Except Natalie, who being a night walker, will promptly report the plight of the loveless faction, the pandemic of empty beds.

That bitch can never ignore a good scream.

Love hates manipulation.

Jina lako nani?

Puppets hate to be played with.

Jina langu ni Upendo.

Geppetto sits in the corner carving wood until his fingers bleed.