The Poetry Marathon

I’m a speck on the floor trampled by almost all. I’m a ding in a car door waiting to be buffed out. I’m nobody, nothing viable, no value, no meaning. Just a modern day slave and flunky. Just a means to an end for some who claim to love me. A wisp caught in a vortex of wind going round and round no one knows I’m there. Left here in this one place while others sped away to live their lives leaving mine in vain.

just no one, nobody to some who claim to love me. A pebble laying under a pile of rock on an abandoned shore. A scorned and almost lifeless form kicked on the head and dropped when I was born. Left here in this place to suffer while others sped away. Left me in limbo to rot in hell but But God is watching I pray to him.

I’m nobody plain and simply no one. Left here to die unhappy. But I pray, pray, pray to the Lord and HE shall set me free. I’m someone to HIM. I know God loves me. HE will lift me up and guide me to happiness. Someday I’ll walk, not speed away. And the difference will be respect for I’ll never neglect those who claim to love me as they have done to me. For although to them I’m simply nobody but I know that I am love.

You’re Chinese!
You’re Chinese!
You’re Chinese!

The words stung
Even though
They were true

I’m Chinese
I cried to
My mother

She said yes
You are and
That boy’s not

I ran back
Boasted I’m
Chinese, you’re not

The boy cried
And ran to
His mother

My heart swelled
I went home
I’m Chinese!

Text Prompt:

Image Prompt:

By Frank Ching

“This way, beautiful,” he whispered, not there.
Hands imagined intertwined
as pines mist our morning air.

Glories still asleep lead a pleasant dream
into cosmic light – a fire hiding
beyond our sphere unseen.

Kisses! Oh, kisses as we laugh and play
in busy days imagined.
I wish, in my naivete.

I grew up feasting
my eyes on the hypocrites
Their speeches heightened

And they grew grey hairs
feeding from the swamp, stomach
wars and woes, shame void

The swamp had been a
haven where harvests of deceit
heaped up for years long

The hypocritic
rises out of the shamed swamp
their feet sank deeper

I am growing still
witnessing how time migrates
against them, with cuffs

*Inspired by the text prompt

T          h        e       r       e

 is              no               way.

  I       can     get    back   there.

   I      am      not     a      shadow.

   I    cannot   cast  myself    so thin.

        A           veil          of          darkness.

     I         am           more       than     that.

      A               whole                    silhouette.

          A                      solid                            form.

             Bones  and  blood   with  a  positive    charge.

         Your    white  walls  cannot   contain   all  of me.

          A     figure   of       darkness        before         me.

         Always  on one foot.      Unsure if you want to stay.

            What     dues    have      you     paid    to   see    me?

               What               do                   I               owe          you?

            You   are   not    the     sun.      I    am     not     the    moon.

             I hang  here  empty-handed.    You think you came prepared.

               There  is  no chance  of rain.     Nothing more to see from where

                   you   are.      Go   on.         Find   a    way.        Meet    me at the top.

We are no longer flying
the flag of our country, we are picking
bodies, dead bodies of innocent
brothers and sisters; protesters.

The land that grew us is now thirsty,
it’s drinking our blood- those who died
of malaria: 100
those who died of hunger and malnutrition: 400 & 300
toddlers have lost their tenderness, their mothers lost
too much happiness, she couldn’t nurture her baby
on how to smile,

how to stay happy and grow beautiful.
Each family has lost too much, we are tired
we are still losing, we’ve lost people
we’ve lost dignity
our leaders are still drinking our blood,
we have lost our country.

© Àdèlé

After six decades,

how did I know so little?

I catch myself in

cellphone photographs,

cheek jowls still firm,

teeth bared, grinning

into the camera,

as if my problems were

invisible, nonexistent.

Behind me, a backdrop

of rivers and trees,

an endless spider web

of mountain trails

my spine could still navigate.

Meanwhile, a sky dome

hovered above, witnessing

everything I failed to see,

yet remaining silent.

I wouldn’t have listened,

anyway.  Eyes and ears

tuned to unconsciousness,

I walk the path, turn

my head for a moment,

and pose, while motion continues:

relentless, erasing my body,

blurring its lines like water.

The sad ladder I climb, quietly visible
on glinting walls, a vast canvased possibility,
the unstained imagination.

How alluring the mystery before words,
the images birthed in the fires of my soul.

How to paint them with the smudges
of calloused fingers. To bring color from inside,
to darken the boundaries set outside.

Perhaps it is better never to touch the rungs
but to stay in the eternal hint of wonder.

All my gifts will merely clutter this serene
clairvoyance that beckons the best of my soul.

Perhaps it is better to stand apart forever,
listen to the call, watch as my thoughts arise and fall,
contort, and reform.

There are no steps reaching high enough
to see over this seething storm,
unless I never bless its form
beyond the waves of my mind.

Handles retreating, disintegrating, impure.
Just the vast, blank world, a colorless universe
that contains all we could ever create.

I tell my story, from the genesis

Of Sarkin pawa like country song

On a patriots mouth. The radio

Flourishes in broken signals in a distance

That is yet to be of us,

My not yet [dead] father; perfume

In the world, whistles to the rhythm

Of a sad song.

I cannot let the evening take

My people away, I cannot sing

With  my peoples tongue,

I sway & sway, till the story goes

Far from my mouth

Even farther from being told.