The Poetry Marathon

Sleepless (poem 2)

 

I couldn’t sleep tonight

Whenever I closed my eyes

All I saw was haze and an endless alley

 

I couldn’t sleep tonight

Whenever I closed my eyes

I heard someone calling out my name

 

Where was I?

Who was it?

Why was I so restless?

What answers is my mind seeking?

 

I slept peacefully after long tonight

Wherever my eyes reached

There were wildflowers in full bloom

 

I slept peacefully after long tonight

Wherever my feet touched the ground,

There were green fields with the sounds of birds chirping and water flowing around me

 

I knew where I wasI

knew who I was seeking

My restlessness replaced by peace

The answers my mind was seeking were provided by nature

Hour 2: WE SURVIVE

Ten years ago, yes, I was five years old.
Ten years ago, with hair like wine, she told
Me that she loved me. And ten years ago
My heart shattered in a half moon’s  cold glow.

A decade back I broke my neck to make
A dime. A dream is something you can take
Too far. Ten years ago my father passed
Away. And then my mother. And I asked

Myself how much I looked like them, or how
Much I wanted to. It’s hard to shed now
The decades I have pulled behind me. And
Ten years ago I’ll be breathing sand.

Philosophers and gods brocade our lives,
While decade after decade we survive.

Ten miles over the . . . (Prompt 2)

The greetings
social media onslaught
best wishes, memes
‘speed limit birthday
plethora of road sign pics
55 M-P-H
vintage
‘Stay alive, drive 55’ ads

Amused, bemused
not feeling the urgency,
amusement that just
fifty had provided
no black balloons
taped to my work desk
no grim reaper cards
I could only remind folks
fifty-five isn’t old . . .
if you’re a tree
to laughter only my own

Now, just a few torn-off
calendar pages from
the big six-five
I wonder more about
how much future remains
career wise
opportunities abound yet
I am limited, it seems
in eyes of others

Experience, wisdom be
workplace damned
‘times have changed?’
So have I

Old friends and peers
same vintage
spouting woes of time
infirmities
same social medias
and newer ideations
more bitter, less willing
to see opportunity

My mailboxes
snail and electronic
filled daily with
insurance and sign-up
deadlines
sixty-five gifting me an
entirely new vocabulary
plan this, part that

Every month the
calendar flips I find
new reminders to
encourage those
who surround me that
sixty-five is coming
yeah,
but leave the angst to
someone else
come April, let’s all go
have a beer
you can bring a cake
I won’t even mind
if the frosting is black

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2023
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Poem Two: The Fifteen Dream

She knew what would happen and guessed at her wants,

They must be one and the same:

Find a good school, find a good man, take a new role,

Take a new name.

 

She strove for stage one, twelve years since age four,

Studying, perfecting the grade:

no late night parties, no stupid friends, always smart choices,

always what’s safe.

 

College was looming when he asked for a kiss,

Shocking her breath away,

Pause just a moment, pause for the feeling, but she’s not his,

but…

she won’t stay.

 

One kiss on her lips and the college years done,

What happens when the plan falls through?

Stop waiting for him? Stop wondering if? Find your own want?

Find a whole you?

An Existential Gallery —Hour 2

Seems Life

Provides

Incomplete Umbrellas

With Broken handles to

to “Handle Life”

in the Storms

of the

Certainties of Uncertainty

 

Seems Life
Provides

Shadows of Ladders

Arising

from the

Blank Abundance of Nothingness

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour 2: Neurology and the Trembling Soul

Above: prompt image

As I left I told an exhibition steward *how* I saw it
The paper
The threads
The impossibility of it
– flying – floating –
Held motionless
Yet ceaselessly moving
in a way that, to me
never ceased to loop, to move, to shift
boats bobbing in white water that wasn’t
As I struggled away sea-sick and swaying
I thought the artist might want to know
Know I could *see*
All artists
?I think?
Hope to convey a *way* of seeing the world
To share their inner world
So I sat there
– impossibly –
– improbably –
watching ‘paper birds’ float in an endless loop above a desk
…circling in, and round, and over…
unexpected, certainly
Yet a welcome thread
-of colour
-of joy
winding onward
through my tapestry of becoming

Below:
Gallery and exhibition referenced in the poem

Hour Two: Hey You

Hey, can you give me a sign?

I’m blind, so let me touch your murmuring lips,

While you preach transformation and dharma,

How suffering is alchemy

And change is the only guarantee.

 

Tell me how the brave belie temperance, detachment,

Indifferent to sideline cheerleaders, hope

Harvesters on megaphones blaring left,

Right, anywhere but straight through, and truth,

A man-made obstacle in a rearview mirror.

 

But I terror-sleep since the tank, strafed

By grimaces that swallow faces whole,

Beasts in uniforms tossing brown paper

Lunch sacks into a dark hole, its dank air

Like a fireless dragon’s last gasp, a hoarse whisper.

 

I reach for you, there in me, a space to blossom;

you, wizened ravage on shakier legs, and yet,

A stalwart heart, gilded by smoke and simmer,

Emerged from dingy light, a door exploding closed,

Booming me, an inverse perp walk bathed in moonbeam.

Decade

The woman she was ten years ago was doing

what she thought she should.

The marriage was over;

she’d known that for awhile.

If he hadn’t been so mean, she might have stayed,

even with the infidelities and the money problems

and all the rest.

 

It surprised her a little now

that she’d acted so quickly once the blinders fell off,

once she stopped pretending that he wasn’t two people,

one for her and another for the rest of the world.

Once he stopped pretending he was a man she could love.

Once he started being himself at home.

 

Looking back, she had to admit

she was kind of proud of herself that she’d gotten away so clean;

oh, it was terrible the first couple of years,

and even now, an occasional sweet memory would surface,

or she’d see a couple in a restaurant that reminded her of them,

and a sudden wave of loss and sadness would wash over her,

and she would feel utterly bereft.

 

But only for a minute.

 

After a minute, she’d remind herself

of the peaceful, good life she’d found in a new place

with her best people, and she’d smile,

knowing that she was still doing

what she thought she should.

 

Gena Williams

 

Through the Telescope Backward

Starling beats her wings on the porch roof,
blind to the open door.
Infant cries for the ball
rolled barely beyond her reach.
Seen from below, the ladder to the belfry
leads to utter darkness.

A decade younger me saw older age
in tones of grey and soot.
Now, sewn further with time’s needle,
I weave new doors,
come to a place that leads everywhere,
enfolded in the questions that can
make or unmake a life.

Inspiration

Here are bright lights,
Pools of reflections on the floor,
Handholds just out of reach.

Here is art you can’t see,
A form without face
And a step without destination.

Here are shadows without shade,
A gaze without presence
And the expectation of air-conditioned rain.