The Poetry Marathon

Lavender Fields hour 1

Lavender Fields

Sleep came easy last night
our old sheets know us well
softened to bare threads yet
we can’t bear to part with them
just yet.

Yesterday, I found a new scent
in my favorite laundry detergent
and a matching softener —
it had me happy-dancing in Aisle 5
of the supermarket. Shoppers
stopped, looked for a camera set-up,
was this a commercial for a new product?
and curiosity drew them down the aisle.
I had stopped dancing by then, exclaimed
my delight in finding Lavender Fields,
screwed off the softener cap and passed
the bottle around like green-label Jack
at our family reunions.

By the time, I was checking out,
an announcement overhead, somewhat
like the ‘blue light’ special in reverse –
Gain Detergent and Fabric Softener
in new Lavender Fields is sold out
but we are ordering more. Please leave
your name and phone number
at the customer service desk and
we’ll contact you when we get more in.

I chuckled, did a mini-dance
as I swiped my credit card, raced home,
and for the first time in my life, looked
forward to doing laundry. Stripped the bed,
grabbed towels, and sniffed as I poured,
waited through the wash cycle, dryer time
and made the bed to heavenly scent.

Yes, sleep came easy last night.
Today I’m going back to the store
to add my name to the waiting list;
I need a case of this intoxicating elixir.
Lavender Fields for me – sniffff
forever.

~ J R Turek Hour 1

Between prompt 1 image

Between

In the lowness of landlocked clouds
is the house between
faded out spruce
a beacon
a warning
or waiting for prey in passing cars?

The Road to Somewhere

 

The Road to Somewhere

 

 

I made a small gesture

by paying the ten cent toll

on the trip that all my learning

prepared me for though

I didn’t know it at the time.

 

The small entry point to Canada

welcomed me to the rest of my life

though all I saw was a stop along the way.

 

The couple in the front seat

had picked my up at a

homeless shelter in a church

where an earlier ride had dropped

me off after giving me a ride

in the hardest rain of my life.

 

I could tell he didn’t want to

take me in but felt too guilty

not to as I knocked on his window

in a rain so hard he had

to stop on the freeway.

 

The kind people in the church he took

me to warmed up the put away meal

and found me a ride to Canada with

a kindness that shrouded me in love.

 

It was a sunny morning as we passed through

the border post and further down the road.

It wasn’t until recently I realized that maybe

someone else or maybe me on a different day

would have given up and taken a bus back home

on that first day that I left my old life behind.

 

I didn’t know life without making plans.

I didn’t know each day can be its own story.

 

Perhaps the biggest lesson in all my

studies and talking with buds

was to forget everything

and start each day as if

I didn’t know anything.

 

 

Hunger

Imagine

the late 1980’s
United States of America

A gathering

with linking hands

from coast to coast;

 

an unbroken chain

of communities

linked despite

differences;

 

Hands Across America

 

in common cause

a benefit to feed hungry Americans

a frozen frame

captures my hand

reaching

to Link with

my neighbor

 

outwardly different

age difference

race difference

Coming to wholeness

in common cause

 

“Bring me your hunger

your weak

your weary”

 

United as Americans

welcoming Dreamers, refugees,

asylum seekers,

 

Hands linked in community

Abundance offered

Complete

Unbroken

Together
Whole

A peach pit inseparable

the soul of the fruit

succulent promises

to quench hunger and thirst

 

Fast Forward;

Today

hands separate

a peach pit

split open

one hand clinched

another with offerings of

fruitful abundance

enough to share

Americans divided

in ideology —

“no I will not share this fruit

get your own and leave

you’re not welcome to feast—

Away with you

and your hunger,

weariness,

weakness—

Now

imagine a future

a common cause;

peach orchards

from coast to coast

fruit in abundance

Now offerings

Feeding

hunger

quenching thirst

hands linked once

again in

Common Cause

tying up the untied

now United again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marathon 2023 Poem #1 Let the Journey Begin

Let the Journey Begin

Didnt it really begin a long time ago?                                                                              Even before I was born?

Back when we were merely stardust                                                                                  Back when heavens ruled the world

Circling round the sun,
we all come home again.

Sylvia Plathe Speaks toMe

one particular poet speaks my words

she resonates in my consciousness

I carry her thoughts as one with mine

Sylvia Plath’s Colossus is me, not her father as one might think

fragmented like puzzle parts, my mind has also tumbled down

I hear this constant alarm in my head “I shall never get you put together entirely, pieced, glued, and properly jointed”

I pray for healing, a lifting of my emotions

but like a soft whisper it eludes me

 

 

 

In the In Between

Here is the place in the in between

Where hardened trees guard the softness of hearts

Where moonlight traces a satin screen

And time casts its questioning shadow

 

Here is the place in the in between

Where feelings pause in the dew of dampened dreams

Where the past taps a desperate reminder it’s here

And what will be hovers in a hopeful haze

 

Here is the place in the in between

Where tepid souls breathe a placid peace

Where paths fuse in a canary coloured hue

And the guidance of grace is granted

 

 

Hour 1 “Another Today…”

Hour 1

9/2/2023

“Another Today…”

 

No alarm called –

Just eyes now aware

wandering, wandering yet another

mornings path…

 

“T’is a chill morning – ”

freshly-stale coffee in hand,

in mind…

“- to start this …day -”

echoes float …somewhere within,

somewhen within,

“a morn of remembrance,

yet again…”

 

…And a view of coffee’s heat expanding away as

grey-blue sky, early morn ground mysts – intertwine

and all meander toward transparency then beyond

to a never-filling emptiness

that patiently awaits our arrival.

 

Leaning…

leaning…

arms finding rails –

body on auto-pilot arriving

where feet have worn the place of pause.

Ghostlets of cars wandering concrete-ribbons…

barely aware

though still within notice.

 

The mind …touches… the echoes

of remembered moments.

Eyes glaze over with years long gaze

into other whens…

 

Sounds become …yesternows…

and time …time…

enwraps my senses anew.

 

I no longer wish…

life just IS –

beginning moments

again

…of you.

 

Chris

(C) Chris Twyford 9/2/2023

 

War I

         War I.

 

I peel the night from its mothers skin: darkness,

 barricade my mouth with smoke like letting

Letting euphoria-filled bodies fall into

A synchronous rest-sleep —slip into reality —

I, prayers by the mouth of a wound. I,

Wound by the mouth of a country. I, country

Beside the open-milky body of water —pour

Into the silence, pour into the noise.

I cast my suffering, atop the brown

Ruin of a war, I sing, in silence

Like lovers, on the verge of death.

Beginnings

There are very few true beginnings
Maybe only one.

Changes masquarade as beginnings
With or without ends.

But they feel important, beginnings,
And we mark them well.

Wait, countdown, prepare for beginnings
Celebrate the start.

May the impulse of this beginning
Last until the next.