The Poetry Marathon

Mom

Heartrending.
That is my final word on motherhood.
We discuss the joy enough, often it is small cuddles, slight touches.
They finally did it.
Got it
Great stuff.
But if it weren’t for the sadness
The unpreventable accident
The failed test
Fall of the bike
Skinned knee
Asking why the 98th time,
Would it the sweet be so sweet?
I doubt.
Joy is fun
Fuel helping us trip the Etsy fantastic
Instagramming up our best.
Curated best.
That can be nifty fun, kept in perspective.
It also helps them hold the joy when they are old and the wrinkles and gray hairs poke through.
Remember that fun time,
Oh right.
Yeah.
But the pain and sorrows are etched deep, carved in past muscle, straight to bone
No picture required there folks.
That’s the character building stuff.
We all got some of it.
That mixes in with the joy and it makes magic.
Not just sorrow they grow up
Frustration they learn the hard way
Harridness if being human and not an octopus.
I really need to be an octopus.
Not just first place trophies and group hugs either.
That cauldron of good and bad and this and that.
Man
That’s meaning.
Yep, that’s the stuff
That’s the mother’s fuel.
Heartrending.

Hour 23 (One Love)

Give thanks and praise to Yah
Lets get together and be alright
One Love, One Heart

Copyright(c)2022 Roxann Lawrence

Come along

Welcome to the land where the rains paint the heavens grey
Grey to an orchestra of trees that sway in rythm to the whistling of the east wind, a collaborative birthing of sweet melodies
Melodies so smooth halting time and space, bringing mind and taste to a place where rivers unite as lovers entwined.

Entwined into memories unwound reminding of a man once known, boy maybe
Maybe it was he who once stood at the precipice
Precipice upon which stood the platform that encouraged his Conversations with the stranger
Stranger was he who helped put his wonder asunder

Asunder became like an enchantment discarded. No, he will never forget the day

Day now unfolding to reveal the essence of the visitation.
Visitation now becoming a regular, leaving behind a tear or two which he shed on a daily.
Daily has now become the reminder with reasons for the boy in the man to always see the man in the boy as he peeks through the eyes of time.

Time, the gift he carefully stored away in his treasure chest…blessed.

Attack of An Apple (Hour 22, A Hall of Mirrors Hay(na)ku)

 

Attack of An Apple

‘Twas

two days

left ’til Christmas

when he dropped

me at

the

door,

leaving me

lost and lonesome,

a stranger in

an even

stranger

land.

People packed

like standing sardines,

trapped tightly in

a tin.

Panic

overcame

me, incapacitating.

Sweating, shaking, sobbing,

anxiety attacking inside

Apple Store.

As

we

left, he

asked would I

ever return on

my own?

“NEVERMORE!”

 

****A hay(na)ku is a three line poem where the first line consists of one word, the second line has two, and the third line is composed of three words. A reverse hay(na)ku is three lines composed in the opposite fashion, of three words, then two, and one word for the final line. In the 2019 Poetry Marathon, I created the “Mirror hay(na)ku” by combining a hay(na)ku with a reverse hay(na)ku. In 2020, I took things a step further by compiling five mirror hay(na)ku stanzas and calling it a Hall of Mirrors Hay(na)ku.****

Thread that knits together (hour 24)

Hope

single thread that knits

billions of hearts together as one

 

Single thread that sews

continents together as one village

Hope

 

HOUR TWENTY-FOUR ~ And The Truth Simply Rests

AND THE TRUTH SIMPLY RESTS

 

honesty doesn’t have to cut

“tough love” is a bully with a smile

there is space for a kinder truth

the curiosity to ask your anger

which raw unseen vulnerable face

he thrashes so fiercely to protect

 

so really query yourself in the heat

whether the flames are worth the ashes

and what can be lost forever to the cruelty

of misplaced rage disguised as love

or you’ll never know the tender touch of honesty

Burn it to the ground

We’ve gone around so many times now

& though we’ve gotten accustomed to it,

it’s hard not to think about what the fiery blaze

might portent for our future.

 

Would it bring about a shining tomorrow

filled with golden opportunities & endless pathways

to success? Or is it just another false prophecy designed

to provide us with an unreliable sense of security?

 

Looking through history, it didn’t work out well for those

who came before but they may have employed the wrong

strategies in their quest for the elusive tabula rasa.

 

In any case, there’s only one way to uncover the mystery behind

it all. So at some point, you either need to light up a match or accept

what existence has become and roll with the tide.

Done at last. I’ve struggled for the past few hours, but got it done. Will post the rest later today after some much needed rest. I slept in 45 minute intervals during the last couple of hours but now need real sleep. My cat has been with me all night. He would not sleep without me.

Prompt 24 (image)

A Poets Soliloquy

To sleep per chance to dream
Of words and rhymes
And schemes and chimes
Of twenty-four hours
In ivory towers
On creations not yet fit for print

Although wasted and wrought
Suicide we consider not
As foretold in that Shakespearian plot
But to slumber deep
Then awake from sleep
Ready to edit, rejig and tweak

 

 

My Mother’s Garden

My mother still plants flowers
In her garden every year

There are tomatoes and cucumbers
Pumpkins and squash
Figs and pears bend the branches of her trees
Herbs live outside the kitchen window

And every year there are flowers

Roses climb the fence
Daffodils and columbines in the front yard
An angel trumpet calls to heaven
And a Confederate Rose is at the bottom of the drive

My mother’s garden is nothing without flowers