The Poetry Marathon

Hour 23- Estate – Image Prompt

Estate

The grand hall was overwhelming
With its arched walkways looming
The path to the ballroom was still
And chilled like winter despite the date
The footsteps echoed on stone tile
I could not help but wonder while
I walked through this grand estate
If I was the only one who walked
And ended up quite late
I kept stopping just to stare
At intricate stoneworks and lighting
Marveling at the care put in
To the massive structure
In fact when at last I reached ballroom’s floor
I was just in time to hear
The melody’s last strains
The party ended before I arrived
Even though it had been for me.

 

The Gnomes Play

Fairies rest on mushroom chairs. Knock, knock rings

and who’s there echoes through the lonely tree glen.

What If It’s Us?

It’s sub-conscious,
no one deliberately thinks this way

but it is a narrative that cannot be changed
until it is changed by force

Until it is thrust in front of us
and our world come shattering around us
like a glass house wherein

someone

we don’t know who

threw a stone.

Life has a way of taking the things we care about most.
And we have a way of seeing it happen
looking the other way,
and knowing that could never be our own reality

I’m here to tell you that it can.

Every nightmare
every greatest fear
every public issue
started somewhere.

Hindsight is 20/20,
that’s what they say.
I wish I had taken the last person

who told me
“count your blessings”
“it can happen to anyone”
seriously

because when the unthinkable happened,
I wished I had heeded those warnings.

I wish I had asked myself sooner,
“What if?”

Hour 24: Two poems for Dad ( I miss you:(

Dear Dad,

Why did you hav to go? I miss you so.

You died with a smile. But when I found you with your last breath your mouth was  ajar. You were warm to the touch as I turned you over to dress you and your nails were perfect like seashells.

We dressed you in a grey cotton shirt Bob Marley shirt and a black sport leisure pants I was keeping for you when you came back to visit me out west.

I want to try things to be closer to you.

Im not a smoker not I ever be like Clinton, can I puff without inhaling?

I’m no longer shy to try. Or at least that’s what I say.

Of course I need a sacred experience. In the meantime I’ll read the books your did, maybe not as judiciously as you.

I’ll try an audio book so I can also do the exercise routine that you created and taught me.The routine  you are so fond of doing five days a week.

I’m still a pro at he five minute plank.

My tummy needs some tightening because like you I have a sweet tooth. Thanks for calling  me to meal plan and always talking me about my health. It meant so much to me hearing your  voice. I knew you were tired and now I  understand that extreme fatigue and even slight dehydration are serious signs before an all systems down failure.

You did not experience pain. We wanted to make your bed as comfortable as could be. They tried to give you medicine in excess. We know you needed the rest.
Your visions were vibrant and vidid. Your visions clear.  We stayed with you at home till the very end. Mom and both my brother and I did not understand how water, the giver of life, was not longer allowed.

This was another one of the harsh realities.

I would love to do more than a meditation with the family.  You are my best student. I willl be a teacher, a photography teacher like you. What a coincidence. I want to travel too. I love the world and learning about science, nature, and culture  the threshold of the esoteric. Please continue to send me signs as the eye are over and my ear  is too.

I love you.  We all do. Sending love from the three of us.

Isolation

The number of ways
I would like to lock myself away
are uncountable

Somewhere quiet
and isolated from the world
so I can get my head back together

Just the sound of the wind
the snow hitting the roof
and my own thoughts finally calmed

Bright Blindness (Hour 23)

The man at the traffic light was the genesis.
The blindness plunged him into a milky sea.
Then a lot more followed:
the car thief,
the fun-seeking lady,
the ophthalmologist,
even more.
In that deserted clinic wing
where they all ended up,
it’s a delight how Pramoedya Toer
made the doctor’s wife see
far into the story, until the end
when she finally drowned
in the milky sea of bright blindness.
It’s a delight how blindness
isn’t dark but milky
in This Earth of Mankind.

A book-to-poem on Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind

The King of the Copper Mountains

Once, I travelled very far.
I thought I might find the place
Where to earth there fall the stars.
Crossing wood and rising moor,
There I happened on a door.

Grand and old, with gold engraving,
Furred with moss and snail-jewelled,
At first I thought my eyes were failing.
I weary knocked upon the frame,
Which softly asked me for my name.

I replied in great surprise
And from within the door unbolted;
There before my very eyes
A hare stood cautious, trembling.
And in I wandered, stumbling.

A gentle passage, sloping down
Silk and silver on the walls,
I followed that hare underground
And at the levelling below
My footsteps, helpless, had to slow.

Great bronze arches overhead
As trees, with emeralds set for leaves
And over all the mountain red;
Silken banners trailing through
Like waterfalls of sapphire blue.

Cosy rugs beneath my boots,
The patterns bright with valiant tales,
The weave as thick as ancient roots
And across this vibrant floor
Lay every beast of land and shore.

Above them all, a kindly face,
Eyes so old and sparkling
And suddenly I knew the place.
I settled near the old king’s knee
And told my story wandrously.

That night I’ve never slept so well;
In rooms upon the mountain peak,
Horizons over every fell
For me to follow in my sleep
And stars above his mighty keep.

———————————————————————————————————-
Title and theme taken from ‘The King of the Copper Mountains’ by Paul Biegel

Hour 21: Question of Character

Tracy suffered traumatically

after witnessing Brad beaten to a pulp

Kevin couldn’t keep shocked eyes off

the frying pan on the fire

Roger wondered why Wanda looked so happy.

“I just want to die laughing.”

Not all eggs are in the same basket.

Countdown–Hour 23

1:19 AM here

Quiet has returned to the space outside my window

My leg vibrates

shaking the last of its caffeination into the floor

The desk jiggles

Neither of us so confident

of our support above the garage

Prescription drugs ever-present watch

from their cloistered plastic box

Snacks galore will survive for many days hence

The Apartment Across the Way is vacant now

unlike one year ago

more could be said but

suffice to say that

some of the darkness has passed

Please, landlord, burn some sage in there

for the sake of all of us remaining

 

2022 Poem Seventeen

Untitled

 

How many stars had

to perish for us to be

intertwined bodies?