The Poetry Marathon

Babajee
R’leyhan
Elephooctopotomaus
Tyranopuffalumpasaurus
Tefataplatapilla

Djzimann
Yeto-opthalamosaurus
Endoshnuffleuckapuss
Ridge

Silly names, true love,
Real love’s inspiration’s call,
Wherever you lay.

Is it too late to turn back now?
If only we knew how to fly,
Do you think you can show me how?
Through the mirror we go just one more time.
Paint the white roses red
Please hold onto your head
You’re not the mad one
Put your hand in mine
We can make it out of this, just hold on tight.
Only the white rabbit can tell us what happened to the king.
You can be queen…I don’t want to be she.
I am king.

There is something so appealing to a story of a man and a woman,

isn’t it?

But the story can never be simple; toss in domineering mother element,

an old friendship, a new romance. Give our protagonist flaws.

Make them suffer. Beauty is in suffering, isn’t it?

Then when the end comes and it’s happy, it’s all the sweeter, isn’t it?

But isn’t that just goddamn wrong.

There is no light at the end of the rainbow, no right answer.

Say the story slightly misses the mark; the heroine walks off

without a lover’s spine supporting her

(though we all love a steamy scene or two with the opposite lead)

and goes into the sunset, loveless, but lovely in her pain and power,

goddess-like, and seizes her own, and gets that ring for herself,

to be herself, to connect with a bigger world,

wouldn’t that just be something, rather than the many other angel stories

where the heroine never learned to walk alone at all.

Toddlers and New Yorkers, not always so different.
How so?
Both stomp about their worlds in a big hurry.
Toddlers run after each other
Away from you
Into danger
With a gusto
Like a commuter trying to cram on before the train doors shut.

The busy and stomping steamroll over toes, bruise feelings
No intentionality.
Just living their big world.

But sometimes one falls down.
Another will go over and pat them on the head
Or on the back
Offer a hug
You think,
Gosh, they are human after all.

content warning: intense and emotional, talking about feeling overwhelmed

but fuck, a poet’s what i am –
i’ve got the rhythm, the way
of the words, the metaphor and
the twist, the uneven rhyme
and i move and manipulate it
’til it looks and sounds perfect.
and somehow on the other side
it feels a lot like i can’t do this –
can i do this?
drowning and flying can feel identical
and i am doing both, opening my wings
and becoming myself while i
collapse
there’s all too much – it’s all too much
i am screaming into the abyss
and the cruelest irony is that the abyss
does not scream back.
it swallows my voice and my echo and it burns it up,
fuel for its fire,
i am collapsing and so is my foundation.
when i’m gone what will be left?
will my words say anything of me?
will there be anything worthwhile in the words –
these words, my words,
the words that keep me sane, keep me grounded,
that are the way i express myself to the world.
or will i fade into anonymity and nothing
and leave nothing behind?
when all is said and done
you gotta wonder
which is better.

How does one deal
with storm clouds
on the ceiling
when an open umbrella
will just bring more
bad luck?

Love is a strong gravitational force,
In which we sometimes put out of comprehension.
Not much admiration,
Not much inspiration,
Not much intuition,
On the side of the lovers.

Probably, we read love so mistakenly,
Because it is not worth to be read,
But felt.
.
.
.
Writer: M.E. Flores
Hour23, Text Prompt23

Fighting to live
Living to fight
It’s relentless

Like the rubber tree plant
Standing firm never moving
Freedom always freedom
Never moving standing firm

Dying to live
Living to die
It’s relentless

Shooting through bamboo

Jungles’ new landlord arrives

Monkey finds lost shoe

Every year we have this one day
Twenty-four hours where we come to play
We write, we stress, we get little sleep
As we compose all our poems
Some silly, some deep.
We have camaraderie with our fellow mates
We keep each other busy, and finally awake.
With bleary eyes we write, and write some more
And finally as our fingers start to curl
We rejoice to be living in this brave new world.