The Poetry Marathon

(Hour 20) 17.30pm-18.30pm. VISUAL PROMPT: a mattress bed in a flower bed

mattress bed in a flower bed

catching what i can : sleeping when & where & as i can : the odd dreams continue : this midday : confined to : a double mattress : made up as a bed : white sheets : in the middle of a garden : flowers already dying : wilting palms : providing : ineffective tigerstripe shade : in the distance : soft grey water : reflecting a tiny portion : of our heliorious : sun’s rays 

in my dream : i dream : of trying to sleep : lying on this : oddly placed : day lounge : but i can’t : knowing as i do : that 7 & 1/2 : earth minutes ago : the sun somehow : blinked entirely : out of existence : as if an enormous : intergalactic child : picked it up : like a marble : & popped it in : her pocket : before jumping on Einstein’s : beam of light : & riding away : stopping all the clocks : behind her

all except the one : which will : in a little less than 30 seconds : remove all light : & all gravity : from where i lie : on a white-sheeted mattress : in what was once : our solar system

Mr. Beethoven, I ode you one

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.” – Yogi Berra

O friends, please more of these sounds!
Let us shout more joyful cheers,
More cheers full of joy!
Joy!
Joy!
Joy, bright spark of these nine innings
Denizens of the baseball field!
Team-inspired we tread
Within thy white-lined diamond.
Baseball’s power re-unites
All that losing has divided,
All fans become brothers,
Under the sway of thy gentle swings.
Whoever has created
An abiding friendship
Or has won
An afternoon alone at a baseball game

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2022
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Second Breakfast – a nonet (hour 20)

I shall have a quick second breakfast

after all the words I wrote past

in between five poems last

snooze, yet not oversleep

bagels smeared with cheese

with coffee, take

keep awake

hand and

brain.

 

– Sandra Johnson, June 26, 2022

 

Hour 20 : The Watchtower

Soaked by the morning sun

The dark haze of ice

Sat at the watchtower

Not moving my eyes

 

A maze of days gone by

Not able to place time

Sunk in yesterday’s love

People talking in rhyme

 

The shadows making portraits

Like an artist’s stoke

Lost hues striking hard

Believe me it’s no joke

 

Like an eye of the pirate

Many times, many ways

Delirium working full time

The hidden side of my phase

 

‘Wher’ to go first?

Planning my first move

A need to set myself free

Get into the right groove

 

Sat at the watchtower

Thinking about life

As I lay my head down

Comes along in the time of strife.

16 The Cello and I

16     The Cello and I

 

I played the cello for a summer

I lugged it all around

Taking lessons from an expert

I was lucky to have found

 

Soon I noticed I was rotten

I didn’t practice very far

Instead I bought a ticket

To see virtuoso YoYo Ma

 

I felt bad for my instructor

She really cared a lot

And wanted all her students

To become talents on the spot

 

The cello left undaunted

Back to the rental shop it went

Now I listen to the masters play

Precious time well spent

 

You Sold Your Soul, Not Mine

Take the money and run
Around blocks
Running circles
Around greed
Wasting the fuel of
Your life force
Your destiny
Your integrity
Your fate
Wads of cash
You chase like a carrot
To put in holes like
Nails in a coffin
Trying to stir up fear
Another notch in the headboard
Where sleep does not come soundlessly
From your greed.
You believe me to have
A price on my head
And opted to try and sell my soul
Diminish my worth
But I rise like a Phoenix unafraid
From the ashes of who
Burned me…
But you burned yourselves down
With materialistic explosives.
Karma is my friend
And she will visit me
As she will you.
What you don’t realize, though,
Is that it wasn’t my soul
On the block for slave trade
Up for show on a market
A theater in a strategic
Coreographed play upon my soul
But yours…
Accepting the money from blood
Siphon it out through your veins
And watch, hidden on the sidelines
While lining your pockets
With my botched demise.
It wasn’t my soul used
As poker chips
You gambled away your souls with.
The price was never set
Upon my head
It was on your own.
So I ask you,
How much did your soul cost you?
How much compared to mine?
Loyalty in the eyes of green
Whereas I have accumulated
Riches beyond measure
My soul remains intact
Priceless.
You sold your soul for a pittance
What money doesn’t realize
Is that there is no price to mine
Money can burn holes in pockets
And holes within conscious
As you all have burned me
A wounding upon your heart I pray heals.
All I required was atonement for the wrongs
Honesty
But you chose to keep your darkness
Out of shame and repercussion
but Karma will find you
As she will find me
And when she does
She will know you
By the coals from the G’s
You heaped upon your own heads
By your own hands.

Apology to the Tree People  

Apology to the Tree People

 

Sorry.

Took you for granted.

Enjoyed your shade, birds,

green in spring, splendid colors in fall.

Learned about your xylem and phloem,

photosynthesis and reverse Krebs Cycle.

Didn’t think to get to know you.

Your lifestyles, cultures,

preferences, parenting styles.

Didn’t even bother to learn your names:

Aspen, Cherry, Ash, Fir,

Oak, Maple, Cedar.

I’m old now, trying to learn.

Humans are slow, but not as slow as trees.

 

Personal Prompt poem #hr 20 – Why I write

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

 

Why I write

I find it oddly comforting,
such a sweet release
oh so liberating
to have the courage to pen down my thoughts
my fears and to make sense of it all.

I write cause that is how I process life,
express myself,
it’s in my essence
and if you peeled back the layers
of my toughened exterior
you’d see a beating but bleeding heart
simply pouring itself.
Yearning to understand and to be understood.

I write because it’s the only way I am utterly honest
about the things I desire, things that I am afraid to admit to myself
I end up confessing on paper with a natural ease.

The lies I tell myself,
the encouragement I inspire within myself
my self-determination,
my anxieties and my random bursts of expression
make sense when I sit down to write.
I don’t condemn myself for all the things that make me who I am.
I hate myself a little less,
I can face the person staring back at me in the mirror.

On paper, I can be whoever I want to be,
without the fear of judgement
without any misgivings.
Safe space for expression and manifestation.

22~17

if you sank your fangs

into my cold dead soul

and made me immortal

would you be sorry?

Hour Twenty- watchtower

old ladies keep up

with the latest gossip

watchtower

 

Note: This poem is written using a text prompt posted during hour twenty.