The Poetry Marathon

Sancity of Shadow – Hour 23

He dances with my solemn self.

Replete and content to bide his time.

Watchful and waiting as a silhouette,

Severity in carried hibernation.

The slumber always ends with the ritualistic,

The greater offer of an unwilling supplicant.

Righteous Red, title of a song he ochestrates,

Waving his unseen hand in silence,  justified indignation of immoral flesh.

Dark intentions will coalesce, with the intangible stare that seethes within.

A shade of murk that fixes itself to me.

Love Is Salvation

cw: none

That’s the thing about love though,
isn’t it?
Love comes back, and no matter
how you bite and snip:
love comes, love lingers.
It lets you climb out of your shell.
And one day that canary flew –
it flew so far away,
so fast and so wild,
and it sang the whole time.
And all the cruelty that had burdened it,
all those harsh hands –
they were gone.
But the gentle hands found the canary again,
and the canary learned
it had always sung,
had always flown,
had always had everything it ever needed,
even though it was ripped away.

And it stilled eats black-ink-stained vellum flowers sometimes,
the hunger for words unable to escape it,
but it eats birdseed too,
and it sings,
and it flies with a flock.
And that’s love –
that’s the canary –
it is the final step in the story:
salvation.

Hour 8 : The Vertical Infinity

When I retire to my bed, the lights remain on.
Every night, I look up at the moon, thinking about how it seems like a small pool into which I may fall. I recall school trips and slices of chilled meats, as well as money returns and new lingo.

I meticulously prepare 500 meals in advance, seeking preparedness and freshness in my life.i long for new shoes, ones that can withstand wetness and leave a lasting impression.
I hope to have a curriculum vitae that garners plaudits and a salary that equates to thunderstorms.
I’d like to believe that some folks enjoy lives as grand as palaces, where bills are paid on time and bird sightings bring them delight.

During my spare time, I accumulate coupons and keep them in my wallet, only to forget to redeem them, a constant cause of anxiety that gnaws at me day after day.
I can feel my heart vibrating within me when I close my eyes.

 

2023 Hour 22: Mama speaks

All the days of my childhood,
Mama spoke three languages,
Effectively switching from
Tongue to tongue,
Reflecting mood,
Responding to situation.

Public, private, perverse Mama
Obscuring conversations,
Shutting out nosy neighbors and
Strangers on the train
With smooth, sinuous Spanish.

And then the real private Mama,
The one living in a four-room rowhouse
Surrounded by difficult husband and
Raising even more difficult children,
Insisting on English,
Teaching us to fit in.

Most fluent of all, though,
The language of silence.
Tightening lips,
Expressive brows lifting in peaks or
Crashing into valleys,
Dark eyes twinkling, narrowing,
Changing inexplicably, yet unmistakably.

Spanish, English, Silence.
Languages for the seasons of her life,
Communicating far more by
Her choices than words could
Ever say.

My Hats Off

This has been fun I’ll just have to return to read more of my fellow marathoners work. I plan to read and comment throughout the lifetime of the post’s because I want to read all and comment on most. I thank those for their words of encouragement. I appreciate the reads and hope the best for youse and your works. So this is my upfront and personal thank you. Good luck to all the future marathoners and kudos to all whether you made it through or not.

7 AM – Unrequited

Fickle fiend– vexed by

the push and pull,

your talons clutch my chest,

grasp my heart between beats,

and choke the life out of me.

 

Why do you long for me?

I want to let you go.

Could you berate me with anything but your love?

Just hate me.

 

Say your last goodbye and mean it.

I don’t need you to save me.

I just need you to believe I am enough on my own.

Just let me go.

 

creativity

creativity

 

embryo waiting,

writing: a life to be born,

who is the jury?

Prompt for Hour Twenty-Three

Text Prompt

Write a poem about a world that is not this one.

Image Prompt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina

Hour10

Pay, play, pray…

What do you choose?

Mail, male or whale?

How big do you dream?

2023 Poem Eleven

Remember that time you were a Beard and and you wanted him to actually be into you? Like actually factually, really into you as more than Just Friends? Turns out you were just a closeted trans dude whose kinda sorta mostly a guy but of course you had no idea that that was the case. You only knew that he should fall for you and it would have worked because his family really liked you and you’d become related to your best friend. You wouldn’t put the pieces together for another 10 years.

It wouldn’t have worked out in the end though. Turns out he’s an elitist Theatre Gay Stuck in Community Theater.