The Poetry Marathon

Love of Cheese

Hour 10

What is the use of being a mouse?

If you can’t smell the cheese out?

Just before the sunset

Rick saw a big chunk of cheese on the kitchen table

 

Now the kitchen is locked

Keys tucked in the pocket of the Chef

Rick is known for digging big

But today he was confused

 

Not a whiff of cheese for a clue

He almost started doubting his sense of smell

Can only trust his gut feeling

Without ado he started digging

 

He was sure, he was under the kitchen

Started digging to enter

He knew he has hit the jackpot

Not the kitchen but the larder, full of cheese

Wild Woman

WILD WOMAN

She who stands tall

When others are buried by fear

She who is brutally honest

Pushing through constant lies of her own mind

She who falls time and time again

Only to get back when others give up on her

She who is guided by love, joy, and compassion

Amongst those lost in hate

She who sets her own rules

Amongst the chaos of life

Hour Twenty-two: The Witching Hour

Tragedy meets with it.

Taking the fifth, sealed lips, loose lips,

the ones that sink ships,

and mute zoom calls and disorders.

Soundless words,

wordless sounds,

Simon and Garfunkel sang them.

 

When the ringing of church bells cease,

the last vibration dies,

what’s left but the absence,

a gaping hole, cilia stiff and unperturbed.

 

The musical score’s rest,

the monk’s vow,

and the moment’s bowed head,

respecting the dead,

say it, without speaking, sighing, singing,

snoreless sleep,

a canine’s thoughts,

dreams and visions,

sound off,

mimes

silence.

Grace, Hour Twenty-Two

Grace

One of the most graceful things I have ever
seen, began with a slice of pizza.
When I was young, I would watch old movies
after coming home and before my parents
arrived from work, losing myself in black
and white cinematic wonder.

In one such movie, Sophia Loren was a noble
woman, pretending to be a peasant,
hungry and alone.
She met a child eating pizza,
scattering toppings everywhere
and scolded them for the waste they displayed.

She demonstrated the proper manner
in which to eat a slice, first folding it over
upon itself, in essence a pizza sandwich.
The lesson could not be imparted
so easily, and so naturally she had
to demonstrate again.

I was fascinated with her hands,
the easy movement she displayed
in such a simple act,
practicing the way she held them for weeks
afterward, intensely aware and ashamed
of my own awkwardness in the face of such grace.

Hour & : Sarees and Survival

The foundation of enduring craft,

Cotton sarees create rich narratives

with a legacy steeped in history,

Stories abound in the tale of their fabric.

 

 

Cotton sarees convey tales,

with a dynamic colour palette; not to be outdone,

they proudly carry traditions on display,

from antique looms to contemporary textiles.

 

 

They carry the past in complex patterns,

embraced in cotton sarees, memories endure.

By telling the story of past events and civilizations,

history does unfold in the embrace of cloth.

 

 

The foundation of enduring craft

stories that endure in the tapestry of history

a cultural treasure trove, cotton sarees,

a description of the lively cove in landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Fashioned

Old Fashioned

 

I’m still here, I’m just listening.

To what?

To you.

Why?

Because I like to. I’m writing down what you say.

In a notebook or typing it out?

Typing.

I’m just not going to say anything.

Why not?

If you were writing in a notebook I would.

Keep talking.

Hour 20 – Bladder control

Your callings in the darkness of night
leave me exhausted and sore
yet if I ignore, I will pay
with puddle and piles to clean in the morn

Your bladder, they say, is fine
no tummy troubles are found
you just like to pee all the time
so rise I will to keep you still

SILENCIO – #22

Keep glib quotations away from me

Remove patronising soporific poetry

 

I don’t care for prayers

 

Nothing satisfies or placates me

in your inevitable absence

 

I still rise early to greet you

to make you laugh and tell you stories

 

To hear the sound of your voice

 

I ‘m afraid of forgetting the sound of your voice

I think I’ve forgotten the sound of your voice

 

There are no heavenly bells

or eternal sanctuaries where you reside

 

Dust

You are dust

 

All I’m left with 

is silence

Hour 22 – Vertebrae

Vertebrae

The earrings that play demolition
to the tender skin of my neck
have snake vertebrae as wrecking balls.
The bone, an aged cream,
is still pointed, lightly sharp.
Acupuncture from a dead thing
haunts the body differently than metal does.
But they hang and swing and graze
so close to the first vertebrae of my own spine
the one with bone shaved away.
I can almost pretend that wearing
the rigid organs can serve as replacement
for what I have lost, for all that surgery robbed me of.
Perhaps the fragments of my own body
are out there somewhere, still surviving,
and if so, shouldn’t I survive too?
I am sure I will muster the faith
to believe it is over, someday. But today,
I will let the snake possess this body
if only to move my neck freely once more.

23~18

decades lost

haunted

by him

 

full of pain

haunted

by her

 

moving on

haunted

by your self