The Poetry Marathon

Hour 14 – The Tale of Crane Hill – Text Prompt

The tale of Crane Hill
An old Military post located in the bay
An old war room, updated with radar and sonar
The echoing halls of a retired war zone
Here the natives laid
Slain by disease and Conquistador
Here the soldiers died
Blood spilled in anti-communist tide
A history of death far longer than you know
Now where military reservists
Host the fourth of July

This place is haunted by its past
A cannon circle from pre-America
Can deafen a man of war
Though no canons reside there now
On Crane Hill’s high up shore.
And nameless soldiers stalk the halls
Invisible on camera
Reported, dismissed, and disbelieved
Retreading ephemera

The old sailor warns his family
His family and friends take heed
Don’t go to Crane Hill on your own
Or you’ll vanish for their need
Captured for a war long gone
Or deafened by ghost canon
Alone you’re taken one by one
Revenge be had by Shanon

Late on last two poems…

I had trouble with my internet and couldn’t post Hours 11 &  12 until now.

Good luck to all those doing the full marathon. You rock!

Hour 7- visual park bench – title “Coupled Up”

Coupled Up

That’s what I call it.
having a life partner…
someone with whom to walk
In the world.

It seems to be everywhere I look
except in my house.
I’ve tried a few times –
It never took.

There are other ironies here,
other realities that live along with
my sense of missing out and that
is at times a gratefulness and a
kind of knowing.

For you see I am a therapist
working on occasion with couples
and what I often note
is that some partners should
not be coupled up.

It is a gift you see
and many waste it;
have little or no skill
to enjoy it.

Not knowing how to accept difference
in another, their words are sharp,
degrading, negative and hurtful
reflecting their own self-hatred.

Having forgotten how to laugh
or play, they seem lost
yet you can detect a desperate
desire to mend what is broken.

An irony too is that despite
or perhaps because of my
solitary walk in this world,
I have both the desire
and the skill set to help,
if only they would allow it.

Ego can be a rough mistress though
and the echo of “I’m right”
resonates as loudly in the therapist’s
office as it does in divorce court
where unfortunately it will have the
last word before it dies.

There is poetry that spills out of you

like curse words when you stub your toe on the leg of the bed.

There is poetry that is written slowly,

methodically, over years, as you grow and learn and age and it will be perfect then.

There is poetry that must be put off

because there is pizza dough to be made

and laughing.

There are many kinds of poetry.

 

Things; Good and bad

Good-bad, joy-sorrow ; the eternal twin opposites
Two sides of the same coin, conjoined by fate
Are the four wheels of your life-chakra
Interspersing together, emulating each other, outdoing the other
But can never wishone other away
I have been well- prepared to receive anything they decide to bestow upon me
And yet, when tragedy struck, it hit me like a thousand thunderbolts…
Bad times; eveything went wrong in the worst possible way
From riches to rags, from a huge family to being abandoned alone on the streets,
This series of misfortunes seemed to be never-ending
And then came true the saying,”This too shall pass”
Be it joy or sorrow and the dark clouds made way
For rainbow joys and star – studded dreams
What good does come out of bad, you ask?
I will say it’s wisdom to realize everything is transitionary
And to learn who are the real well-wishers
And to stay put; have faith in the matrix of time
Winter be replaced by spring soon enough…

Isn’t That So Funny?

Once upon a frightful year

When I was but a babe

I forsook the nine month timeline

And decided to escape

 

To follow my example then

My lungs refused to breathe

And to keep my tiny heart afloat

They placed me on machines

 

Once or twice a fortnight

Or once or twice a night

Alarms would tell my mother

While giving her a fright

 

That I was on death’s doorstep

Turning blue and frigid

Not to breathe again until

She flipped me and insisted

 

But though my lungs would not expand

My arms would do my bidding

And sometimes I would cause the sensor

To be a bit ill-fitting

 

Alas, she grew so weary

She tired of this annoyance

This babe that interrupted slumber

Allowed to be so joyous

 

And so she threw the sensors out

She said to me, good luck

If you can move your arms

Then you can breathe, you stupid fuck

 

And isn’t that so funny?

A tale of me as tiny human

At least she found it humorous

At family reunions

How I Wish

How I Wish

 

your red truck would have barreled

across gravel roads, straight to me.

Your headlights would have shined

blinding beams to my skyward eyes.

Your seats would have held

breathing bodies hot with kisses.

Your hands would have waved,

have held, have traced, have lingered.

Your heart would have stayed

out of Heaven, close to me.

Accustomed Appetite – Hour 9/Prompt 9, 2022

“Opening

Closing”

“Opening

Closing” 

“Opening

Closing”

Playing hide and seek

with the cookie

that rests in an airtight jar.

Don’t you feel suffocated? 

Let me give you a home

in my tummy,

but then would you also betray me like my mother?

I cannot fit into the glass jar,

to accompany you.

It is already suffocating out here.

I too feel caged, not physically but you know the other way right?

Can I break you into two? 

One for my today,

one for my tomorrows.

How many personalities do you have? 

I have one that knows hunger.

and recognises the feeling of getting betrayal.

 

“Opening

“Opening

Cookie, your house door is so yellow.

No wonder why I always feel happy visiting you.

Why have you become so soft and mushy? 

Did anyone hurt you? 

You’re already broken.

Why did you lie to me? 

I thought you could serve me for thirteen days

Isn’t that what momma said?

She’s going out only for thirteen days?

I cannot fit numbers more than ten on my fingertips.

I don’t remember the sequence either,

Perhaps, thirteen comes before ten right cookie?

Do you also feel scared when I lay my hand towards you to grab you?

I am sorry Cookie.

I was just celebrating that I can open a jar

and take my things out by myself

I am a grown up boy.

I am no longer hungry, I am but heyyy… I am a grown up boy! Yes!

I remember mommy once said,

“once you grow up you no longer feel hungry, you only fill yourself to survive”

Speaking of survival,

I haven’t had anything, Cookie.

Am I going to clouds? 

I have seen people becoming stars.

But its not even an hour since I grew

Is mommy in the clouds? 

Cookie, even you have become like clouds.. Soft.. And unstoppable..

Closing the jar”

Closing the door” 

Bye Cookie, I am tired and I have seen grown ups sleeping like no one’s home.

I think, that’s what I am supposed to do till mother arrives.

She would return right? 

 

Fairy Tale-Hour 14

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Cinderella

Who cleaned and danced at a ball and married her prince

who became a king and she a queen and all that.

Okay, maybe I’m just an old woman named Cindy

I already knew my prince and married him outright.

I clean the house and tends to Prince Duke (the cat),

who is as demanding as any royalty.

Once upon a time there was Sleeping Beauty

She ate a bite of a poisoned apple and slept for a hundred years.

Oh, I wish. I could use the rest. Truly. Where can I get that apple?

Anyone? Anyone?

Then there Rapunzel

who lived in a high tower, a prisoner.

She let down her hair so her handsome prince would

climb to her and rescue her.

Wait a damn minute.

Do you know how hard it would be

to keep hair that long tended to?

And when the prince climbed it, can we say ouch?

Was she bald when he reached the top?

Her hair pulled out in a big clump on the floor?

No thank you.

I prefer my hair short and unpulled.

He can get himself a ladder or a hang glider if he really wants to play hero.

Once upon a time there was Little Red Riding Hood.

Seriously did anyone get her eyes checked?

She couldn’t tell her grandmother from a wolf?

Did she ever see a picture of Grandma? Every meet her before?

Her mother is just going to send a stupid little girl into the woods alone?

What kind of parents did she have?

And good old Hansel and Gretel. I am truly on the witch’s side.

See what happens if you try to eat my gingerbread house.

Boundaries people. Boundaries.

Snow White and those Seven Dwarfs,

okay, well having seven guys worship me would be nice,

even if they were short.

But I am not cleaning up after them.

Grumpy needs to chill. Dopey needs some education.

Get Sneezy an allergy tablet already. Didn’t anyone hear of Flonase?

 

No, my life is not a fairy tale, far from it.

I do have the handsome prince

and the royal cat son.

I live in an apartment above the garage

that no self-respecting woodland creature

would ever want to clean.

Fairy tales are suited for others perhaps

Just not for me.

Is that apple some sort of special melatonin?

 

 

Tenth picture on my phone

Tenth picture on my phone

Is a beautiful painting
By an artist who paints with her fingers,
Not brushes-
Lata Balakrishna;
And here she has carved out a fort
In beige and ochre
Under purple-blue skies,
Wearing
Of all things –
A rich green wall,
Quite surprising!

You wonder
If it’s a warm welcome,
To diminish the effect
Of searching sepoys one may
Meet on the way…?

Smeetha, responding to Prompt 7