The Poetry Marathon

Hour 7: A Sparrow in Central Park

A sparrow drinks from the pooling water in a brass water fountain. Fallen parts of trees and flowers partially cover the drain as the water slowly recedes. He drinks in quick quivering gulps. Shaking his head, and droplets from his tiny beak. Someone walking by gets too close, their shadow passes over the fountain. With a ratcheting of brown wings, he retreats to the trees, vanishing in the engulfing green, then returns in half a second, to trot along the rim of the bowl and drink.

Hour Ten – Treasure

 

Treasure

 

This morning I reflexively

shoed away the squirrel

from my garden. I assumed

he was digging into my

newly-planted flower pots.

 

After breakfast, I peeked

out the bathroom window

and was shocked to see

the presumed thief. He was

gathering strawberries, and leaving

them on our table in the courtyard!

 

He obviously took great care. Not

one of the precious berries

was smashed. He placed them

out of the sun, under the umbrella.

 

What a treasure for we humans

to enjoy this afternoon!

Hour 10: The Bridge

I was told to cross the river, 

That life ran bank to bank 

But I, 

Like it on the bridge.

Hour 10 – A visit from a midnight guardian

It was three am when the snake appeared.

Slithered into my dreams with shining scales
and the topaz eyes of a mother.
Not my mother.

Kind like hers, but with more sorrow
and a confidence born from surviving
the hurricane.

I wondered what memories paint her
fears and how it would feel to cry in
technicolor.

She held me as I shook and whispered
soft things into the folds between my
anxieties.

I wept in navy sorrows and stained
the sheets with unwashed
grief

While she hummed foreign lullabies
to the tune of some happier child’s
sleep.

Rest easy, young one, she sang
as she dried my staccato
tears,

You are not so lost as you think.

The Blunt Nosed Leopard Lizards – hour TEN

Late at night

A blunt nosed leopard lizard couple

burst into song from

the base of an abandoned oil rig just east of Taft

stubby faces alight with pleasure

as they pursue Puccini.

“Che gelida manina,” he croons. She swoons

— as is only appropriate, given the subject matter,

and the kit foxes guffaw because

while their tails may be long

the blunt nosed leopard lizard’s hands

are, in fact, exceedingly tiny.

 

Hour 10 – A Bird in the Yard – Text Prompt

How do I describe you
Innocently blue
Like song and sadness you do swoon
Jaded in time
They call you black when you’re blue-green
Iridescent cerulean-teal sheen
A corvid by any other name
You and other birds are not the same
You and your brethren each have names

I count your blessing as they come
Walnuts and washers, a stick of gum
You like to gather things and trinkets
Like your cousin magpie though far more tame
For you are not a thief nor rascal,
Just a crow, my yard your castle

Butterflies On Strike / Hour #10

"Strike!" Everyone heard that cry sounding throughout the field. 
Enough is enough, and they were tired of having to find new homes each year
because of a soccer field, a mall, a high rise, or an expanded interstate. 
Nope, they were going to stop fluttering and focus more on the butter side of life. 
Smooth, easy to handle, just being lovely, and laying there - just laying there. 
They also began chit-chatting, singing, gossiping, complaining, telling bawdy jokes,
alternately heckling or whistling at passersby. It proved to be fun, after all. 

Some butterflies figured they could do this for their remaining days;
others figured they could just keep doing this up to the end of their year.
So sweet it was to realize others would be coming along after. 
Thicker and thicker they stacked upon the ground, organizing more and more. 
Practicing speeches for television broadcasts, interviewing each other, and
sending a few delegates to spread awareness and organize in other communities. 
They were growing bolder and stronger. 

Who can blame them, really?   
After all, we all knew what happened to fireflies and lightning bugs from childhood. 
How many stars can we see looking up into the night sky? 
What happened to the many animals that were so abundant and shared the world with us?
Think back on your own childhood; go out into the evening's shadows tonight.
See if your world looks the same. 
The butterflies had had enough, plain and simple. They were on strike.

 

10… Cough

Tiny boy
Big cough
Breaking heart
Endless night
Canceled plans
Cuddled toys
Scooby-Doo
Popsicle favorites
Mama’s kisses
Daddy’s arms.

Borrowing My Father’s Pickup (9 of 12, half marathon)

It’s a foreign country. I don’t speak the native tongue, recited as grease under the fingernails and steel-toe boots to work the pedals. Key’s got a tricky switch. Once it starts, there’s a guttural rev. More power than I have a need for, got nothing to haul in that big back bed. In the interior: weather mats on the floor, smooth from wear; they know their place, like the women in my father’s life, catching the rainwater from his shoes; an old rag in the middle console, actually a tank top he must have once worn over his now-tumored torso, and two clippers in the cupholder used to cut fishing line more often than any jagged hangnail. Fishing swivels jingle in the door, close at hand because who knows when he’d have a chance to cast out for the one that’s yet evaded him. Fold the seat forward; find his toolbox from which to pilfer a Phillips, along with a blue tarp to serve as a make-shift shower curtain in the near-to-him house I’ve just moved into. There’s a straight pole. Do I still remember how he taught me – to rig a line, bait a hook, avoid the craggy shore? Now beside his things is a stain where I placed the strawberries from Foodland. I didn’t wipe the blood that leaked from that delicate fruit; now the blemish has dried black, reminding me of everything that will rot and bruise when he’s gone.

A Notion that Slays Hour 11

A Notion That Slays (Valkyrie Kerry)

A climax permeated with crimson cognizance,
Welted marks from your teeth exquisitely endured,
Our bodies one, sordid notions of pain abound.

My head rests on you in the aftermath,
Romantic notions of the macabre dominate discourse,
Suggestions of a well-trodden path.

‘Let us consummate our desires on vacation,
By the lake sits an unofficial campsite,
The lecherous deceitfully attend, sexual elation,
And drinking their spirits to hell in the night.’

I run my hands over bare flesh, as your lips kiss me;
Cheek, throat, face and head.
My words cease in your amorous stifle,
And then I am passionately spread.

As your passion abates,
My thoughts I do relate,
On fuelling your brutal, destructive guile.

‘Techniques are known to be vast,
A plethora of tools used to smite,
Although the methods do not last,
There are plenty more victims in sight.’