The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 8, hour 8_ Gigan. Dear Edward

Well! Edward dear, well, I couldn’t help it,

But come and not to gloat but keep the records straight.

 

I know all along you see, not half as dmb as thought.

I know of your dives in divers coops.

Three counties at last time of count.

 

I knew that the red roses weren’t for me.

I knew what the Gardenias  are hiding

 

I knew about the masked men, that they weren’t thieves

For truly, who steals from a thief.

 

Since you are now two weeks in your cold little script

Well Edward dear, well I couldn’t help it.

 

I knew that the red roses weren’t for me

But for the angel sent to sent to heaven at the point of your boot

Just halfway between heaven and earth.

So records straight dear Edward dear, ain’t no God called you hence my dear

But a drop of botulinum , hemlock and ash.

 

 

 

 

 

Hour 9: Relishing Chicago Summers

Food trucks from Maxwell Street

Wafting temptation through the air

Succulent polish sausages and

Hot dogs overloaded with

Onions, tomatoes, pickles, and

Relish so green the grass grew envious

 

Sitting on the stoop

Washing down the steaming delights —

fries on the side –

with iced cherry kool-aid

 

Tractor trailer trucks from the South

Bringing fresh Georgia peaches and

Red meat Mississippi watermelon

Tender bunches of harvest collards

Turnips with their roots and greens intact

 

Slurping down memories of Mississippi summers

Sweet as southern tea

Lucious like grandma’s roses

So juicy

each bite

drips off

your chin

 

 

Memory In My Cupboard

Prompts for Hour Nine

 

~willjxn~

You have always been there

when other flavors weren’t.

Giving cookies flair.

making cake look burnt.

 

Teacher of the bitter truth

acerb shared with sweetness

Gives us all a taste of you

Chocolate is completeness.

 

prompt 8: roc eggs gigan

They might have been eggs     pebbles of sodalite or chalcedony

nestled within wooden cups        three and four to a family

 

It’s what they looked like: eggs lain by some prehistoric bird

bright of wing and long of beak, legs drawn up like cranes do

soaring over unmapped lands long since lost to us

 

While the fierce mother of these unhatched rocs (mythic, stifled)

waits somewhere in another era, a timeline far removed from now.

 

She broods, a harpy eagle of sorts, her face not quite human

not quite avian. She is other, mother of rocks that once were eggs

 

now metamphorsed into stone, no longer flesh of her flesh

no longer responsive to a soft whirring of wings.

 

In this other mother’s world, there is no partner to mourn with her

only the cacophony of a forest I will never know, although her solitary

state is familiar. I too await misfortune on my own, now.

 

And the small bluegreen stones that once held the possibility of flight

nestle still in wooden hollows that are all they will remember of a home.

 

You and I (Hour 8)

You
I

Together in this world
Facing all the goods
And all the bads

I
Can’t

Imagine any other way
That I could live my life

For
You and

I
We may sometimes fight or drift
But we always find our way back to each other, our forever home

For neither of us is perfect, me least of all
But together, we will always be just right

(7th hour picture prompt) Grandson

Everyone wishes for a grandson like you

Someone brave and strong

Someone true

About you I have never been wrong

You have always liked to jump

Even after getting scolded on the rump

Life is to live, laugh and play

I know you will carry that till your dying day

Hour 8: No New Ideas

A single aspiration flickering in the dark could set the world on fire,

leaping from you to me to the next, until it finds the one to tend it.

 

First, catches the sharp edge of the mind with wild imagination

And at the thought of what could be, the heart leaps and catches in the throat

eager to taste the sweet juice of a new idea

 

And if there are no new ideas, I will gratefully receive this as a hand me down,

mending it with the scraps I have hidden away just for the occasion

 

I will clutch the next one flitting by and convince it to stay with me.

Imprinting it with the lifelines etched into my hands by time.

 

Anything can happen when the mind briefly escapes gravity in parabolic flight—

a single aspiration flickering in the dark could set the world on fire

 

And if there are no new ideas, I will gratefully receive this as a hand me down,

to prompt me, push me into the labor of crafting new dreams and

in my will, bequeath them to the living to shelter and raise.

 

If there was not someone just in front of me holding out their light

I would not be able to see the path ahead.

Hour 8: table of four

four pebbles
all in hues of
a marine blue
sit on teacher’s
table

students go
upto her
and learn
to count in fours

four in one set
nestled in an apple cup
is four
and si it goes

till it’s my turn
and i say four two’s
are eight
four three’s are twelve

when teacher nods
encouraging me
i say four four’s are
and stop

a scorpion is crawling there
among the pebbles
and one more and
there’re more

i point to one
angry red scorp
and teacher screams
and throws out

the pebbles
scorpions and all
i smile but not too much
i’d gathered the creatures

in break time
and had released them
there to play their role
as distractor main

we had the rest of the day off
as teacher was nervously clearing
the classroom checking
for scorpions

A Twist of Fate / 8th prompt

Beware the lions roar, it’s gnashing teeth
The likes of something never before seen

It’s jaws protrude from mandibles so large
Your head would be the size
Of a jaw breaker in real life.

But let us not think morbidly, think positively
Don’t lose your head it’s merely poetry

Let your imagination do the talking
Open your eyes and run, there’s no use walking

The jungle holds a great many secrets
Beware the lions roar, it’s gnashing teeth

But let’s not think morbidly, think positively
He sits lounging in his living room or den
Above his mantle mounted is your head

My my how tables turn its not uncommon
The lion once the hunted now he sits and enjoys the homage

~Rebeli

Hour 8 Writing Prompt – Writing a Gigan

I should have rights, shouldn’t I?

As a woman of this earth, this day, this year.

 

I do have rights, or at least I did two days ago

Along with half of the world’s population….half!

I’ve never lived through such a time of inequality.

 

Maybe I’ve taken for granted, those rights promised to me

Through the undying fight from the women who have come before.

 

Their struggles and battles fought, their ridicules and humiliations suffered

Serve as their badge of honor, so that we may be considered equal.

 

May, be, considered, equal?  How is that even a question?

I should have rights shouldn’t I?

 

Maybe I’ve taken for granted, those rights promised to me.

Why are the hands of the clock going backward?

What will it take for women to be truly equal?

 

When I die, I hope to come back as a praying mantis

So I can bite off the head of any male that fucks with me,