The Poetry Marathon

Touring the Estate

While walking in my yard today,

I smelled the trellised jasmine vine, so sweet.

 

The second-year asters standing tall and proud

Just making buds for this year’s exhibition

Are crowding out the fading pansy plants.

 

The sunflowers we planted for Ukraine

Are halfway up the fence and growing fast.

 

The garden phlox and purple echinacea

Are fighting it out for the title Best of Show.

 

I communed with bees and dragonflies

While walking in my yard today.

 

The sunflowers we planted for Ukraine

Are winning the war against the marigolds

Whose yellow/orange faces smile at me.

 

Of all the growing things that I can see,

The one who’s growing most of all is me.

Tuesday

You can’t flee faster than your legs run
Ain’t no magic overcome the laws of science.

Still, Tuesday afternoon I put on a dress
Orange, with a fitted waist and a flowing skirt
Black runners, red logo laced up, out of place.

I can only run a few miles, huffing puffin mess
But I could gain more ground underground.

Subway take to as far as the Bronx.
Damn that ain’t far enough.

Metro North carry we on like a bird
You can’t flee faster than your legs run

I can only run a few miles, huffing puffin mess.
Problem: I don’t any bucks, less than my stamina.
Hitchhike and risk a ditch burial

Run on, run down, run around
I keep running, my feet no longer touch ground.

Haiku by the Lake

On a summer’s day,

sitting by a glassy lake,

a girl is content.

The Toll

To tear down progress of a people oppressed
is a cruelty that takes a toll.

The harms cannot be measured once;
it’s the kind of hurt that grows.
It’s a poison that erodes hope and trust for generations.

We are left wondering what we know.
We are left wondering if we can endure

or if it’s worth it to even try.
When the powers that be can exert their might

and strip away our rights
to tear down progress of a people oppressed.

We are left wondering what we know.
Can we trust anything?

That the sun will still rise?
That the moon pulls the tides?
That it’s worth one more fight?

 

 

Bean Curd and Spinach

You cut the garlic in the kitchen
prepping dinner for bean curd and

spinach. Tofu pressed and ready to lightly fry
to a toasty brown crispness, a
contrast to the soft spinach and inner curd.

They said half a clove of garlic you call to
me. So you put in three? Something

like that. Combining three recipes to
perfection, the right spices, sweet and

hot, mild and spicy. Soy sauce, light or dark,
a teaspoon sugar, you cut the garlic

They said half a clove of garlic, but
can you have too much? Add some
peppercorns. Wait, where did the mild

go? Toss together in the wok and add green
onions and fresh spinach. Dinner!

 

Saved from fire3pm

There was a fire
at my home
everything was fine
or so I thought when I went
to bed last night

There wasn’t much time
to get out alive
let alone grab anything
to save-

Not clothes-
so thankful I was wearing pants
books
money
pictures
nothing
but one thing

I had this doll since I was
two years old
beautiful pristine little doll
now it’s worn with age and
looks like it came from the trash

Red Baby is his name
he was my one, constant
companion through it all
there for me-
when everyone else let me down

He went everywhere with me
School
doctor’s
hospital
college

eventually I put him away in a box
for my future daughter
but that never happened
so I took him back out-

I couldn’t leave him behind
He knows all of my secrets-
even the ones, I would prefer
that no one EVER know.

The day of the bluebirds (Indiana in April)

Five women gather at the meadow
to hear the rangers talk about bluebirds –
how they are related to robins and
almost went extinct because of habitat loss.

The rangers are young women,
and they are enthusiastic about the birds,
showing off a nest in a plastic container and
explaining how nest boxes helped the bluebirds recover.

Then we walk through the dew-damp meadow under the oak trees and
we learn to check the boxes.
We knock on each box to warn any birds, then
remove the nails that keep them closed.

We hold our breaths as each box opens –
One is empty, waiting for a nest.
In another, there are three eggs like blue jewels.
In yet another, a group of fledglings peep, ready for their first flights.

We are giddy with each discovery and energized.
We have seen the bluebirds,
we have witnessed the miracle of new life.
Somehow in this meadow, our own wings have grown stronger.

Poem 8

Oh, Death!

I summoned Death and gave him my soul,
Just so he could live the curse of life.

In kindess he’s rich, in wisdom deprived,
The first thing he did was to love.
Oh, Death, how naive, love is a curse of life!

“No, love is a gift!” He screamed,
Wait till he sees where the bitter truth lies.

I waited til his heart was as ruined as mine,
Now he’s sore in pain and hopelessness.

I felt nothing when he yowl because,
I summoned Death and gave him my soul.

“No, love is a gift!” He screamed,
“Love and pain define a meaningful life!”
“‘… sources of wisdom that I was deprived!”

I gave Death my soul to live the curse of life,
Yet still I’m the one who suffered.

Untitled Gigan

Who am I when I’m at home alone?
Quieter, perhaps, unless I sing,

find rhythms on my drums, take a break at my piano.
I don’t talk as much. The dogs don’t respond.
I write things down instead.

I’ll read my poems and essays to you, when you’re home,
because you’re thoughtful, honest without being harsh.

You tell it like it is. Excuse the cliche,
but it works here. Describes your no nonsense way

but not why I’m someone different when you’re here.
Who am I when I’m at home with you?

I read my poems and essays to you,
the work I make when I’m alone, work
that’s born in silence. When you’re here

you fill the silent spaces where I can think things through
and I have to say the thoughts out loud to shape them.

Wade Wins – Women Lose – HOUR 8

(Response to Gigan challenge)

 

Summer swelters beyond my exhausted window

hot inside air pulled outside where it belongs.

 

I’m comfortable here at my computer –

a cool cat writing poetry,

sporting a beret back in a 1950s café.

 

When I was nine to thirteen, I loved Maynard G. Krebs,

the Beatnik poet on Dobie Gillis.

 

He broke all the rules my parents lived by –

the ones I knew I dare not break.

 

Strange the memories that surface while

summer swelters beyond my exhausted window?

 

When I was nine to thirteen, I loved Maynard G. Krebs,

at fifteen had a crush on a poet friend in high school,

discovered I was bound by societal rules of engagement.

 

Then, at eighteen, I broke the rules, got pregnant, had an illegal abortion –

a decision many of our American sisters may have to make again.