The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 8 – The Gigan

Simplicity

Is it wrong to not want more
To not have the energy to go out and get

To get up and go
To push harder
And be more

The world sets a frenetic pace
I feel I should be striving for something

Anything
Everything

To be seen to succeed
Is it wrong to not want more

The world sets a frenetic pace
To work relentlessly
To become the élite

But I don’t want any of that
I just want simplicity

 

 

[Prompt: The Gigan – must be 16 lines in length with seven stanzas (each stanza is separated by a line break). It goes couplet (two lines), tercet (three lines), couplet, couplet, couplet, tercet, couplet.

The first line is also the eleventh line, line six is repeated as line 12 as well.]

2022 Poetry Marathon, Hour 8

Hour eight poem, based on the prompt:

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Therapy Session #316

I tell my therapist my brother killed himself

She asks if I am angry, I say no

 

She wants to know what I am

Jealous, I say

My therapist asks me if I am suicidal

 

I say no, I only want to die every day

She fails to see the difference

 

I insist that she is wrong

The gap is monumental

 

If I were a planner, perhaps, or a warrior at heart

My brother was a planner, for all of his flaws

 

Where I am merely a dreamer, all wants and desires

But I am a bright orange cone on the highway with my eyes closed

A slippery when wet while pouring water in the streets.

 

My therapist says why fear, if you are not afraid to die

She doesn’t understand it isn’t death I fear

Coffee House

The simplest way,

which makes a simple day,

is to go to the coffee house.

Meet your new friends,

greet your old friends.

Mingle while waiting

for your java.

Ordering your favorite

pastry, of the day.

The fresh smells of

fresh coffee.

The beauty in the small coffee house

down the road from you.

Isn’t huge at all.

Maybe even meet

that special male or female.

Just perfect for your closest friends

Hour Seven: Time Heals?

              H
     T I M E
              A L L
              L
              S

W O U N D S

I mean, if you
have to work
that hard
to say it,
it ain’t so.
I cast my

V E T O

Etsy Again For a Box of Rocks

Like hell I’ll give

Bezos more money to fuel his yacht

Onto Etsy to support the small shop owners—

I’m procuring a box of rocks as my husband

called these New Age nuggets—

Many colors of agate in blue and green shades for courage;

not to discourage;

Jasper for stress; not for Casper the Friendly Ghost;

Turquoise for grounding, not for keeping away boys

Moonstone for inner growth, not for a telescope;

Bloodstone for strengthening, not blood letting;

Amazonite for harmony, not Jeff Bezos;

Sodalite for awakening, not napping;

Jade for inspiration, not to control perspiration;

Malachite for insight, not spite;

Lapis for friendship, not “frien emies;

Peridot for self care, not to be a square;

and Celestite for calm, not Napalm

Added all together, a huge chunk of change,

Wait, what?!

No free shipping?

Guess I’ll fuel Bezos’ rocket fuel

and prays he shuttles with free shipping,

Now I’m going to hell,

Wait—

Etsy is having a sale,

There’s only 4 available and 20 in other’s carts?

Now what is the meaning for fool’s gold?

 

 

10 Wooden Cups – hour EIGHT

10 wooden cups balanced in a line

each with 4 eggs in different hues of blue

 

hard boiled for scooping and eating

or peeled and chopped and

mixed with oil and mustard and

 

served up for the community to

nibble on rye sliced thin to

 

make it stretch

like fishes and loaves in that unlikely scenario

 

where people told their story

10 of them balanced in a bowl line woodenly

 

served up to a community

grief-stricken and

struck dumb as eggs

 

of any

number.

 

Hour 8 : Gigan : Lost

‘Ther’ are moments when I stare

At the white ceiling

 

Not that I am weaving a thought

‘Ther’ are moments when I stare

At the sun shining bright

 

Seeing only the black spots

‘Ther’ are moments when I stare

 

At those dark grey clouds

Not wishing them to rain down

 

Not because they cause mist

‘Ther’ are moments when I stare

 

Seeing only the black spots

In this place I like to stand alone

To feel the sand beneath my feet

 

Which leads me nowhere

But my heart still longs to know, ‘Wher’ was I long lost

HOUR EIGHT ~ Beyond The Froggy Reeds

BEYOND THE FROGGY REEDS

-for Peyton and Hale and the Big Big Tadpoles

 

we picked up little seed puffs and they looked like salt potatoes

we listening to ska and reggae music drifting in and out of the trees

 

up and down the rocky paths, mountainous but not a mountain

maybe long ago we would have been singing to keep our breath

but it’s the 21st century and we’re still smoking cigarettes

 

our nature is just as organic as all we encounter

but the birds are hushed and bothered by our racket

 

we’re unapologetic and we don’t litter our butts

sometimes all you can do is your least-worst

 

we wander in and out of the dappled green light

sometimes crunching past quieter than we mean to be

 

we’re hungry and we want more of everything

more light, more music, more view of the valley from the bench

there’s an enormity to the mountain that only the music can touch

 

we picked up little seed puffs and they looked like salt potatoes

our nature is just as organic as all we encounter

I want I want

I want the secrets of the universe
to fold and fold and fold
before my outstretched arms.
I want the salt of my tears
to corrode the chains
that hold my bones together.
I want to drink motherwort tea
and eat wild dandelions.
I’ll crush my eggshells and divine
my past, clear as selenite.
I want stars in my curls,
green and green and green.
Artemis soul—- guide me to salvation
in your bow, let me fly as arrow
through the heart of mankind.
A fennec fox my mind.