The Poetry Marathon

Lloyd Edge, in France

It’s an endless cycle,
war,
an attempt at peace,
the next war.

This one
is supposed to stop the cycle.
I only want to survive it,
get back to Oklahoma.

My buddy and I hide in the hay,
listen to the French farmer talking to the German soldiers.
I wish I could understand.
Is he saying no one’s here.
He wouldn’t be lying. I’m a no one,
an eighteen-year-old orphan
who knows horses and hard work.

We stay hidden until the farmer comes,
says it’s safe to leave.
His wife feeds us before we go,
shares their scanty stores.

We live another day.
And the war goes on.

1922, Ireland

1922, Ireland

 

Michael Collins took on a task

that reminds me too much

of Sisyphus, the Greek mythological king

punished for continued misleading.

 

Sisyphus was forced to push a large boulder Uphill

a difficult task for sure!

Michael Collins, too, is expected to push

the long suffering people to a common solution.

 

But Long-suffering people expect to be happier

than the people with power, who are thinking they have to give up

some of their hard-earned gains.

Neither side thinks the other side is giving enough.

 

Michael Collins fought with his friends

on the battlefields of independence.

But when he was elected to represent

he stopped living amongst the friends.

 

Political agreements were harder to find.

Suspicions were not measurable,

except in the shocking street killings.

Peace was harder to win

 

 

By Nancy Ann Smith,  Poetry Marathon Prompt #4,   June 25, 2022

Haunted Melody – Hour 4

(inspired by the photo prompt)

I wandered one day in the forest,

feeling as if I was led,

when I heard what sounded like music

from a piano somewhere up ahead.

 

I followed the strains of the melody

drawing me deeper into the wood.

The song strangely haunting, familiar –

inspired by evil or good?

 

The trees seemed to gather around me,

the path I had trod turned to sand

when there in a clearing before me

stood a decrepit, upright grand.

 

How had this tired old fellow

come to this desolate glade

his torso filled with dry, brown leaves

his keys no longer played?

 

I felt a presence answer me

as I cautiously lingered there,

“I’ve called you to be with me

I’m the love you’ve sought elsewhere.”

 

A chill ran through my body

when I heard the specter speak.

I turned to run away from there,

my lungs let out a shriek.

 

I raced out of the forest

escaping from that hell,

I still could hear the music

coming from the haunted shell.

 

I look back on that frightful day

and question, was it real,

as I sit here with my lover

tickling ivories with zeal.

 

The Piano – hour FOUR

My piano is an old Wurlitzer my grandfather

won in a poker game and

nearly sent my grandmother over the edge

when he brought it home at 3am.

It sits in my living room getting even older.

 

The keys are losing their action and

their ivory — authentic, not the white plastic they

use nowadays — has yellowed in places,

chipped in others but

I keep it all anyway, the way I keep other

memories that aren’t mine yet

claim me.  I am the Grand

Curator of stories not my own.

 

I sift through the photos from

my mother, tucked into cardboard

albums softened over decades.

Strangers smile back at me. My mother, slim and twenty,

among them.

 

I have sheet music from my father and

I play their tunes and hear his voice but

it’s the made-up voice of 30s dance halls and 40s big bands

and 50s musicals where the boy gets the girl in the end.

He used too much pedal when he played them and it used to

make me laugh the way the notes would

wash into each other

 

the way these thoughts wash into each other.

One superseding another. One eddying into another’s surge

eroding both. Leaving me with this

keyboard and these wraiths that aren’t mine but

are what I have.

close your eyes

close your eyes

 

imagine,

one hundred  years in the future

laid out in a magical novel.

solitude.

one patriarch 

lighting a match 

to see what’s left standing 

after the phoenix broke her chains, 

poisoning the well water,                               screeching her rage.

ear bleeds rupturing pouring down his cheeks like

                   red tears

falling onto the cracked concrete

already wet with the                                       putrid infection 

        leaching 

from the firebird’s broken shackles

her flight made                                     impossible 

feathers.                                                mangled

                                                  100 years in chains

her cries awakening 

 hearts held in similar                           cages,

the patriarch stumbling now supine

looking into her eyes

before his death ushers in a new era

1922 (Poetry Marathon 2022 Hour 4)

1922 (Poetry Marathon 2022 Hour 4)

The war to end all wars
Had ended
The Spanish Flu epidemic
Was over
The era of
Electricity and automobiles and airplanes and radio
Was now
Human potential was exponential
The stock market reflected the confidence
That things will only get better
In a world where we finally understand
The economy is everything
A new kind of dancing to a new kind of music
Led to a new kind of understanding
Of human nature
Benevolence momentarily overtaking the
Negative reaction to modernity
And yet

A warm dry wind
Blowing from West to East
A realization that
Human capital is unpredictable
As European empires built
Over centuries
Could not recover
From the destruction
Of war
And the devastating effects of the flu
And the combined unimaginable number of deaths

The low pressure of reality
Met the high pressure of expectations
Of technological advances
Creating a long-lasting unsteady shifting unstable violent storm
The consequences of which led directly
To the economic and then political collapse
Experienced through the mid 20th century
Even more unimaginable deaths
From war and famine and deliberate cruelty
How do we call it inhumane?
And still today

And yet

TV and computers and access to unlimited knowledge
Human capital is fungible and ultimately expendable
In a world where we have internalized the understanding
That the economy is everything
And yet

We have recently learned there is no point
In trying to modernize
Because the only thing that matters
Is what a few men thought
About human rights at the end of the 18th century
The lessons of the 19th century,
The 20th century
And the 21st century do not matter
When it comes to life and death
And perhaps yet

Dreams of Future Past (2022 Poem 4)

Dreams Of Future Past

Tech Wizards fly jets to guarded resorts
Near Palo Alto, the people sing at campfires on the beach
Mingling with new met friends, sharing food and wine
Tonight who dreams of freedom

Oil Giants sail super yachts, leaving the ocean garbage patch behind
Outside Riyadh, the people share a meal prepared with love
Celebrating the birth of their firstborn
Tonight who dreams of freedom

Water Rich Millionaires stroll oases encased in walls of cedar and cement
In Tunis, the people dance joyously together
At the wedding of their daughter and their son
Tonight who dreams of freedom

(Prompt: Write a poem set a hundred years ago, or a hundred years from now.)

Prompt 4 (image)

Out of Tune

Play it again
Just one more time
We’re all a bit past it
But that’s just fine
Close your eyes
Travel back down the line
If you listen for our music
You’ll hear it just fine

 

4. 1922- A LOVE STORY

I await my beloved

on the banks of the river.

A picnic lunch spread out

on a snow white cloth.

 

The air is crisp and fresh.

The daffodils and azaleas dance

seductively in the slight breeze.

A bee flits in between the flowers.

 

My beloved arrives,

resplendent in her flapper dress,

accompanied by an enticing fragrance

and fluttering butterflies.

We talk and eat and laugh as  a steam boat floats by.

 

I propose and she accepts

on the bank of the river,

bonded by love,

amongst bees and butterflies.

 

Hour 4 : Century

Time flows freely

Like just a grain of sand in the hour glass

Emotions, thoughts and ramblings

Giving it a logical direction

Procastinating until now

Hundred years is too long

For thoughts to get assembled

But a fleeting thought latches

Taking you on a different path

May be new ideas, reminiscing

A long lost thought perhaps

Those bloodshed streets

Battles need to be won

Through the guns, through the wires

What will happen to families

And ‘wher’ will children play

Or they will fight till no one is left

Hundred years ago

Hundred years from now

To those, does the bell ring

Screaming out loud

Please!! Let peace endure.