The Poetry Marathon

Hour 21, Poem 27

Running through the empty streets
On dark streets in empty night
Silence surrounds me like a shroud

Nothing to see, just my own dissipating breath
I can only hear my own life signs
Waiting for them to fade away

But in the darkness, something shines
As the cloud shifts to reveal
The stars and the moonlight

And just the view of that round sky rock
Dark in itself but still reflecting light
Has me stopping and just staring

The halo around the moon reminding me
Of something long forgotten,
A promise that makes me move again

And this time its not the darkness I see
This time it’s the gentle moonlight comforting me
As I, towards a new tomorrow, take off running.

HR-8 (not exactly a text prompt)

On this solemn night
Awake with my thoughts
Alone in them all, sadly

Tearing my soul to pieces
Ripping away the heartache
Waiting to just feel whole again

Hour 21- The River

Running water in the river

Expanded by the mountain melt

Swiftly flowing, sometimes growing

This year, its shrinking can be felt.

In summer people ride the river

Floats and kayaks do abound

Surfing, swimming, joy that’s brimming

Peace on the water can be found.

Folks enjoy the rivers charms

Cold water, yet they’re sunning

The crisp and clear, the water here

Never still, always running.

2023 Full Marathon: Hour 21

Listening to the music you left behind is like

trying to send letters to a stranger in a house

that won’t be built for centuries and there is

something to be said for the level of tenacity

or pure dedication coursing through veins that

won’t even begin to form for an eternity – literally.

 

There is a sense of familiarity that cannot be

rationally explained and there is still a

certain mystery no level of science or

understanding will ever be able to decode.

And I would like to be clear – I did not

sign up for a decade of picking up pieces

of a puzzle I never even liked in the first place.

I think I love your ghost more than I ever

even registered you. And maybe there’s

something to be said for the choices being

 

made between wishing

the hummingbirds forever to

sparkle and sanity in a single human being

bound to the limitations of flesh.

Do not get confused – every moment

is a choice and I have made just as many

 

good ones as poor in my quarter-life musing –

I just know that the showing up will

outweigh any “mistake” that never

morphed into full-fledged lesson.

EVEN YOU.

 

-M. Rene’

Hour 21 – Words, a treochair

labels hard

lamentably, they are also

useful, amass them unbarred

 

Mad, enby

LGBTQIA

ADHPTSD

 

alphabet

soup and it’s actually

the abbreviated set

Hour 21 – Magnolia

Magnolia

 

An ungodly heat scorches the earth,

Still you stand tall and firm.

Though leaves may be wilted,

Though leaves may be browned,

You stand, with proud roots and wide branches.

With our one shared desire:

To once more see your blossoms bloom,

Glowing with hope for the future.

Observing a Writer

Observing a Writer

 

She sits hunched, perched

like a bird but ready to pounce

hovering

fingers poised above the keyboard,

waiting to touch the letters

but doesn’t

 

brow furrowed, lips slightly parted

staring at the white screen before her

but looking right past the page

in another world

and then suddenly

she moves

 

typing faster than imagined

she presses hard on each key

and seemingly randomly – and magically –

her write page becomes strewn with black

with lips now curled into a smile,

she creates

Poem for Hour Twenty-One (21/24)

Covered platform,

Open platform,

Suet mixture holder,

Scrap basket,

Seed hopper,

Bowl feeder.

There’s grain and there’s seeds,

But no buffet of bugs,

So running water attracts,

What usually just won’t come.

Sunflower seed,

White millet feed,

Peanuts, cracked corn, and scraps.

A feast of old crusts, dough and donuts,

Stale, starchy, or fatty morsels,

May be like bread and butter,

But don’t forget to put out fruit,

To satisfy all the bird mothers.

Hour 19

Is it cheating to write just one haiku? Maybe a little but alls fair in sleep deprivation and poetry.

 

Hour 19

 

A loss of thought leads

Me down a path of ever

Lasting confusion

A Draw

Crossing swords
Matching each other
Blow for blow
“Are you fighting or flirting?”
Physically unable
To fight any more
Comrades intervene on both sides
The tussle ending in a draw

Courtly conversation
Turned into a debate
I am right
No, you are wrong
I am “difficult”?
Well, you’re impossible!
Walking away in a huff
Yet another draw

Fighting side by side
Battling enemies
Forging bonds
Greater than stubbornness
Seeing each other
In a different light
Realizing the truth
Of our feelings

Acknowledging our differences
Recognizing the difficulties
And future clashes to be had
A question asked
A mutual agreement “reluctantly” made
Knowing that when it matters
It will always end
In a draw