Running Almost Empty
Running almost empty
forgot my password
panicked need to finish
then I remembered it
wrote a poem so quick
so not to forget it
like my energy time is running
Runner’s High-Hour Twenty-One
Running, running, sprinting down the street,
feeling feet thud pavement, arms as I swing,
chest tightening, sweat slipping as I press on,
stretching for the end in sight, the finish line,
but even when my legs should stop my heart keeps running.
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.