The Poetry Marathon

Snowy Night Hour 2

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near

I see the trees weighed down with snow
It’s getting late we’d better go

But oh before we start the trot
I think it’s best we give some thought

To preparations for the trip
But wait you can’t prepare a whim

Oh woe is me I should have stayed
At home where my warm bed is made

Oh well I guess it’s just too late
Let us enjoy what God creates

The trees, the snow, the wooded scenes
The cooling chill upon our cheeks

Until we’re home in warmth and fed
Let us embrace the snowy blanket ahead

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near

~Rebeli

(credit: 1st and last lines to : Robert Frost -Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

A little about myself.

My name is Vivian, I am 37 yrs old. I live in the state of Arizona. I hail from the Navajo tribe and look forward to this year’s challenge. This year I have requested the weekend off to be able to focus on the event and write to my heart’s content. Along with prayers to the poetry Gods, Redbull/coffee, and encouragement from both family and friends I plan on finishing the marathon.

To Haunt This Pen

Again I have need to haunt this pen
for again you have forgotten my words
and have ceded your power to another
I see this hold she still has over you
but I do not know how to rationalize it
You have retuned to following the rules
of one who never truly saw you


I do not know how else to tell you
that you deserve to be more
than her proof that she is a good person
This hold she has over you
was solely her way of controlling you
But to perpetuate her voice in your head
will only cause you distress

miles to go (after Robert Frost)

miles to go

(after Robert Frost)

 

blood flows 

         hot and               ragged

a collective thrum.

walls

 surround 

    them, 

they have chosen to 

            let our cries be drown out by 

their preachers

whose shouts of condemnation do                     nothing 

                             but spur us 

further on

 

this will not be the culmination of 

                               feet marching on            cobblestone streets,

                         pepper sprayed petals in                 hair,

                combat boots crunch over                       broken      glass,

 

and miles to go before we sleep,   

 

and miles to go before I sleep.

Pebbles in the lake

 

She’s there
In a scene straight from Frost :
‘Between the woods and the frozen lake’
Throwing pebbles
In despair,
Wondering where it’s all going to lead…

The guns, the rage, the hurt,
The heartache
Of not being master
Of your own fate!
She looks up, wet-cheeked
At the enormous, all knowing sky
As if, any moment it’s going to burst into speech!

The evening turns to dusk
A sweet scent of jasmine fills her
She’s still there, looking for crumbs of hope,
In the twilight
Abuzz with
Fleeting fireflies.

The glow must hold some meaning,
For she comes away
Feeling comforted,

Her cat feels it
As she strokes his furry head
Purring away in pleasure.

 

Smeetha, responding to Prompt 2.

Safety First

Safety First

 

Before helmets existed,

I rode my bike dozens of miles

to the pool, tennis courts,

and library. My bare head

 

sailed through updrafts

as I encircled the middle school

parking lot, for no reason

 

except it was there. Injury

happened to other people,

but I never gave it much thought.

 

Later, my own son, swaddled

in knee and elbow pads,

head encased in a sturdy

 

fiberglass helmet, wobbled

down the sidewalk for half a block,

then proclaimed he didn’t care

 

if he ever rode a bicycle.

After thirty-two years,

he still doesn’t know how.

Hour Two – Robert Frost Poem

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep”

Secrets witnessed by foliage likely to keep

Cautiously, sliding and sweating I creep

The path to the cave incredibly steep

I stand at the mouth and quietly weep

Then I push the body in, starting with feet.

 

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep” Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening)

Hollowed Spaces

Hollowed Spaces

 

“Because if you weren’t an Aunt or a Martha, said Aunt Vidala, what earthly use were you if you didn’t have a baby?” – Margaret Atwood in The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale)

 

The word womb.

The speakers of Old English used the word for belly, bowels, heart, uterus.

Isn’t it amazing that it uses all forms of the word carry?

It holds like a bowl 

like the barrel of a gun

like Hermes.

 

My last ultrasound was quiet, hollow, void

as it should have been.

The only thing that I would have born 

would have been parasitic and violent,

 

But the quiet still gutted me.

There is something solemn about an empty womb.

To see it hallowed like a sanctuary, or

hollowed out like a cave

An echoing image of what could be –for better or worse–

another life. 

 

Sobriety occurs when I have a sneaking suspicion

That the gods aborted all of my babies for me. 

Do I say thank you or scream until there’s a cave-in?

Playground vs playstore

hour – 2

Playground Vs Playstore

The spirit of teaming and the fun
Thrill of knock-and-run
Those swings and slides
Giggles and Mari go rides
Laying on the grass
Couting the stars
Those Hazy memories of summers
Nostalgia is now all we possess
Happiness Of catching
the glimpse of a rare bird
All that has now perished
On tiny victories
Grand Maa rewarding us treat
Walking down together
on the street
Everything had vanished
Joy of Kicking a ball
on the parkway
lofty graphic games
stole it all away
Everything is simply
a click away
Eyes Stuck with a black screen
all the day
Creating towers of the stones,
Bed time stories replaced by phones
Hide n seek, that mud on clothes,
Now confined to orchestrating a virtual realm
Inside the smartphones
Writing in a new notebook
Doesn’t elates us anymore
Relaxation and euphoria of a book
all that now seems bore
We forfeiting all that
Fascinated by technology,
Being obsessed to that
It appears to be the priority ,
Technology inundating endless variety ,
ascertaining its superiority,
Dings and Beeps,
Supplanting the claps and jumps,
Flabbergasted with scroll
swipe, clicks and likes,
Smiles constrained to selfies,
Enmeshed in a realm
That doesn’t breathe,
Worried about the
Battery’s drainage,
Carrying with us
an emotional baggage,
Inexhaustible longings,
believing in virtual clings,
Ignoring the feelings,
Busy texting and gaming,
Sharing a smile
abd shaking hands,
Is no more required
To become friends,
Requests are sent
we now tag, share and comment,
Likes assessing the fame
Isn’t it all like a game
That’s being played
Not in the playgrounds anymore
But in the epoch of the play store.

– Aditi Dixit

 

 

You read my mind, Robert Frost

Thank you for putting words to my thought, dear Robert.

You are one of my favorites,

though I only know you through your published works

and an admiring, respecting description of you

wearing your common — well suited — bow tie

mentioned in a movie* of the 1980’s.

 

“But I have promises to keep,”**

a simple – yet strong – commitment,

meaning I will put great effort to

keeping, fulfilling, maintaining . . .

as far as I possibly can.

Pledges, Promises, Plans spoken out-loud.

 

When I promise to love forever, dear child

you can count on it —

despite spills, messes, broken treasures,

sassy retorts, sneaking out after I fall asleep,

even when you follow different politics.

I promise to love through time, beyond FOX vs MSNBC.

 

I too, “have promises to keep” —

loving you through our weeks and years of agreement

and especially during our disputed views

that cannot change that you were born to me.

You nursed and nuzzled and knew I would be there

promised in whispered love between this mother and my dear, beloved child.

 

by Nancy Ann Smith, Poetry Marathon Prompt #2, June 25, 2022

 

• Kate Nelligan played a college professor describing you in “Without  A Trace” 1983
• “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, as seen in The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.   Copyright 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.   Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.     Source:  Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)