FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICE (a prayer) – Hour Twenty-One (2021)

FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICE (a prayer)

 

earthen and so often overlooked

not a thought past our doormat 

unless we’re calling for a broom

 

Dirt! Ground! Soil! Clod! Sod! Turf! Loam!

never held us on a pedestal with You looking up

but You / supporting us wordless / demanding so little

 

Mother Gaia of the mountains, forests, plains and gardens

may we never grow weary in wonder of your raw abundance

remembering the root of our meal / where-so-ever be our table

Water Water

Water Water
a haiku sequence

stormy weather
for the first day of summer
perhaps a bad omen

rain pelts gardens
tender annuals just planted
float in rivulets

I quell maternal instincts
for fledglings fighting
for a chance to bloom

lightning strikes a tree
on the next block, a sizzle
the power goes out

hum rain rain go away
does nothing to ease
my ire or the downpour

thunder rumbles once
rain stops, a peek of sun
parts empty clouds

lights blink on off on
step out in tall boots
survey the damage done

I pat mud down around
plant stems, hope they will
survive their drenching

sun radiates full power
beds soak up water
the day turns steamy

weather forecasts
high heat all week – sigh
I’ll have to water the garden

~ J R Turek
June 27, 2021 Hour 21

Moonlit Walk

Moonlit walk
no one in sight
I seem to have lost
my fear of heights
Wish you were here.

flatter – 21 of 24

the furious bone
stays imbedded in me
my souvenir
for loving you, bold of me
to try my hand at a science
like that
my phone frozen in my fingers’ grasp
all of us petrify
I am to become a study
of a woman sat, waiting
in an airport terminal,
facing extinction
while facing you
excuses fall from your lips
and I will never kiss you
again, oh
how you begged for that
first kiss, you said,
how could I ask you to wait
even ten minutes?
well, that same interval
allowed you to crumple me
like used aluminum foil
and pat me down
like a trash compactor.
I left you flatter.

Walking at Night

Walking at Night

Walking at night
the neon lights
across the street
beckons me
as if colorful mushrooms
dazzling in an idiosyncratic symphony;
the nearer you go
the farther they are
the further they go
more enchanting they are
a never ending rhapsody
looping between the feet and the street

Hour 20

@varenyas

ode to Diet Coke

you’ve been a sobering presence
your fake, sweetened bubbles
soothe my nauseous whims
and on this night called marathon
it is you that keeps my marrow on
oh, diet coke, oh

this ode
a most pretentious code
my Grandfather’s daily drink
I think
and now on the brink of poems
four and twenty
you and I have had plenty
of drooling pooling schooling ink
as your glass I clink
and dink

there’s ice
there’s no ice
there’s bottles and cans
there’s a twist of lime
there’s so many fans
oh, diet coke, oh
this ode’s full of woe

I often think from you I should wean
I worry that those ingredients are just not clean
for my body
my brain
my spirit
my disdain
knows that you are just a habit
the kind I’m wont to break
but Diet Coke
to finish this race
this Ode’s for you to take

The end is insight… Hour 24

The end is insight.

I loved every second.

Well almost.

The pangs of pain were not from my stomach, but from my brain.

Not a headache all the same.

I look forward to this pleasure pain principle.

…Until we meet again on this poetry plane.

Be safe and take care.

I’m sure when I edit you if the morning I will have different eyes.

Hour 21 – Wheat Whacker (image prompt)

It seems strange to say

But one day

the wheat

Which guards our homes

A staple in many biomes

Will be called a weed

and we

Who live in its roots

Rodents, insects, and pests

Will need to migrate

post haste

To new plants

Hopefully untainted

By modifications that make them

viable as plastic.

Looking at you,  corn…

Poem IX: Palettes and Paintings

The colour of modesty is rouge.
It is the shade of the clouds as it witnesses the consummation of two skies;
The colour of your thoughts on my skin;
Blossoming roses when I sigh your remembrance to the winds;
my palms pressed in prayers for our reunion.
Modesty is the rouge veil that serves as the only partition between our souls
The colour of the stars in which we were named each other’s
and of the flickering candle in my hollow chambers that burns with your partition.

Faith, on the other hand, is an opaque cerulean.
The colour of the ocean, knowing it has the power to swallow anything whole but only ever performs catharsis;
The walls of a mosque that have been erected to protect the identity of a nation;
Faith is the cerulean in my veins that migrates to perform a pilgrimage only to pave a path to the centre of my universe:
The cerulean on the paintbrush that God left in the vase of my soul that reminds me that every time I shatter, I find Him deeper within.

 

More poetry via instagram @anjaanography

Tending Water

Prompts for Hour Twenty

Water sheathes a newly field

in glistening rippled light revealed.

 

The silver moon rides o’re the sea.

If I could, I’d voyage with thee.

 

As the wind picks up the sail.

My silhouette falls on the dale.

 

The water bellows up the dam

and pours itself upon the land.

 

Tending water like its sheep.

As though, they graze on oceans deep.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 27, 2021 4:00am EDT by The Poetry Marathon