The Poetry Marathon

Enveloped (Prompt 19)

Surrounded, I am, by
flotsam of my life
eclectic collection of
memory-inducing
trinkets and treasures
fishing lures hanging
from driftwood
vintage, autographed
transistor radio
antique wooden crate
shelves
cassette tape deck
I used for my first radio
interviews
Dad’s old Scotttie-dog
letter holder, and a
lamp and a desk blotter
dating to 1935
sitting just beneath my
laptop and stand

My hand carved
(by me) walking stick
hangs from a nail
as do Gramps’
binoculars
Bill Kewley’s
early 60s Stetson

And

Baseballs!
plain, worn, old;
autographed –
my favorite player, EVER
(a framed 8 X 10, too)
my 1967 t-ball team

Provenance of each
of these I can
recite off the top of
my head
dollar value of it all
miniscule

thought processes
they can trigger
enliven
inspire cannot be
underestimated
though people have
tried

When my time here
is up
my children
grandchildren
will find new careers
as museum curators
via OJT here at
The (Basement) Louvre

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2023
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Mordant murmurings #19

Surrounded by mundanity
Constricted by mediocrity
Suffocated by mendacity
Given to morbidity
Absence of magnanimity
Manacled to monstrosity
Making marks mechanically
To erase again as if magically
Leering misanthropy
Unable to shake the maddening malaise
Being a teacher causes malice in me.

CHARGED (hour xii)

Supplications fill
the closet, potent and live
Fill me on entry

+Inspired by the text prompt

Hour 19- I Have Never Run a Marathon

I have never run a Marathon,

but I written through a few.

I have struggled through the last miles.

My legs and back aching.

Newfound self-hatred.

Marathoners of the running kind

have water passed to them.

I am responsible for my own coffee and food.

And yes, I am drinking some water.

I am making a point to do so.

I have never run a marathon.

I have never pushed to come in second or 90th or 275th.

But I have pushed through poems.

Lots of them,

sword fighting Muses,

jumping over thesauruses,

searching for inner strength and inner will

in an aching soul.

I have written marathons.

Tried to find new subjects,

new focuses,

new ways of doing old things.

I have never run a marathon,

but I know what it feels like

to be engulfed in one.

 

 

 

Where Am I?

This should be good
or maybe it won’t
It seems fitting to be inarticulate
yet truthful
at 3:00 in the morning.

At this time of night
So early in the morning
I think it was a good choice
to pass on the Cheetos
My keyboard would be orange
If I chose differently.

I’m in the hub of my house
aloft in my chair
The dead dear watches over my shoulder
As I write
It’s as if we had come to a mutual understanding
Facing the deer is unnerving
After all, I didn’t kill it.

Rather, my gaze falls on a eucalyptus bunch
Abstractedly reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower.
Also the Last Supper, an angel, a woman reading and two Aftican children on their knees
I almost forgot Sweet Baby James who will be a brother in no time at all
The rest blends into daily vision of ordinary life
After I sleep, I need to dust.
All in all, a wonderful room to poet within.

Hour 12 prompt

SACRIFICE

There is no success without sacrifice,
Sacrifice is just a way to show that you are very nice
The matchstick sacrifices itself to light up a lamp at every height
The candle sacrifices itself to give out light at night

The woman sacrifices herself to give birth to a child
The teacher sacrifices her time to give knowledge so that he does not become wild
Clouds sacrifice their water to give us rain
The soldier sacrifices and fights for his motherland even in his pain

The bees sacrifice their honey for the Queen bee
The river sacrifices itself when it meets the sea.
Trees sacrifice themselves selflessly to provide us shelter and food
Parents sacrifice their needs for their children’s good.

Sacrificing for someone is sign of strength
It is lovely way of connecting with the divine of a superior wavelength.

BY SHREYA SURAJ

Hour Nineteen: A Chamber Full of Chaos

Brass bed, piled high with sheets, dogs, and dog chews,

a mostly-covered vent across to muffle the noise from the studio below,

Picasso’s woman and bird overhanging a cluttered desk,

papers,

books,

bills,

lamp,

iPad,

Laptop,

folders,

and CBD bottles,

black out curtains draping a balcony slider,

two hard cased cellos in the corner by the window,

abutting the shrunken armoire that supports

a pile of books,

sound machine,

lamp,

and journals,

behind the chair that faces

the music stand, Bach’s “Arioso” open, sitting atop a limp bow,

and to the right is the green whitewashed wooden dresser,

sporting

candles,

ceramic boxes my mother made for me as a child,

sage,

Paolo Santo,

a yogini tea light burner,

and essential oils,

atop and adjacent to the closet,

white panels, white walls, white Picasso,

brass,

wood,

and metal,

this is where I sleep, play, pray, and work.

2023: Hour 19: Missing you

Look on your phone and find the 10th non selfie picture and use that as your prompt. (My picture was taken after dark of my black cat curled up on my husband’s side of the bed while he was out of town.)

He sounded surface-calm on the phone as he walked down the stairs,
but something in his voice said, “All is not well.”
And as he continued to speak with his father
in that deceptively placid tone, he started
shoving random articles of clothing into a
small travel bag.

That unplanned trip stretched from a couple of days
into a couple of weeks and wrapped around
a bevy of unexpected and largely unwelcome
plot twists, the majority of them
medical in nature.

Late one night, preparing for sleep,
I sent him a message, as I was
wont to do. But this one
spurred a response.
“The cat has stolen your spot
on the bed,” I playfully captioned
a photo of our Ninja Kitty.
“Tell her it’s mine,”
he replied.

Day #2023poetrymarathon #prompthour19

sultry, hot

the unmade bed

where I have lain this night

each poem

a story of you.

imagined

and real

unreal

surreal

true.

the sun

burns,

a fierce white

heat

that emits no light.

 

Dark Spring-Hour Nineteen

Smooth walls circle round and round me, round and round,

like a tailor bird I stitch it round me, in the best and coolest of colors.

Green, rich gold, deep mahogany, colors of the forest, dressing me

in sumptuous symphony, I turn, the green a warm cocoon of liveliness,

lovely green walls that spin and touch the senses, just so,

in the depths of winter, I will always stand in spring, in her soft,

sweet, melancholic way, a Persephone garden, an immortal garden,

wrapt so in that deep forestness, Hades’ favorite gift of the pomegranate

and of flowers never dying.