For the first time ever we’re trying something a little different this year. The first prompt every hour will be text based (with occasional variations), and the second, if you scroll down, will be image based. You can choose either prompt or not use prompts at all (or only sporadically). All images are either taken from unsplash, or contributed by a poetry marathoner with credit.
Text Prompt
Write a poem about something ending. It could be a relationship, a stage in life, or the apocalypse. The details are up to you.
Image Prompt
endings are also
beginnings but will they prompt
tears of grief or joy?
Hey there, create your poem and post it directly on your page. You are done with Hour 1! You are starting off with a BANG!
Thank you. I was obviously a little confused. First-timer here (in case you couldn’t tell! Ha!)
Who is the photographer?
Never mind. Figured it out from the URL: Karl Bewick.
Hour One of 2021 Marathon
In January 2021 I began the journey
hundreds of miles trekking in pilgrimage
to a virtual Santiago amid the small houses
of my safe community where invisible threats
came into the very air we breathed.
An e-route with guideposts and imagined sunflowers
along with hundreds of miles opened before me
as I walked darkest mornings
when the owl perched in my front yard
harmonized with the train whistle miles away.
The road continued
as I walked tired in the afternoons
following students’ queries and fears and hopes
their zoomed voices echoing odd harmonies
with birds and barks of surrounding houses.
A few evenings I walked a few more steps
as the sun shone upon iced winter roads,
muddy spring parks, and now summer’s opening fields.
Today no harmonies come from increasing traffic,
crowded stores, drowned out animals’ cries, my heart.
One hundred final on this pilgrimage
now open before me, and the ultimate arrival
will take me back to my classrooms, into the chaos,
buildings and streets busier and filled with people
clamoring with unsettled nerves and angst.
This journey has been sad.
Step upon step were designed for intentional peace.
Finding stillness full of painful, tender unknowns,
I’m older and wizened from the pivots and strains.
Yet miles remain as I finish this journey.
Yes, many miles remain as you finish your journey. Lovely! Happy writing, my friend!
A 2012 pilgrim here. You took me back. Evocative
done! bam! where did that one come from? Loving it – soo excited to be here – . check mine out!
Really nice! I’m also done with the first
you never see it coming, ya know?
even when you kinda expect it
there’s a way
it sneaks up
jumps you
eyes
all around
alert expectation
yes, people out here
are trying to kill you
ha! empty effort –
no amount of preparation
can avert
the sudden assault
the body will crumble
you will not remember
the impact
the split seconds
of flying
through the air
the second crash
the slam
and slide
flesh a poor rival
to concrete
small bits of stone
and glass
imbedding
into what
you knew
as you
your body
the moving
breathing
self
of you
now a mass
of damage
after that
you remember
the body
remembers
and what of it?
there is no
before
it is just now
always now
beginning again
and then
again/starting line
obliterated
heading hazy
and
each step
a promise.