Do you recall,
\nor not so much,
\nwhen you could speak
\nwithout rhythm?<\/p>\n
When all your words
\nwere simple
\nand you were happy
\nwith ’em?<\/p>\n
They suited
\nall your wants
\nand needs
\nand no one
\nthought
\nmuch of ’em.<\/p>\n
And you could
\nspeak,
\nthen go to bed,
\nand dream without
\nsuspicion?<\/p>\n
Then one day,
\nyou thought in rhyme
\nand wrote it down
\nand spoke aloud
\nand all the heavens
\nopened up
\nand poems fluttered down.<\/p>\n
Then simple speech
\nwas not enough.
\nYou felt each thought
\nwas coarse and rough
\nand so you smoothed
\nthem, felt the tough
\nones soften to your touch.<\/p>\n
Sonnets came,
\nsestinas too.
\nDividing them,
\nthere held like glue
\nthe free-form
\nwords
\nand then you knew
\nyou’d never sleep again.<\/p>\n
So when the chance came,
\nMARATHON!
\nTo wear your mind out,
\nwear it gone,
\nfor just a little,
\ndawn to dawn,
\nyou signed up,
\nCOUNT ME IN!<\/p>\n
Now here you are
\ndreaming of dreams
\nsuspicious of them,
\nso it seems,
\nbut missing where
\nadventure teems
\nand steams
\nto flavor all your sleep.<\/p>\n
But you can’t sleep,
\nyou said you’d write
\nfrom dawn to dawn,
\nall through the night,
\nand so this letter’s yours
\nalright,
\nso you can keep your word.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, after we’ve had
\nour sleep,
\nand eaten more than cheese
\nand meat,
\nand had a beer
\nand sat outside,
\nno poet then
\nwe’ll be.<\/p>\n
Thankful for the poetry
\nmore thankful
\nfor the rest
\nwe’ll say,
\n“We’ll please not do this again.”<\/p>\n
But I know you,
\nand you know me,
\nand come next year
\nwe’ll both agree
\nthere’s nowhere else we’d
\nrather be
\nthan here,
\nOh Marathon!<\/p>\n
Love,
\nYour Pal,
\nMorgan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you recall, or not so much, when you could speak without rhythm? When all your words were simple and you were happy with ’em? They suited all your wants and needs and no one thought much of ’em. And you could speak, then go…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55858,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55844\/revisions\/55858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}