How PoetryMarathon works: Reply
i write a poem. that's NumberOne. then who ever comes along next, will take any line from that poem, and use it to start their poem. then someone takes a line from NumberTwo, and goes on to use that to start NumberThree. and it just keeps going,and going, and going.... the reason that i make the numbers a link is so if you get inspired by a poem that already has one after it, you can still link to it and use it for inspiration. Reply
Calling all poets: VPHWikiNeedsYourHelp That's right, the Vancouver Poetry House has a Wiki and we're looking for poets, especially anyone involved in a Slam. —Neal Reply
Start where we left off? PoetryMarathonArchive27 (1-50) PoetryMarathonArchive28 (51-100) PoetryMarathonArchive29 (101-151) PoetryMarathonArchive30 (151-200) PoetryMarathonArchive31 (201-250) PoetryMarathonArchive32 (251-300) PoetryMarathonArchive33 (301-305 & 356-400) 306-355 are non-existant. PoertyMarathonArchive34 (401-450) PoetryMarathonArchive35 (451-500) PoetryMarathonArchive36 (501-550) PoetryMarathonArchive37 (551-600) PoetryMarathonArchive38 (601-650) PoetryMarathonArchive39 (651-700) PoetryMarathonArchive40 (701-750) PoetryMarathonArchive41 (751-800) PoetryMarathonArchive42 (801-850)
See also: PoetryMarathonZines PoetryMarathonLetters PoetryMarathon on old wiki Reply
New posts at the bottom. Reply
Eventually, I died, or something. I can’t be sure. Reply
But I do know that it got dark. The stars are gone and I cannot hear. Reply
I think I died but I can't be sure. Reply
Hold on. Reply
There's a sound. Reply
Muffled and deep. Rhythmic. Reply
Maybe I returned to the womb? Reply
Oh wait. Never mind. Thats my own heart. Reply
Does your heart beat when you have died? Reply
I thought I died but now I'm not so sure. Reply
What's that I see? A light? Reply
Is it the end of the tunnel? Reply
Perhaps I have died after all. I can't be sure at all. Reply
No. I see it now. That's the light of my soul. I see it even with my eyes closed. Reply
I can't be dead and still have my soul can I? Reply
I thought I was dead. But now I'm sure. Reply
I'm not dead. I'm alive. Reply
Alive to feel the sun and the grass. Reply
Alive to hear the birds and the wind. Reply
Alive to die some day. Reply
I think some day I'll die. But I really can't be sure. Reply
eightfivetwo a work in progress.
muffled and deep rhythmic. in bed i imagine your gun and your heart sound similar but be careful not to confuse warmth with fear. steel with passion. ammunition with desire. because even though i carry your .44 around in my pocket i don't take it to bed.
tonight i'll open my left breast to show you my ventricles pounding after we've made love and maybe then we wont make circles (rings) orbital arguments floating around our naked bodies as you make promises that will become transparent, in daylight and only materializing at midnight when we fight.
you're afraid of the silence the stillness my love. muffled and deep rythmic and he was right it is all fundamental...
-Frankie
and he was right Reply
I forgot to tell you Reply
he was right about everything—about the butterflies in your stomach and why your nose always twitches at nighttime Reply
I am so sorry Reply
I forgot to tell you Reply
Once he said it, I filled myself up with your thoughts Reply
what you might say, the way your right hand might move in circles expressing anger, but not really Reply
I do hope you know where you are going. Reply
-ze banana
I forgot to tell you Reply
I love you Reply
before you left for home Reply
I thought I would see you Reply
before I lost the memory of your skin Reply
and the smell of your freshly washed hair Reply
we were supposed to have Reply
every goodbye that we wanted Reply
we were supposed to have Reply
all the time in the world Reply
you and me and our cornucopia Reply
of malfunctions and broken promises Reply
were supposed to have a chance to heal Reply
but no part of me cares Reply
about the talking now Reply
and all of me aches for the taste and the chaos of you Reply
and the the chance to say only this: Reply
forget what we were Reply
what we were was a land mine Reply
this is now this is here Reply
and I love you more than Reply
Juliet loved Romeo, because really Reply
what were they but lovestruck teenagers Reply
and we, we are eternity Reply
I love you more than the sound of my fingers typing, than peanut sauce on
thai food
the day it turns to summer (when the kids all play outside) and plum juice
running down my arms in vines and swirls.
More than clay. That's saying a lot. More than how my collar bones look in my new work shirt, more than how amazed I am by digital cameras and more than breathing in purple when I smell hyacinth.
I love you more than new paint and a blank wall.
More than pentel RSVP pens, extra fine.
My love for you is such that I am having a hard time finding a conclusion to a list that keeps on listing, where no one item ever gets crossed off. It is the stregga nona pasta pot of love lists the never ending story of adoration complete with the song that gets stuck in your head for days, and days, oh, yes, forever.
Love me back let me on your lists too!
My love for you is such that I am having a hard time Reply
breathing Reply
eating Reply
sleeping Reply
needing Reply
feeling Reply
being. Reply
My love for you is easy to do and hard to fall out of. Reply
Head over heels? Reply
Honey, I jumped head first. Reply
You leave me dangling from the veins Reply
mangling Reply
every last hope Reply
of trying to ‘fall’ off of this trampoline Reply
rather dashed... Reply
Like the forms Reply
we filled out at the doctor Reply
the pine-eyed proctor Reply
to the tests of will Reply
that would Reply
break us apart. Reply
Seven months Reply
your mothholed tshirts I wear to bed Reply
with another. Reply
I learn to bounce instead of updown throw. Reply
My whiplash hair is red Reply
but not my eyes Reply
He writes a letter of thanks Reply
to you for letting go. Reply
The ink is confident Reply
punctuated with sighs. Reply
Sleeping.
That's how it looked.
The old restaurant in the building downtown caught fire on a cold night last
winter.
The firemen came and put it out.
They broke the windows
and sprayed water that turned to steam on the flames.
And then they left it there.
And then it froze.
Ice coated the brick
and the broken shards of window-glass
ice ice ice
thick and white
like a freighter from the Antarctic.
It looked like the restaurant was sleeping.
Or dead.
Months passed. And now, they're fixing it up. A Dumpster sits alongside. And workers with strong hands and good hearts are throwing away the old. The ice has melted.
Spring is a time to throw out the junk the broken glass the blackened wood into the dumpster and bring out the green paint and the white paint and the tools and make things whole again.
eight five eight Reply
Spring is a time for cleaning up. This is not spring. Colors spin blissfully off of the trees as I take pictures with an old camera with a lens that turns everything green at the corners. You're turning green at the corners, fall, a dark grainy green that hints of darker times ahead, of sudden fall-offs, of clear air so thin you can hardly breathe it and stay together. You're a choreographed falling-apart. Wonderful, reckless, yet sad somehow, so sad a sound of huddling up as the light plays around you wishing for someone warm.
You, you who I think of when I'm not supposed to be thinking of anyone are far away. You are wearing a straw hat and I can smell the cigarette smoke on your breath from that one last one you can't quit. You're working on it. It's snowy in Denver and the roads are coated with Jack Frost's breath in the mornings. Sometimes when you get out of bed the cold hits you and you feel like moving on. Can't stay in one place too long. You'll get old.
My grandpa had an old red pickup with a silver bumper that had a green sticker that saidDon't blame me, I didn't vote for Wellstone.What he saw and what you see are so different. You look out and see the lights and the skyline of this world and I want to see them too. When you forget them, I'll show them to you. Meet me sometime in the basement of a bookstore where the spiders spin webs across a generations-old copy of Betty Crocker's Best, and we'll take the green edges off our thoughts and maybe make some sense out of this fall.
Wishing for someone warm, I stopped in at a metaphorical diner and you'd have been the waitress I fell instantly in love with.
I remember there were waffles in the morning and red translucent jelly. The wood was yellow and the ground was wet from the rain the night before. You're a stickler for details. You'd write them down on cream paper in sharpie and we'd talk later and laugh.
Counting Crows sing a highway song but Kate Perry kissed a girl and liked it so that's what the radio plays. I sat on the cold ground next to you in the glow of the headlights two pairs of jeans on the concrete curb and we talked. Did nobody else see you were sad? The eaves were black and fluorescent yellow bug lights glowed. It felt so good to be needed.
It would be nice to write a conclusion something about sharpies or cream paper or red jelly but for now I'll just say that I miss the scratchy feel of your jacket against my face and the way you look at me with those so-deep eyes and nod and let me know I'm really loved.
In the morning you woke up your red hair ignited by the morning sun glorious and left.
I was left with the dishes from the night before.
I didn't mind. It seems like my purpose, this time around, is to be the cleanup crew for brighter flames than I with shakier hands.
Do you mind, World? Is it OK if I don't try for glory and instead just look after the stars among us and sweep up popcorn and wipe their tears?
Is it OK if I don’t try for glory? Reply
Wandering slowly down the road... Reply
Watching the fireflies. Reply
They don’t search for glory either Reply
Do they ponder existence? Reply
Do they know I watch them? Reply
Idly wondering... Reply
Unsure Reply
But flying still. Reply
I chart my own path Reply
Wandering Reply
Slowly Reply
I have no real destination Reply
But, Reply
Do you mind world? Reply
If I try? Reply
Do they ponder existence? i wondered as my dog sat on my knee tonight and I saw the grey starting to creep into his whiskers
He's getting on in years, this dog, but what a time he's had! Plucked from a cage at the shelter five years ago by my mom because my sister had insisted we go and look for a dog on Mother's Day
I remember the time he ate six brownies from the counter (dark dark chocolate brownies) and we thought,Oh no, is he a goner?('cause they'll tell you dogs and chocolate don't mix) but he was fine the next day maybe a bit more jittery than normal but fine, nonetheless
and that's been his story. He's been fine. Through it all, he's been fine. Does he think about getting older? Probably not. He'll go on like my grandpa has gone on answering a merryJust great!to the routine "How are you?" and doing his best to take care of the important things plenty of food a good family and a warm knee to sleep on and leaving the rest to fall how it may.
I wondered if I could write something with two sides: flat and round spiny and smooth a happy-sad jumble of this crazy life. I've been feeling that way a lot lately.
I miss things oh God, are there things I miss the feeling of calling and hearing her voice as she answered the phone and knowing her day was brighter because of it the way we'd look at each other in a crowd mentally checking like lovers do the pillars and valleys of our thoughts in a fire, we'd rescue each other first then plunge back in and help the others checking always checking.
And other things are better now now that I don't wear the same sweater anymore and I have a job. This is the sanded side the side I'd like to believe in. A kitchen window with blue glass bottles with the sun streaming through and a calico cat winding his way through the spider plants. The way a baby looks seeing a star. The elevators at Dayton's and old men with beards.
I read The Vagina Monologues today and watched my roommates play and thought about Mars. The mind expands on days like these and the impossible the rough the smooth the intergalactic come closer and work themselves into a pattern that I could make out if only the room was more yellow or the bed was more soft. It's so close I can almost touch it. Give me time, world. Give me time.
864 Reply
Ever wonder what goes on in peoples mind when they look at you? do they love you, do they hate you, do they know you. Reply
Ever wonder what goes on in peoples mind when they look at the sky? how far away are the stars, why are they there, and how they shine? Reply
Ever wonder why? why we are together, in this place, at this time? Reply
Ever wonder what makes me love you? why you love me or why you don't. Reply
I wonder, i wonder all of those things, i look at you, i look at me, and i wonder. Reply
It is said we cannot comprehend Infinity Reply
because of its vastness Reply
it is impossible to see, to touch (taste hear smell) Reply
and thus beyond our perception Reply
But everyone knows we can't taste our own tongues Reply
Perhaps we can't perceive infinity because Reply
we Reply
ourselves Reply
are infinite. Reply
Because of its vastness, I had lost myself in the simmering city that never sleeps. I took a walk.
I took a walk out on the river flats today past February-grey marshland and Snickers wrappers to the place where the city gives way to the earth again and everything is quiet and still.
My breath makes fog in the air; still damp with the hint of the last snowfall before winter is beaten back. The simmering city that never sleeps simmers on in the distance but I pay it no mind. It can't hurt me here. The three-quarter moon is glowing blue-white in the late-afternoon sky.
Ice, hardened into the thinnest crackle-paper sheets by the freeze and melt of water is by my feet. If I run my finger along it it sounds hollow like a drum. Dried grasses rustle with their seedy tops wishing to be spread like rice.
A blue moon, an orange sky off in the distance, the sun reflects off of telephone wires making brilliant lines of lightning
Somehow perspective comes easier here away from Rachel told Andrew that he was looking at her funny so now he's mad and she wishes she had broken up with him in October and the computer's not working and Jemma slept with Rob and she really wants Daniel so she wrote a note and called me and her rent's due and now she's crying.
I took a walk out on the river flats today where everything is quiet and still. The simmering city that never sleeps simmers on in the distance twinkling lights, nothing more.
off in the distance, the sun reflects off of telephone wires separating me from you your voice wakes me up from the mundane reality and takes me to a land of dreams where i can touch you and see you and hear you without webcams or telephones between us
for every inch of wires connecting us there is a reason i miss or love you there's your hair and your eyes and your smile and your laugh and your clothes and your teeth and then there's your sense of humor and the way you won't let me put myself down and the aura of love you give off infecting everything and -one around you and the way you can just be you that i wish i could find in myself.
if you were here or i was there imagine the adventures we'd have hugging strangers, petting kittens making movies, singing songs just taking the chance to be with each other because i don't know when i'll see you again
this is a poem to say i love you and you should come see me because i feel alone with only your voice echoing through wires and your words flattened into text to keep me company
Reply
- Aw, thanks, Andy! ♥ ~BlueberryEmily (who forgot to sign her poem, haha)
eightsixeight Reply
you should come to this skin of mine this luscious, burning skin and feel for two days what it is like to live without breathing and to sleep while hyperventilating
because in this skin, this slowly tearing rejuvenating skin that I have sewn you will learn about
how precious your own closed eyelids are and about what it is like for you to walk on the beach and understand
the shell stuck still away from waves and alone in its quiet meditation.
eight, six, nine Reply
You will learn if you walk like I do how to forget about skin, and warmth, and spicy food. And Mexico. The great sun setting over the valley bending heat waves out of the dusty air becomes a mere picture, light captured in digital form by someone more creative than I allow myself to be printed on pressed dead trees that I keep on my coffee table.
Two years ago, I was in love with a girl with curly blond hair and a radiant smile that bespoke life. That's how I remember you; maybe you've changed. I would drown in the acres of your miraculous skin. I loved you for being so free.
Now I spend my time with people who stand tall and walk fast. They don't notice the things you did. Snails — I remember snails. You would always stop and watch them, fascinated, for at least five minutes every time you saw one. One awake being to another. These people I surround myself with don't notice the snails.
Will you ever forgive me that I traded your world of earth and soft ground and green ferns and spices for chrome and glass? Success is what has led many great men and women astray; made them listless and detached like I know on some level I'm becoming, those late nights when meaning seeps through the moonlight as I lie awake. Mexico. The valley. The places you know. They're fading to me.
All I hope is that some evening in July when the sun has cooled to an ember and the roads give heat back to the night you'll knock on my door with the smell of adventure in your hair and I will follow you.
:-) Reply
You'll knock on my door, in a few minutes, and I'll turn to you like I have so many times before and come downstairs for dinner. A well-practiced routine; as timeless as the knotty pine walls.
When I was young, Mom, how come I believed that everybody would grow up like they do in the movies? Not the slick hair fancy cars fashion & bars movies, but 10 Things I Hate About You boy meets girl who changes his world and nobody smokes weed or wants to spend their weekends hung over. I wished for one of those guys. Someone I imagined I could be myself with and not grow up too fast and hang onto my hope. And in the evenings we'd drink lemonade and talk about feminism.
Mom, why is everybody distracting themselves and being mean and taking up smoking and learning what vodka tastes like and the air smells like pot and the light in their eyes is gone? Is anybody trying to be good anymore? I took a bike ride and when the leaves were moving so fast past me that the world was a green blur I realized that I remember when not having problems was cool.
Heath Ledger's dead now drugs and I wonder sometimes if there's anyone out there for me.
Eight Seventy One Reply
And I wonder why orange juice doesn't seem to cut it any more. Too many
late nights, too many bleary-eyed mornings stumbling into the world of the
waking from my bed where I wish I could remain only a few seconds more.
Time grinds me up and spits me out; a 5 1/2-hour rest becoming the norm.
Like soy cheese, I guess, or model trains — never quite satisfying; a taste
of something unreachable.
I drink coffee now. I've mostly stopped believing in ghost stories and
almost entirely stopped believing in fairy tales. Don't ask me why — ask
London, where the Eye rises over the city in a too-high-too-fast triumph
over the ground, or ask D.C., where the grass on the lawn of the Mall is
scruffy and brown, worn by the teeming crowds. The in and out of day to day
drove the stories out. They packed their tiny suitcases and locked their
tiny doors and went off to greener pastures where the children could
discover them and laugh.
I thought about Oslo while I was standing on a curb staring at the green
green grass. It's 2am there and a tram glides with almost no sound into a
station where a man with a dark fedora and a suit of the finest wool pauses,
his eyes catching the light and reading the destination and turning back to
his paper. Stories like the night, and they like newspaper. I saw one
dancing in the brim of his fedora, trying to make him laugh. I don't think
he heard.
And now I speak to you: strange as this may sound, I look at your face and
see some girl that I might have played on the swing set with as a young
child. Most people have lost that but you have not. We would be happier
there; you a girl and me a boy and us not realizing at all what that meant;
what gender meant. Just swings to swing on and trees to climb and forts to
build and the kind of friendship that eight-year-olds master but
20-year-olds can forget in a sea of doubt and coffee and soy cheese and a
million other things. Actual eye contact. The way you look at me makes me
realize suddenly that there are things I left behind in those swings and
tree forts.
In a prairie town where the streetcars are long gone the streets are paved
with asphalt now. But in the springtime when the weeds poke up through tiny
cracks the asphalt is worn and broken, and sometimes on moonlight nights I
can run my fingers over rough cobblestones and grasp the edge of a trolley
rail in the bottom of a pothole. There is a den of stories living near,
like prairie dogs, and I watch them sing and dance and play guitar. I don't
let on that I'm there but I know they know. When I wake up in the mornings
now their laughter is ringing in my ears.
What can you do when you've lost all your faith? When there's nothing to
believe in any more? Rituals only work if you have faith in them to begin
with; the London Eye only inspires if that's your idea of a good time. My
life was lacking stories so I went out and found some, and they told me to
drink orange juice and eat pie and sit with them a while. I'm getting more
sleep now and when I wake up in the morning it feels like I've tasted
sweetness; like I've reached a climax. The stories packed their tiny
suitcases and left on model trains and at night I can hear them singing.
I'm getting more sleep now.
I squirted soap onto the cloth ran my hand around the rim of the bowl and pretended not to notice the tears in your eyes. Maybe someday you'll look back and say "We did dishes together. And it helped."
There is a window of which I can’t see Outside it is looking, showering over me I stare into its eyes And look very hard And I can’t see, there is a guard The guard is blocking my view of outside I try to look It is one crazy ride The window is foggy Too foggy to see It makes me question who I want to be Do I want to be an onlooker staring through the window Or do I want to be outside Do I want to be restrained my whole life Or do I want to get out And enjoy my life The window can try to darken my view But I will not let it I will go outside into the blue They can try to stop me But stop me they won’t You may think it’s not possible But you will be surprised when they don’t I will crack the window Smash it with a bat Leave my old distorted life behind I’m done with that! Reply
I will go outside into the blue the early morning blue when the night still clings to the ground like dust and I will walk past the gates to the park.
I owe you an apology, for not being there that Tuesday in December, but the growing dawn is brighter than regrets. The air smells like warm wet dirt.
Bridges rust and concrete cracks but morning comes and puts everything else to shame. Right now, when the dawn and the predawn caress each other like equals, I feel at peace.
And the lawn of the grey house is strewn with rose petals, somehow, strangely, and here in this place at the center of my heart, they are all for you.
I owe you an apology because I like you too much and will miss you too much.
And that doesn't make for happy lives, baby, or does it? Seperation is terrible and painful and will make us both miserable and for that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how real this is.
This love thing is like a pineapple, sweet but there are pricky parts you don't want to touch and going away is hardest. And I will miss you like a pineapple, sweet and sticky and intoxicating and warm but a pineapple is too sharp to hold and I will miss you more.
I will miss you more than a mama bear misses her cub I will miss you more than the dew misses the grass I will miss you more than tea misses honey and I will miss you more than light laughter and freckles and yarn.
I will miss you more than orange juice I will miss you more than backrubs I will miss you more than awkward silences and I will miss you more than fresh-baked bread.
I will miss you more than an entire month of Sundays and I want you to know that you're worth it.
and i want you to know your voice is still in my mind singing the song i wish you'd written for me.
and i wish you could see how much i have changed since this community opened my eyes.
and i want you to know i hope we'll stay friends because i think you're great and would be good for me.
and i wish you could see i'm more than just me inside there's a bit of everyone i've ever met.
and i want you to know that i'm not always like this that sometimes i write things that actually have meaning
878
I'm not always like this. I can be sensible. Realistic. But when the mood strikes me, emotion takes over. I have no control.
I have this pit in my stomach, this cavern in my chest, that longs to be filled with love and romance. I ache for beautiful kisses and bunches of flowers, surprises, and sunsets, and just to be held.
The first time you say I love you and mean it, really mean it? I'll just melt. A puddle of me pooled at your feet. Yours, with all my heart.
Number 879
Pit in my stomach curled up small, still has potential
to be white plum blossoms.
Take the hard thoughts the iron walls the small pellets of defensiveness
I've got this huge backyard
we'll plant the barbs with gloves on
in August when I stand poised to meet you with a veil between us
I'll take what's softer now and wear the petals in my hair.
(<3) Reply
Number Eight Eighty. Reply
in August when I stand before you with this peach pit still in my mouth
i hope that 'i'm sorry' won't feel as if it's curled up on my tongue and died
your magentas and your magnolias were given back so hastily
OH how i long to feel love still to have it's itch on my skin for it to be a sound so thunderous
that it will not be denied by will or gin or fields of ochre and for it to eddy out of me
a plume of orange peel so bright that their feathers will turn orange for us and they will say that we are two birds who seek only the sun Reply
-Jake Oh Reply
881
two birds in hats and vests introduced the man the gay bruce willis look alike who's torso twisted when he spoke like I wrap up a bag of bread.
bald head gold thing shining as he patted it, to check, making sure the words got out okay. as they moved his black shirt to escape.
later on when he sat down to a shorter microphone and answered questions, he didn't talk like someone dancing nothing wild but he said poetry is necessary for some people. it helps to organize the mind.
I could see the method then the patterns of foot prints painted on the floor.
882
a shorter microphone for me, a smaller ladder to climb, a wall of wood not brick
nothing reinforced
we build and build and the dust is in my eyes and throat the water full of mud. I hate to hammer, hate to hit what's lined up
execute.
I need to switch to shovels and tunnels
not even to escape, just to find the secret way to you.
883 Reply
To find the secret way Reply
Beside the voices- Reply
Whispering of heretics Reply
Traitors. Reply
Mother Culture holds us close. Reply
We must Reply
Walk the winding paths Reply
Away from the highways, Reply
Sidewalks, Reply
Sticky-hot asphalt. Reply
Where: Reply
Blueberries grow Reply
And you can eat the cattails Reply
Waving in the passing breezes. Reply
I’ll find the old buildings Reply
Reclaimed by- Reply
Love Reply
Life Reply
Life Reply
And camp, Reply
By a stream that fish still follow. Reply
While I watch beauty escape in- Reply
Ruins. Reply
Edit This Page Show Changes Add Archive Tag Revisions Random Page List of Pages Recent Changes Main Page Log in