Category: write a poem a day for 30 days

National Poetry Month 16 and 17

Inspiration

Inspiration lost
still putting pen to paper
hoping for the words.

Long time in the head

fracture spin think think think what did oh really not a chance to change mind spin splinter why how no no no and again repeat spin fracture think think ponder reality disconnect disconnected alone what no one likes me repeat spiral fracture think think react spin what again wait breathe pause spiral pause spiral think interrupt pause breathe past no now yes pause fracture interrupt breathe out let out not here not now think now feet ground root now breathe now think legs now head up breathe out let out not now now here breathe now let go now today good today breathe break a pattern breathe think breathe live breathe inhale now inhale yes exhale yesterday think yes breath yes now yes today yes everything yes life yes breathe yes.  now. 

National Poetry Month 4

Morning Meditation

Sitting for peaceful purposes,
I am flooded by the pain
of what we do to each other
and what we do to ourselves.

I am reminded of the idea
that evil is just the absense of good
and that we have forgotten
that we are the ones we are looking for.

If God is a reflection of the eyes I am looking at
then what happens when God forgets
who they are and what they are here for
so I remind myself, again, to remember.

@JennieO6

#POETRY 21

<!–[if !mso]>st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]–>

Twenty-One
I just got started:
Community college class-load
Part-time employed
Starving student vegetable rice dinners
Cheap tennis-shoes
Growing out dyed hair
Retro-fied hippy wardrobe
Minimum payment on maxed out credit cards
Running slippery rain hills
Boyfriend at the 4-year university
Push start Volkswagon Super-beetle.
I went on to waste my time in various ways,
70’s disco themed parties,
Hippy to office appropriate to yoga culture
Moving states,
Changing boyfriends and bedroom furniture
and jobs and careers,
Having choices.
You no longer have choices:
Ended in dirty lands
Filthy wounds
Too soon is a fucking understatement and a crime to say.
As I saw your name and age
Amongst the list
Of 33, 31, and places like Idaho
Hunting, Simi Valley
Families never getting their prayers answered
Hopes smashed
Dreams of college education
Gone.
What happens to that money that should have gone
To community college class-loads
Vegetable rice dinners
And cheap tennis-shoes to run in
Slippery rain hills?
Your names now on a list
That is far too long
And too often forgotten
When we can’t be pulled away long enough
From being entertained
To recognize the sacrifice
The loss of dreams
The elimination of choice
So we can still think we have one. 

#POETRY "To the Maidens"

To the Maidens;
You less than skinny,
stockings runned, pock-marked, less than perfect beauties
You who can not compete with airbrushed lies
But live full out in your speckled skin wonder
Worsened by the unknown chemicals in food
Supposed to feed but poisoning us.
Those earned feathery eyes
Sparkling behind oceans of tears,
Shed in moments of pain or joy
They do not compare
To the soft weather of your hands
Worked to keep mouths full
Of sunshine and hope
Tired, oh yes,
 but in those moments of wondering,
 Whether to ball into rage or comfort, you make choices
To laugh,
To breath,
in spite of polluted air and better beauty products
made only to consume what has already been consumed
hips made to sway
lips made to smile
cracked open you are and you run anyway
on feet bounding through blistered dreams
cause this, girls, is what it is to dance
and this, is what it means to live
in a world that doesn’t believe you’re worth saving
Hair, wild, burning through forests of
Doctors making surgical options
To make a better you,
And politicians making god-like decisions
That they were never hired to do,
And believers so lost in their own pollution
They forgot the holy words left by their savior’s blood.
But these are stitched into your fingernails
Hollowed into your marrow
Gray mattered gospel it can’t be broken
They try to erase you and yet the angels sing praises in your name,
The vibration of their voices shake them all awake
Crumbling institutions that can not save,
Because we knew that already.
Holding onto pieces doesn’t put them back together
It just makes us stronger.
These tree-trunk legs were made to work
And dance and hold ourselves up when no one else did.
This, you fire-dancer, keeper of the down-trodden, lover of the beast, speaker of the truth, shoulder-crier, breathless rebounder, giver of all you have got and then some more,
you are what makes this world bearable. 

27/28/29 April is National Poetry Month – today is the last day

There is something really amazing about finishing something that you didn’t think you could to.  I am letting my last poem come in this evening.  But I am finding inspiration everywhere, which says “write, write, write”.

27
Twenty-seven
An age in which I discovered myself again.
Decided that certain things were in
and certain things were out.
In
art
creativity
spirituality
divorce
Out
Lies
Covering up
Settling for
Other people’s opinions of me
In
Ballet
running
yoga
acting
Out
soda
bad food
bad ideas
bad relationships
The journey didn’t end there but it certainly began again.

28
If I could tell you how hot you are right now
Set soul on fire, burnt the candle to the wick
melt wax hurt bad but so, so good
I only wish you would believe me.

29
This is the last of an era
the end of a long road of unacceptance, unforgiveness and condemnation
of self, others, world
It’s not enough to scream out the problem, point the finger, rage against the machine, step up to the plate,
show them how it’s done
if your screams are drowning out your ideas
Softer
Closely
Understanding
Relationship
Empathy
Compassion
It’s ok you’re angry
I’m angry too
But it doesn’t help.
If it did, wouldn’t things be different now
Minds change not because stiff boards break the bounds of ignorance
but because something softened their rigid ways of thinking
and showed them a world outside of the boxed walls
and into possibility.

25/26 April is National Poetry Month

25
Twenty-five:
When I decided to move down here to be with you.
Never having left my birthplace, family, friends, loved ones
and took a risk and jumped.
Best decision I ever made.
You just happened to be involved
It would take me a few more years to leave you.

And even after all that water,
all the therapy, and all the time
wasted
waiting for you to get sober/clean/sane/happy.
Being civil until we could be friends, still
finally having to say enough
finally having to say good-bye
even though you haven’t really gone anyplace.

I wish that things were different for you
and that you didn’t have a mind that told you that
the work you do drunk is better than what most people can do at all.
But lies are the only truth you tell yourself,
and the shredded family that has been holding hopes for decades now,
doesn’t need my phone call one more time reminding them of your fall.
Because you never really ever got back on that wagon
and you never really fell.
You just put on costume fairy wings and pretended that it was Halloween
in December, January, February, March
of 1992, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2008, 2009, 2011
but it’s time to take the costume off
and if you’re not willing by this time
God help you.

Maybe that gray haired wizard will grant you some wishes
cause there aren’t any Red Cross stations left
no rest areas
no more free coffee
no more shelter.

As some one wise said
‘it’s time to open your chest, take out your spine
and ride it out of here’
because this town wants you gone
there’s no costume party you’re invited to
No one wants to hear the story of how you shot them down one more time
because the blood on your costume fairy wings is your own
stained with the tears your family has shed
and there isn’t a fucking sunset at the end of this story
so put down your pinted pistol
shave off that forty-five year stubble
and be that human being you were meant to be
complete
whole
unique
spectacular
breathtaking
inspiring
That is your happy ending
Go ahead and have it.

26. a haiku

Alcoholism:
A fucked up place to live
So don’t live there