Two for One

Morning Poem

Remember when you were a kid
And you watched your father shaving
And wished you could too,
but you were a girl?
Thanks to age and hormones,
Your time may have come.

Evening Poem

How about something deeper?
Why.
What is wrong with writing a poem
that doesn’t explore the meaning of life,
the lessons of love,
the angst that comes and goes?
What is wrong with writing a poem
that doesn’t intentionally say anything deep?
A poem that is light,
contains some humor,
Maybe a little irony.
And the simplicity of the words and subject
Stand on their own,
Evoke an image,
Create a feeling,
Maybe encourage a chuckle.
Not written to be deep
But powerful, nonetheless.
Answer:
There is nothing wrong with
having fun
with words.
Creative writing doesn’t equal soul searching.
Besides, deep is relative.

Freedom - profound thought of the day

Tonight’s profound thought. 😃

Freedom is knowing
that you get to set your own goals
and you get to make the rules.
That is, if you want to have rules.

Happy?

You asked me
Are you happy?
Yes, I said.
I asked you the same question
And you gave the same answer.
I wonder now,
Was either one of us
Telling the truth?

Since I’ve been gone

Inspired by “I Dreamed Again” by Anne Michaels, and influenced at the end by “The Little Red Hen.” It needs editing, as do most things I write in under 15 minutes.

Since I’ve been gone,
I have begun to sing again,
I read more books,
I watch less tv,
I walk more,
I hike more,
I sleep more,
I smile more.

Since I’ve been gone
From you,
I have been solitary,
I have sung loudly and danced around
In public,
I have found a coffee shop
where I have been writing
Writing in a journal
Writing poetry
I have been creative.

Since you moved and I didn’t go with you,
I have lived more simply,
I have missed the warmth of a body next to mine
I have missed daily conversation
I have missed physical contact.
I have not missed the cold I felt
In the twilight of our time together,
I have not missed when the darkness fell
And our life together splintered
And the divide depeened.

Since I’ve been gone,
I have grown,
I have lived.
I have learned again to love
Myself
And to trust
Myself
I have learned how to move on
Pick up the pieces of my heart
And soul
And build a new mosaic.

Since I’ve been gone,
I have found a new way to live
And I am no longer gone,
I am traveling
Yet I feel like I have arrived.

Who needs WiFi?

In the basement of an old building. Internet connection comes and goes. For now, it’s here so I can post this.

Oh no!
I can’t get onto the internet.
My life as I know it
Is being put on hold.
No way to communicate
With cyber friends and family.
Feel helpless without
A way to access email
And Facebook
And surf the net.
Time to go for a walk
Or read a book
Or maybe even have a conversation
With a real live person
In person,
Using my mouth to speak
And my ears to listen
Rather than my fingers typing
And my eyes reading.
Is that body language I see?
And vocal inflections that I hear?
So much attitude.
So human.
Please touch me
Just to prove this is real.
Feeling hopeful rather than helpless,
Maybe I should do this more often.

Tornado Watch

Tornado watch,
I can hear the wind.
The clock reads 11:50
with the PM light on.
Sleep is important,
But the wind gusts
are distracting
and worrisome.
Oh, I do wish
that instead of listening to the wind,
waiting for the rain,
and worrying about what could happen,
I wish that I could watch a tornado
without running the risk
of getting hurt.
More immediately
I wish I could peacefully sleep
and not hear the windows rattle.

No words

Two days of creative drought,
No thoughts leaked out of my head,
No torrent of words onto paper,
Nothing.
So now I will try to
write about it,
Since I still haven’t
had an epiphany.

Night-time writing

I write to get thoughts out of my head
So I can go to bed.
Purge the venom from my brain
So creativity will have room
To expand.
A better rhyme would have been nice
But too much perfection
Can sound trite.

Wise words

If you know what is real
You have nothing to prove.

Even though

Mom guilt sticks with me and pushes through my conscience at the oddest times.

Even though
Someone gets hurt in the process,
I’m okay with making mistakes.
Despite the pain,
In the end,
An understanding is reached,
I learn something I needed to know.
Even if it pushes us apart,
At some point,
The resolution
Brings us closer.
We hurt,
We grow,
We heal,
Our bond is stronger.
Mistakes can hurt
And if we talk about it
Together
Mistakes can be good.

Grand Canyon

Created a canyon,
Too wide to jump across,
Too steep to climb down,
Too deep to jump in.
So now what do you do?
Walk it back.
Retrace your path.
Find another way around.
Except,
You can’t take back
Your words.
And the long way around
May take too long,
And you can’t afford to be late.

Haikus about writing

I signed up to do Camp NaNo. My goal is to take the poems I’ve written since July 2017, edit as many of them as I can, and try to see if they can be put in theme groups. I decided that would all be easier to do if I printed them. My progress, so far, is slooooooow.

Writing assignments
scare my creativity
away. I hate that.

Being told to write
Takes the fun out of it and
Slows down the word flow.

Supporting Cast

This one needs a lot of work. But I wanted to post it just in case the editing doesn’t happen soon.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The star gets the spotlight.
The boss gets the credit.
The winner gets the medal and the headline.

Those who plug along
Do their job
Day in, day out,
Get a paycheck, maybe,
And maybe the glory of knowing
What they have accomplished.

In the shadows,
All that matters is
How you feel about yourself
Not accolades from others.

Forget the squeaky wheel,
The star,
The boss,
The winner.
Most of us are the supporting cast,
And without us,
No one shines.