Anger

Anger will not feed you
Nor pay the rent that’s due
But if you let it seize you
Taints everything with rue.
Rather, let it run its course
As atoms rearrange
Returning as a wealthy source
Of spiritual spare change.

The Color of Love

Unchanged

And if the world should end for me today
Tomorrow would arrive just like before
Unchanged in such a small and minor way
That I would wonder “what was I here for?”
As war and peace continue on at odds
My presence never stopping fatal blows
As hungry children worship faulty Gods
Believing this is just the way life goes
A sadness now has settled in my heart
And failure is an option I embrace
As suddenly I realize my part
Amounts to nothing more than wasted space.

As every day grows more and more the same
It seems that I find less and less to blame.

Life Insurance

At last, the sun returns to warm this day
The gloom that filled this room is dead and gone
And like a child, I find myself at play
Now prompted by an urging to move on

For what is done, is done. The past has passed.
What purpose would be served to linger there?
The precious moments passed us by too fast
Consumed by unknown futures we’d prepared

I know this day could be the last I see
But all the days I’d forfeit led to this
My future is the present found in thee
This very moment spent in sunlit bliss

So just in case said future slips away
I’m cashing in my yesterdays each day.

Insurrection

Great Escape

She’s found a place where she can hide
And when she’s scared she crawls inside
In there, she can escape reality
She goes there often on her own
To think or cry or be alone
Where no one can malign her misery.
She tried to hide within the room
But seekers flocked to fix her gloom
They’d find her under table, desk or shelf
And so she chose the only place
Where no one can invade her space
When she’s afraid she hides inside herself.

S’No MORE!

The snow capped trees are drooping from the weight
Of crystal ice and snow I’ve come to hate
A little taste of beauty is enough
I’ve had it with this fluffy, flaky stuff!
The skiers are elated as they glide
While I am irritated as I slide
Around a yard that’s now a skating rink
And so I close my eyes and calmly think
Of daffodils all lined up in a row
Beneath the several feet of ice and snow
I see the hollyhocks all standing tall
And creepy crawling vines along the wall

Excuse my manners here for just a bit
No more snow! I’ve had it with this shit!

*25 inches of snow last week and I am still shoveling!
I need to rent a husband. lol

Powerless

Suddenly, the magic begins to subside
And reality crashes through the barrier
I’ve so masterfully maintained
The truth invades my heart and soul
The tears begin to flow
Like a river that has outgrown
The holding power of the mighty dam
I begin to ask “why”
There is no answer. No solution
No quick fix or patch that will stop
The flow of pent up fears and tears
Or this feeling of helplessness
And inability to fix what is broken
I am powerless to heal what needs healing
Unable to fix what needs fixing
Including my own broken heart

Sweet Sunset

Immaculate Deception

Two eggs, resting side by side
One shell, in which two chicks reside.
One grew strong, as cells divided,
The other disappeared inside it.
Together, they grew as one, these two
Now so conjoined, that no one knew.

The innocent victims of nature’s flair
United, yet perfectly unaware,
That when they reached maturity
The one inside, would grow to be
An equal but opposite identity.

Now the one we see, in reality,
Unknown to us, would share
With one inside, who’s been denied.
The ‘one’ who isn’t there.

Might every rooster in life’s pen
Have inside himself, a hen?
Or an evil other, awaiting the chance
The proper time and circumstance
To ‘come out’ from within?

When examined with an open mind
More of us, I’m sure would find
A truth that others simply won’t
In what we see, and what we don’t.

Poetic License

Poets paint their art with words
Their brush, a mighty sword
With innuendo here and there
They strike familiar chords.
With words absurd, their meaning blurred
They seduce a fleeting thought
But never assume it’s their personal gloom
For often it is not.
The pain and joy they oft employ
To render their reason to rhyme
Are tainted by the readers’ eye
Unequipped with a poet’s mind.
So when you read a poet’s words
With toil so well defined
That a miner, with a lifeless bird
Is planted in your mind.
It may well be reality
Just not of their own kind.

© 2007 Shirley Allard

Sparky

I can’t possess the moment of the breeze
Or capture smells from flowers growing wild
I can’t abolish needless tragedies
Or dry the painful tears of every child
I don’t recall a time I did not long
To save the world and rescue every heart
I don’t think small but I have been so wrong
To think that I could carry out that part
I won’t give up although it seems in vain
My mission to find passion in this world
My powers to rekindle dwindling flames
Are limited but still will not be hurled
I cannot let my love of life expire
As long as there’s a spark I tend the fire.

Thank You, America!

Joe Biden & Kamala Harris have won the Presidency. We have made America great again. Celebrate but remember to stay safe.

Night Song

In restless hours
of the night
I am your flower
bathed in light
in candles’ glow
two shadows dance
two souls engaged
in mindless trance
beyond such things
as place and time
your rhythm sings
in tune with mine.

Purgatory

The winter’s freeze has stripped the trees at last
One lonesome leaf left dangling on the limb
And not unlike the days of winters past
Each day is prey to Mother Nature’s whim
The garden that was once a scape of green
Is covered now with crystal mounds of white
The path goes in and out and in between
And like a maze it leads us back to night
That beacon in the midnight sky prevails
As daylight finds another path to cross
My mind is on a distant wooded trail
A forest deep where you and I are lost
Discovering some new and sacred ground
And wishing only never to be found.

Puzzled

Sometimes two people fit perfectly together

like two pieces of a puzzle that were never completely

separated. One small part of a bigger picture

that becomes clearer when you realize

that all of the other pieces are missing and

There is no big picture in which you appear.

What if…

An egg is just an egg
when it lands within the nest.
Without a rooster’s presence
an egg’s an egg… at best.

An egg is just an egg
no matter what the beast.
How can one be called a being
and the other just a feast?

An egg is just an egg
no matter what they preach.
The power to heal the living
May be now within our reach.

A piece of steel is not a bridge
no matter how it’s bent.
An egg is just an egg
not a being by mere intent.

Hauntings

Those yesterday feelings
creep up like a ghost
consuming and blooming again.
Invading the space
where we flounder with grace
and corrupting
our need to transcend.

Blue Moon

Once in a blue moon

I leave this painful existence.

I travel to another reality

Where I am joyful and free.

Sadly, once in a blue moon

Is nowhere near enough.

Trapped

Which way to go to find the end
Where strands of gold lie waiting
So many tangled threads to tend
The spider squirms, imprisoned within
The fortress of its own fabrication.

My treat, I insist

Beware the night
of fear and fun
when all us ghosts
and demons come
to haunt and hunt
with ghastly goals
and prey on
unsuspecting souls.
And if you fail
my meek demands
your soul’s forever
in my hands
whose tricks do not
include defeat
and you my sweet
shall be my treat.

Puddles

I watch the rain fall softly on the ferns
And form a perfect droplet on each frond
Such innocence in action that soon turns
The muddy little puddles into ponds
That grow in strength to overflow their beds
Consuming all that lies within their reach
Transforming homes where hungry mouths were fed
Into a lonely stretch of endless beach.
Where blissful backyard bashes reigned before
And rain fell on the land and graced the slopes
Those grassy knolls once there, are nevermore
Just hearths reduced to piles of shattered hopes.
And so it is when Mother Nature turns–
A faucet unattended drowns the ferns.

Procrastination

Sometimes we waste the precious gift of time
and wake to find the forest is on fire.
The flame was lit with blissful words of rhyme
then left to simmer on a raging pyre
And now the hidden colors come to light
As green subsides, forbidden hues ignite.

Photo by George Becker on Pexels.com

No Such Magic

You can try with all your might
To tell a fork that it’s a ladle
And it may try to bend and form
Itself into a cradle
But tines will keep appearing
Unless you’re David Blaine
If it believes itself a fork
A fork it shall remain.

A poet, by any other name…

I think I’m having one of those days when I don’t want to be a poet anymore. God, why didn’t someone warn me what I was getting myself into. Try telling someone that you’re a poet and watch their reaction. They immediately look away like you just told them you had the plague or something. Then they move back so they won’t catch it and they say something really profound like “oh, really.”

Apparently being a poet doesn’t evoke any probing questions like being a plumber or a paper delivery person would. At least then they might ask where your route is located or how did you ever learn what all those little round things are for. To say “I am a poet” is like saying “I am a dinosaur.”

If you say it differently you will get a different response. For instance, try saying “I write poetry” and you will get “Oh, really… why?” Now that’s much better. At least you’ve evoked a question. Not that you can answer it to their satisfaction but, at least they asked!

I have concluded that to keep poetry alive we simply need a new title. One that doesn’t associate us with an art that everyone believes is as dead as a dinosaur! So, what shall we call ourselves? How about “I am a word catalyst.” Let’s try that one!

“What do you do?”

“I am a word catalyst.”

“Oh, really. That sounds important. Tell me, what does a word catalyst

do?”

“I write poetry.”

“Oh, really?

Hmmmm…. back to the drawing board.

Woods Walking

Leftovers

Beyond the Spotlights

Tags

Character building, Response to Word Catalyst Prompt

lady in green Jeune Fille Vert by Tamara de Lempicka

The green silk hugged her form like shrink wrap on a piece of prime rib and the rigidness in her pose suggested that moving was not an option. Her body was on the set but was her mind in sync with the folds of luxurious silk or had she escaped to some distant place – far away from the ever distracting cameras and lights.

The deep longing in her eyes suggested that she was where she had to be – not where she wanted to be. The hat surely added to the mystery that the camera was hungry for and also helped disguise the dark circles under her eyes and the fact that she was slowly going bald. The camera seemed satisfied with her pouting lips that replaced a once vibrant smile. After all, it fit the image and that’s what her business was all about… the image.

What phrases were parsing her brain as she posed for the cameras with what appeared to be a seductive come hither look? Do we not see a woman who appears to have it all? Pity, we are not allowed to see beyond the surface.

Perhaps the words played over and over in her mind like a tape that kept rewinding and playing at will.

“The chemo is working, just give it time.”

“Mommy, are you OK?”

“We may have to remove your breast.”

Perhaps she sensed that she was running out of time and was only hoping they didn’t run out of hats before she ran out of hair. The inner horror she was living with was so well disguised by the make-up, the lighting and the under-wire bra… it was undetectable that she had lost forty pounds and her skin was, under the mask, as white as the new snow. The tracks of her tears were all but invisible under the bright lights.

But, as long as the chemo was working, so would she. For just like the rest of us she had promises to keep, children to raise and bills to pay. Maybe, with the help of shimmering, green silk the world would be blinded by the spotlight. Oh, that she could be that lucky… and that blind.

Response to Word Catalyst Workshop Challenge

Falling

I sit mesmerized
watching leaves touching down
now freed from the tree
as they spiral around.
They land with perfection
such timing and grace
appearing predestined
to fill empty space.
Their landing expands
earthy palettes of color
falling softly and gently
they playfully hover.
Awaiting arrival
of crisp cleansing air
to erase any trace
they had ever been there.

No Regrets

It’s Okay, this heartbreak will fit nicely on top of the last one;
I guess some things are just too good to be true.
I thought I knew that, but my heart didn’t want to hear
what my head was broadcasting loud and clear.
I’ve passed through this life listening to reason and following my instincts
so just this once it was so beautiful to ignore them.
I believed what I needed to believe and
now, the truth may hurt, but I will always have that moment
when I believed in myself – and simply listened to my heart.