Black Hats

Tags

black hat, discomfort, redemption

Remember this -
He was a knight, white, heart
Living in a corner -
Searching out a spot-light, life
Tracking out his answers -
Through a word-puzzle, maze
Finding his discomfort -
In every harsh, judgment, gaze
Dressing him in black hats -
For the whole, wide, world
Never intending malice -
Yet hats get piled, too, high
Forcing his decisions -
Out of the lime-light’s lies
Into his redemption -
From all the damned, dredged, rhetoric
Only to be championed -
In his own heart-of-hearts
When he glanced in the mirror
And looked sharp in dark, black hats…

First Draft....Done!

Reblogged from jorjao2013:

I have just finish my first draft.....I did it. I have now accomplished something in my life at 41 that I always said I was going to do. I can not explain the feeling that I am having.  So unexplainable that no word is powerful enough to put down. I am very excited to start the rewriting and editing. Now that my novel is on paper I want to read it over and over.

Read more… 185 more words

Jorja took my class "Write a Book in 30 Days!" and finished her manuscript! Please take a moment to congratulate her. She earned it!!! :)

The Wisp of the Wind

Tags

breeze, laughs, love, smiles, wind, wisp

When smiles trip like a playful spring brook.
When eyes light up like a summer diamond glint.
Took a moment to make the vision mine,
Borrowed tome pages from Father Time.

When laughs ricochet like a pinball gone wild.
When affection burns cool like a focused dream.
Took a glance down the back roads of my heart,
To see what all that means.

Is there life to hold?
Is there love, if cold?
Will there be another face?
Will there be another another time?
Can anyone take my hand?

And thoughts rain down like a gaggle of ghosts
As I lay in the silence of my bed’s morning tomb.
And I look to the light of a new dawning day
As I see all too clear that we gave it away
For arrogant pride and the crown to hold sway
Over nothing that’s grasped…
But the wisp of the wind.

When the heart travels trails intertwining love’s trees.
When the soul stirs itself on life’s tumbling breeze.
Took a moment to glance at mysteries unfolded
And examine the manners for which we are scolded.

Is there any hope?
Is there any dream?
Will there be another breath?
Will there be another sigh?
Will I take my own hand?

And thoughts rise up like evaporating cares
As I stroll through my mornings more clearly aware
And I realize this life was never meant to be crushed
For other’s control and obsessions of judgment
And my fears whisk away…
On the wisp of the wind

Moments

Tags

heart, moments, rain, soul

Write words in your mind today of hope.
Etch them on your heart.
Scribe them to your soul.
Thoughts of rain and death and love and lust
Discover the beauty that embodies life in all things.
Live each moment.
Capture each moment.
Clutch each moment.
Entrust each moment to your heart.
Share each moment with the world.
Share each moment with a lover.
Share each moment with a friend.
Explore your desire to not be temporal,
Grasp for that which eludes us as humans -
The ability to endure and enjoy pleasure and truth and beauty without cease,
Without the deterioration of mundanity,
Without the fear of familiarness that seeps the soul from repetitious moments. Revel in the rain of life and see your moments through to completion.

Mortality’s Sieve

Tags

live, moment, mortality, now, weep

Rainy day poems may end up anywhere. Rainy day poems with a heavy heart tend to go a bit dark. Rainy day poems with a heavy heart and a four-day continuing rain event will often go a bit dark.

So what does “dark” mean? Everyone has their dark place, even though some won’t fess up to it. These days I wrestle with writing anything overtly dark because our world appears engulfed by darkness.

Then I look at how we flee reality. Again, I can only speak of here in the States, but I’m sure this is a human malady. We flee to our entertainments (guilty), our cravings (guilty), our lusts – not just sex folks – (guilty), and we miss out on the exhilarating aspects of simply being alive in this world.

When we embrace the moment, each moment, we actually manifest our greatest potential. Whether that moment is a simple appreciation of breath, sight, taste, smell, touch, love, sadness, joy, does not matter. Appreciating each step, I mean literal step, we take throughout our day should be of profound importance.

Humans struggle to live in the moment. All of us. Without exception. Unfortunately, few teach us this invaluable asset to our lives. We learn math and science, even the arts, but who teaches us to cherish and savor each moment we exist on this earth?

There are many who teach this, we simply do not hear their voices. Stop today. If it’s raining (like here), enjoy and value the beauty of rain and what it delivers to life. If you’re bathed in sunlight, revel in its warmth. Snow? Embrace its ethereal silence and stunning beauty. Realize the day will come when you will no longer see this moment.

I say, seize not the day, but the moment. Pursue the moment with all passion and fervor and reverence you can muster. Even in your reveries, cherish the fact you own them. In your excitements for the future, thrill in that moment of hope and joy. Yes, even in your despair, realize you still think, breath, and feel which means you own hope, regardless of the bleakness of your situation. And when you weep, embrace that moment as well so that when you set it free, joy and peace may fill your life.

Seize your moments today with an energy and focus, renewed and invigorated.

I weep with the world around me
Rain that parallels the waking world
Storms in my heart that mimic the trees
Dancing and bowing to the violent breeze

I weep with the world around me
Even though this world often knows not it weeps -
Specters of death and sadness hidden low
Underneath our distractions and reticence to know

I weep with the world around me
Solemn tears reflecting heaven’s deluge
Battles within to learn and adapt
Heart so weary, distraught, rapt

I weep with the world around me
We who seldom understand our truths
Through self-righteous, belligerent confidence
When cockiness and arrogance defines our offense

I weep with the world around me
Solemnity the vice that transports my soul
To at least view for the moment the life at hand
To at least know the moment of our last stand

I weep for the world around me
Caught up in its petty pursuits
Denying the breath of the moment “now”
Frivolous searching for the simpleness of how

I weep with the world around me
For my uncountable lost moments of now
For our collective amnesias of when we live
Forgetfulness that we possess “nows” to give

Each day we own finite moments to live
Each day we hold tight what we really should give
Each day our lives flow through mortality’s sieve
I weep with the world around me.

Brilliant Chaos

Tags

brilliant, brilliant chaos, chaos, dreams

Dreamers…

Dreams are for lovers and lovers of dreams
All is not captured in full truth it seems,
Yet lovers and dreamers stroll tight the beams
That carry their fate along life’s myriad streams…

Brilliant chaos. Two words that popped into my head after midnight last night. As a writer, you become accustomed to these occurrences. Words, phrases, plotlines, stories, book projects, blogs, all manner of things stroll around in your brain when you relax.

Most, if not all, times, as a writer you should grab the nearest writing utensil and get them out of your head. I read a quote last night in my Extension Writing Class that says: “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” ― Saul Bellow. I’ve found this quote to be quite accurate. Sure I may tweak the grammar a bit because my head may be sleep-deprived grogginess, but the content always stands.

This delivers to my mind the idea of “brilliant chaos.” Creativity often gets wrapped in a veil of illogical, chaotic, gestalt eruptions that dive into your heart from unreachable locations from within. Writers work so hard at coaxing this nefarious location to deliver more content. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don’t.

For my experience, that act of writing embodies an exercise in brilliant chaos. The word “brilliant” is not meant to imply the writing itself is “brilliant” but that the SOURCE is brilliant in its complexity.

The “chaos” comes from the nature of creativity. Anyone who’s written stories at length find that character you, the writer, create in your own mind and direct, often end up going places you never dreamed. If THAT’S not chaotic, I somehow missed the definition of the word in elementary school. This type of chaotic creativity also happens in poetry and non fiction.

Write it down. Simple. Get up at night and write it down. The poem above started out with the words Brilliant Chaos rattling around my brain. I wrote the first two lines, then went to sleep. I picked up where I left off ten hours later.

For those of you who chase the writing bug, do yourself a favor. No matter how tired, no matter where you may be – pull over if your driving – when the brilliant chaos of creativity strikes, engage with it and create.

A Visit from the Poetry Muse

Tags

answers, heart, questions, self-reflection, writing, writing poetry

The day delivered a moment of muse. So often as a writer, my desire to create exceeds my mood or internal compass. Then slips in the moment where alignment coalesces and the “muse” visits. What emerges fromf these rendezvous’ is never a certain thing, but always desired, if for no other reason than the knowledge that the muse still resides within…

Two poems today, just because I could not stop myself…

Questions Questioned…

Questions.
Questions haunt.
Questions find answers.
Questions invade personal space.
Questions used as weapons suck.
Questions own their place and time.
Questions find curiousness a complete, delicious smorgasbord.
Questions try to force good hearts to defense.
Questions often say more about a person than answers.
Questions used well open up entire worlds of open possibilities.

Capacities

Capacities to love beyond poetry’s dark dances -
Soul window’s glittered, smiling, precocious eyes
Chase emotions swirled ’round within,
Perplexed by reinventive desires and change.

Love enjoys living, specifically in this moment.
An unquestioned trust, free as a summer breeze
An enigmatic smile that wafts contagious
An eloquent touch that means nothing and everything at once.

Capacities to live beyond poetry’s dark dances -
Thrummed heart’s cry to freedom. Unfettered. Wobbled legs.
Baby steps at an aged experience,
Perplexed by reinventive desires and change.

Life enjoys living, specifically in this moment.
The moment you spend reading this.
The moment you allow yourself to note a leaf fluttering
The moment you feel your breath rise and fall.

Capacities to “be” beyond poetry’s dark dances -
Turmoiled spirit’s release of tension, if merely fleeting,
Relaxation enough to seize the day
Perplexed by reinventive desires and change

Existence enjoys living, specifically in this moment.
Birds flirting noisily in soft spring rain
Cadences gently alluding to water’s freefall
Clouds nestled together in shades of gray – and white…

This Day

Tags

bleak, dreams, NaPoWriMo, stars, thoughts and dreams

I gazed at the stars – lost my mind
Reverie, nostalgia, days most kind.
I walked midnight streets – quiet. Dark.
Futures past, bleak and stark.

Tomorrows twinkled bright. Clear.
Gentleness, kindness, whispered near.
Yesterdays’ pains melt ever so slow
Each moment’s step forward, laborious I know.

Reinvention along life’s golden plane
Negativity nipping, incessant – insane
Each moment’s power called up for relief
I stagger, I stumble, I lie down beneath,

The very stars where I lost my mind
Dreams, reveries, futures most kind
I step up to gain another inch on my way
To look forward to life, love, and this day.

Sweet Dreams

Tags

clouds, dreams, ice cream, NaPoWriMo, streams

Day 29. NaPoWriMo. You realize I place that acronym in my post for search engine purposes. I wonder if my fessing up to this fact helps or hinders my search engine success.

By special request, a poem for this incredibly beautiful, rain soaked evening. I do love rain. Not as much as snow, but rain deserves third place behind snow and a crisp, autumn, leaf-blown day.

Name That Tune…

Swirls and twirls of chocolate dreams
Sprint the gamut of ice creams
While circus colors tongues do vie
Bright blue eyes light up the sky

I’ve tasted creams from all sides now
From plain and crazed, and still somehow
Its sweetness reigns in all my dreams
I really do love my…..ice creams….

Shared and reveled in my brain
The tastes they’ve given still remain
Yet every savored slurp retain
Like peppermint and candy cane…

I’ve tasted creams from all sides now
From plain and crazed, and still somehow
Its sweetness reigns in all my dreams
I really do love my…..ice creams….

Spools and jewels of caramel streams
We love some zest in our ice creams
Yet sharing each unbridled taste
We spoon it up and lick in haste….

I’ve tasted creams from all sides now
From plain and crazed, and still somehow
Its sweetness reigns in all my dreams
I really do love my…..ice creams….

Gotta give a huge shout-out thank you to Chief Editor who suggested “peppermint” and “candy cane” and a number of other totally tasteful tweaks! NICE!

Now that was fun! I’m so glad I keyed this out of earshot of human beings…I’ve never been accused of possessing a great voice, and this melody challenged my rudimentary vocals. But after serendipitously falling into the meter of the song, I found a way to stay true to the melody at last.

I think I’ll put a poll on this post to see who knows what song’s melody I used to concoct this sweet poem. lol! Hey, maybe I’m delirious, maybe I’m just nuts (although I think nuts destroy the inherent, tasteful beauty of ice cream), but writing can be an entertainment all to itself…

The Times of Your Life

Tags

good opinion, mindset, NaPoWriMo, poem, poetry, smile

Day 28 in the National Poetry Writing Month Challenge. Technically I’ve already written 28, not counting the following, because I posted two in one day.

I’m writing an iPhone Phollie today. In order to qualify as an iPhone Phollie, I must be out on my bicycle and writing peacefully and openly with my inner muse. Waterfront Park here on florida’s intercostal waterway is a lovely mood setting location.

NaPoWriMo has reminded me that writing takes time (duh). Time to soak into the writing mindset. Time to allow myself to live through my words. Time to craft word selection, even if the words are posted without edit.

As I continue my trek to a positivity infused life, my hope is that the writing will reflect a more hopeful tone. Stepping out of the darkness of negativity may be the most difficult undertaking I’ve ever attempted. What I’ve learned so far is that seeking out positive oriented people is key.

Addressing and identifying negativity is important, as is delivering hope. The insidious nature of negative, controlling people is that often their attacks are subtle, even to the point of their being unaware of what they say.

The only answer to this lies within ourselves. The only way to overcome negativity, control, manipulation, etc, is to be independent of the good opinion of others, love yourself, and develop the strength to walk away. Engagement only brings more strife.

Enough of that. Breathe in the good, exhale the bad, this is the best day you ever had, because, every little cell is alive and well!

The Times of Our Lives

Summer apples, plump and juicy
Dripping off trees like round, edible diamonds
Tingle-skin hide and seek
Spent wishing to be hidden with the fuel behind your rapid heartbeat

Daylight bike tag and the object of your affections
Too beautiful to approach, too painful to leave
Full moon walks with starry-eyed dreams
Love-confusion swirled throughout a topsy turvy heart

Soft caress breezes on a spring day of change
Where life threatens to bloom into self propelled satisfaction
Silence of the rustling world more at peace in its bustle
Than the most languid, gentle electronic entertainment.

These are the times of or lives
Outside the constant critique of others
Where inner discovery trumps all competition
Where inner embrace delivers what the world promises but fails to give

These are the times of our lives
Soft soothing swirling wind cools summer sweat
Intrusions of sighing lungs and hair-whipped smiles
Cherished in their moments

Why may we not grasp these moments forever?
Temporal life befuddles us, for
Sadness and pain dwell easily for lifetimes.

Oppressiveness curls our hearts like an evil viper
While joy and love fly fleet-footed through our days
Wisps of fancy and delight
Sought from the domination a of recalcitrant despair

Stretch for the times of your life.
Strive to retain every smile, every whim, every lift of the soul
For in this life they exist as more treasures than precious metals
As their rarity of persistence places them in the realm of dreams

Embrace the times of your life
As each moment encapsulates a priceless beat of your heart
Apply the knowledge and memory of these times a salve to everyday life
Revive your smile, your joy, your peace…