Posts tagged writing poetry

You should really put on a coat.

We met when your only job was shuttling your children back and forth to their various activities, and now I know you loved that more than most things. You’d drive for hundreds of miles just to get the chance to drive them another few hundred miles.

You are a warrior father. You will go to battle for them but not for me. I am the one you defend them against. You keep me away to keep them protected, and it hurts me, it hurts me, and not a single cook in the kitchen has a clue, or would care … Read the rest


Writing poetry every morning, like EVERY morning lately has done some good things for my psyche.

But not watching the news in the morning probably helps even more. I used to come down with my coffee and turn on the news – no more.

I wanted to be part of the solution, I am not going to be part of the problem, and in my work and heart I’m doing good for people.

I have one life. That’s enough for everyone else to take. I’ve given quite enough.

lucky?

In the beginning
our sleeping arrangements were
“only once in a while”.

That didn’t keep it
from being a fairytale;
you were my whole world.

When the bed was ours
I won the damn lottery,
is this what’s called luck?

Today’s poetry prompt words were: sleeping arrangements, fairytale, and lottery.

Photo by Wyxina Tresse on Unsplash

red flag

Pay attention to the signals ahead. I missed my exit because I was skipping a song to one that didn’t remind me of him and when he loved me more than he does now. Be wary of any short hugs and apathetic answers, and stop wondering whether a separation will help, because it won’t. Remember that we have one single life and for all we know, we only have a handful of years left to live. Pay attention to the signals. And if you see a red flag, it’s not just okay — it’s the right thing to run.

Today’s … Read the rest

Attention

You can tell I’m nervous when I don’t shut up, when I turn into a chatterbox that will do or say anything to avoid having to do or say what has to be done or said. I am not brave. I am not fearless. I am not even casual, ever, it’s always all or nothing for me, this or that.

But when it comes to you I’m able to slow down. Really, I have no choice. Your skin against mine creates a still silence that comes from nowhere else, only you, you soft mouse.

No one will hear you unless … Read the rest

keep choosing

When you were younger you read that Robert Frost poem like everyone else in school and spent years dreaming of that point in your life where two paths finally diverge. All those years you spent trudging down that pin-straight road, fretful for the future, trying not to detour into the thick woods like the thickheaded people who think they know better.

You keep your eyes forward and back straight, plodding along as more and more people fall by the wayside or disappear into the forest, and you can feel it when you’re finally alone, when there’s nothing but you and … Read the rest

What a Life

It’s been twenty-five years since you’ve stood with your friends singing Hallelujah on a stage, feeling the vibration of a hundred voices lifting from the platform to the sky. It’s been twenty years since you listened to that same song on the way to your friend’s funeral. He’d shot himself to death at work. What a life. Now you can’t listen to that song without crying and you will always wonder how you couldn’t have seen it coming, and why no one ever usually sees it coming. There should be a prescription everyone gets at birth, an RX for love … Read the rest

I’m not a good poet

In approximately eight and a half months I am going to be going on a six day, five night writing “retreat” all alone, and this will be the first time in my life I’ve had the opportunity to do anything like this. 

My favorite living writer has a tiny house / AirB&B on per property that she is offering to writers and artists as a place to visit, relax, and I suppose most importantly of all, to create, and to create in solitude. 

love being alone. 

I love being with friends and family, too, but I am definitely … Read the rest

patience for the pilgrimage

there are so many months between me and here and there
but I can’t wait to prepare. I can’t wait to go from wistful dreaming
to actual planning, to opening a duffle bag and beginning to pack.
Clothes and deodorant and soap, various and sundry things to fill 
the space in me (the bag) just like where I’m going will fill the space in me.

a whole entire winter and spring need to pass before this chance comes
and I have to remind myself it’s still a chance, anything can happen
in that amount of time. illness, death, job loss, … Read the rest