She’s always had the biggest heart.
Starts her days as wilful as dawn
and her light shines just as brightly.
Caring isn’t just her vocation,
it’s her state of being.
Every day her thoughts of others
radiate in her every action.
Mother, wife, grandma.
With the quiet strength of Atlas
and a kindness that blooms like May.
If she’s taught me anything
it’s that goodness isn’t just a
Catholic replacement for swearing
but a choice in how you live your life.
Today I’ve opted to use the official NaPoWriMo prompt of writing a poem about the meaning of my name.
Babe named Gift from God
in Swahili by his dad
from Tanzania.
Today I’ve opted to use the Local Gems Poetry Press prompt of writing about a time I did something against the norm.
It does no good
to dwell on how you hurt me.
But I suppose you’ll never know
how I spared you from an even greater pain.
Your best friend knew you did me wrong
when you cheated with… him.
Yet when she offered to hook me up
with any one of her friends for my leaving party…
I declined.
Unwilling and unable to hurt you in kind.
Courvoisier and peach Snapple
packed a lesser punch than losing you.
Emotional scars and stretch marks are ley lines
on the path back to self-love.
Today I’ve opted to use the Local Gems Poetry Press prompt.
I’m in somewhat of a fractured yet healing place right now. I’ve no idea where this journey is taking me. I just know I’ve become much more sensitive lately, and that I’m finding no humour in mockery, derision or malice. A knife edge between sanity and salvation.
For many years I’ve been guarded,
a mound around my heart
commemorating lost hope.
Yet as I work on showing kindness to myself,
this vault contains a trust
where I may also place the kindness of others.
Today I’ve opted to use the official NaPoWriMo prompt.
1. Acknowledge your pain.
2. Understand that time would have changed you even if pain didn’t.
3. Figure out who you are, were and wish to be.
4. Reconcile those selves.
5. Be kinder to yourself each day until it becomes second nature.
6. Enjoy the fruits of your labour: a self you are proud of.
Today I opted to use both the official NaPoWriMo prompt and the Local Gems Poetry Press prompt so I’ve written a Shadorma about distraction.
Distracted…
possibilities
are jaunting.
Hours slip by
effortlessly as I’m left
enthused each moment.
Today I went with the Local Gems Poetry Press prompt of beginning each line with the same word.
Maybe I haven’t achieved all I wanted.
Maybe roadblocks were mountains as I were pedestrian.
Maybe perseverance is the lesson.
Maybe everything really is random.
Maybe serendipity is broken clocks ceasing in unison.
Maybe trying to understand is another game we play.
Maybe I’m afraid of maybes.
Maybe the guttural chords of regret are echoes.
Maybe echoes are a blessing for those who can hear.
Maybe rumination is a sign that you’ve lived.
Maybe allow yourself to live once more.
Maybe greatness is your heart’s gilded armour.
Maybe splinters see themselves as grand oaks.
Maybe is the space between ideas and experiences.
Photo credit: Edited version of an original image by Woohyuck Jang operating under a royalty free licence.
For day 2 I’ve attempted both the Local Gems and the official prompt simultaneously with a Petrarchan Sonnet relating to the question of how to find meaning and ancient knowledge in a world that has forgotten itself and it’s truths.
Souls burst from darkness in neon cascades
but are we rodents in a cosmic trap?
Third eye blind, Gaia wept like weirwood sap.
False realities rise while truth’s star fades.
Meaning was lost in exploitative trades.
Auras applaud – and begin with one clap
is rebirth’s renown a most lucid nap?
The universe, … a dream that never wades.
Love – the compass of celestial travel.
Mouths hushed silent, emboldened hearts agape.
Enlightenment upon firefly flutters.
Judgement is a Promethean gavel…
grant critics nor doubt Mjölnir, be happy.
For life … is a sentence … blessed … with … stutters…
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