Why, Poetry?

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Why, Poetry

This is not a poetic lamentation or woe is me diatribe
It is a soul itching, head scratching
Wondering the way wordsmith’s do, about the call to words, ya’ll

It is more or less why, poetry or why poetry
Splitting hairs and splicing sentences around, throwing comma’s about
Like confetti on Fifth Avenue after the parade

And you really do wonder, until you hear the rallying cry for more
Poetry
Hashtag’s come across your screen about the healing
A word was a balm
A sigh of knowing escapes your lips

You want to give a party
Celebrate the genre, kick up your heels and dance
Write the book in poetic prose
Kick the naysayers to the curb
Have you seen the poetry section in Barnes and Noble lately
Point
Counter point
That will rub salt in your, my wound
Think about starting a Kick Starter Campaign

And the world went blooming mad
Spun crazy wild,
And you got really mad
Frozen in fear, but for awhile
You heard people say press on with the passion
Bring on the light
Light up the dark
And all you could do was tap and write and write and tap and pray that beauty was birthed
And that the blasted book that haunts you by day
And by night
And by the way have I told you lately about that dream
You seem to be the first that should know

Why, poetry?
Brilliant choice for everyone but me
Now I am whining about my passion, my love

My poetry
If only for the hastag healing
I will continue to tap away and pray

Oh poetry, you are my cello
And my bass, my blessed curse
My gospel choir and my palette and paints
My novel and my charity
Muse come sit beside me, be the music my fingers long to hear

Poetry, my love
Make me worthy
Of you

++++++++++++++++++++

For The Hanger-Oner’s

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For The Hanger-Oner’s

It wasn’t the wind that called my name
It was the rustling
A restlessness whipping through the parched Palmetto leaves
Death had shaded them in brown, brittle breaking
Was their song
The only color, parchment brown, silhouetted against the monochrome canvas
Horizon bleeding into sky
Sky bleeding into earth
Every shade of gray

Morning comes for those who are ready
And for those who are not
The sun did not rise today, in my imagination
It remained at rest
Holding out hope, it will rise tomorrow
I will listen to the wind reveal her whispered secrets

Gray mornings come and go
Generous in their appearance
Coming uninvited

But the birds are the storytellers for me, on this day
Washed in hints of gray on gray
A water-colored sky awash in a single shade of void

I watched them on the naked tree, black on black
And wondered in that whipping wind
How do they bare up against the wicked wind
They swayed on boughs, beaks braced and facing into the gusts on gusts
Coming from the East
Breezes warm, this morning, from the sea

The birds would not release, their small clawed feet
Riding out the storm
The rain, the wind

They hang on
Gripping hope, imagining tomorrow
The Palmetto leaves will once again be green

January, Please Stay

January, Please Stay

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Reveal the hidden
Within the frozen
Pockets
Buried deep within the arctic tempered
Earth
January, you give us pause
Cause us to hunt
Long and hard
Beyond your surface washed in
Battleship and slate
You seem to keep your brush in tones
Of every shade of grey

But I believe you have secrets
Mystery buried
In these monochromatic days

Coded and encrypted
Shrouded
Covered
Still hidden
Blanketed
Earth’s cumulus horizons wear
Her clouded smokey veil
Once we decide to see
The beauty in the shadows
There is glory all around

The lens of longing
Melts mere grey

Revealing nature’s song
Her symphony
A hallelujah chorus
Rocks sing out
In harmony with
Trees, naked, stripped
Bare

January
Quiet preacher of cold truth
January
please stay

January
Pour out your liquid silver
Let us cherish it as gold

January
Linger longer
In the cold with lessons of the Truth

Sit us by the embers of a January hearth
And teach us once again
Your January lessons
School us gently
In your mysteries
For
We are a people slow to learn
The truth

January, oh January please stay
If only one more day

Joining Laura

By Water

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By Water

Dreams were washed
By wave on wave, of cursive lines
Laced in rhythm
Laced in rhyme

Feet were washed
By lapping tongue of salty pluff-mud’s saline brine
Cleansed by water
Cleansed by time

Head was washed
By sacred droplets at the altar, as a child
Touched by holy
Touched by grace

Dive in, I dictate to my heart
And words
You
Must swim together
Both
Up and down the stream
With and against
Moon-driven tides
The heavens tell the water
Orchestrate
The ebb and flow
As a mother to her child
I whisper, you must go

I stand beside the water’s edge
Toes
Buried in course shades of broken shell’s tan
sand

Remaining by the water
Anchor
Set
Sail’s upright
Reflecting
By Water
Moonglow my sole light

Throw each word
And dream into the sea

And by the water
I will stay
Safe by the water

We remain