A Poem For a Writer

My friend Suz shared this poem with me yesterday via Twitter and I just love it. I want to print it out and frame it. We writers, we are strange ducks. This sums it up in a way that is touching and beautiful. All credit goes to the author and formatter - whoever they are. I wish I could give them proper credit.

My computer's in the shop, so I may be spotty this week. Fingers crossed this gets it fixed for good!

Ferocious Few

 

Sometimes I write poems that may or may not be actual poems.

 



Blessed be the ferocious few:

The strong,

the silent,

the brave,

the true.

Hallowed be the raging fires:
In hearts,
in souls,
in shadows
of spires.

Blessed be the fearsome ones:
Forever
bleeding,
Forsaking
none.


Untitled Emo Poem

There's a reason my poetry tag has a question mark in it.

 

 

 

I'd rather love a ghost,

Than all your empty words.

Fiction was never as strange,

As all this twisted truth.

Ideas are always sweeter

Than all the bitter hurts.

Tell me where you're going,

So I don't have to come.

I'll find a way myself,

And leave you far behind. 

Mother's Day

 

 

Mother’s Day

Lauren Gilley

This is not a day to celebrate the birthing of children. Being a mother doesn’t earn a day. This day is for all the things that Hallmark can’t fit inside a card. This day is for what can’t be summed up in a poem. This day is for the four a.m.s and eleven p.m.s. The Sharpies and markers and crayons and pencils. It’s for the late-night runs and the early morning departures. It’s for the kissed knees that taste of Bactine; the smoothed hair and lipstick prints. It’s for the honeys and babys and sweeties and darlings. It’s for hand-stitched Halloweens and too-generous Christmases; the crepe streamer birthdays and tooth fairy dollars. It’s for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and “you can be anything you want to be.” It’s for the dreams, all our shiny dreams, reflected back to us in misty eyes. It’s for the pride when we didn’t earn it; the love when we don’t deserve it; the gentleness when we are raging. It’s for teaching us to be kind; teaching us how to let go; teaching us that somewhere in the world, we’ll always have a home. It’s for all those hours that were about us, and not them. It’s about green feed buckets, hay in the trunk of an Oldsmobile, the smell of horses in their houses. It’s about the first pony, the first horse, the first show, rag in hand. It’s about blues and tears and panic attacks; cookies and Gatorade and remembering sunscreen. It’s about the hard days – the really hard ones – and blue tarps on arena sand and the smell of solvent in Auburn’s waiting room and understanding that, in our own kid ways, we’ve lost something as precious to us as we are to them. It’s about laughing, and crying, and staying up late to proofread. It’s about all those meals, and all those hugs, and all those bald conversations about life kicking us in the shin. This day is not about mothers. It’s about moms, and mamas, and mommies. And it’s about all that love that defines the difference.

The Edge

The Edge

I reached
the edge
and
turned back.                                 
It was then
I realized
I hadn’t gone
so far
at all.

Do Your Own Thing

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

~Robert Frost

 

 

 

It might be the most overused poem, but that doesn't make it any less lovely. It's a guiding line for my writing: taking that road less traveled.

Because horse people are sentimental

 

 

A snowfall of blossoms sifts to earth,
Light as down on unmarked graves.
Eyes closed, there are new-penny coats;
Ears pricked, there are hoofbeats.
Gone but not forgotten;
Sleeping beneath a snow of pear petals,
Waiting to carry us home.

 

 

Delta's Poem

 

 

 

 

In the shining sharp cold silence,
She heard what warmth disguised:
The sturdy welcome of his heartbeat;
The laughter in his eyes.

In the quiet of a winter dawn,
She breathed in without fear:
The closeness of his soul;
The love that shone so clear.

A Prayer

I think, more and more, that I should never have set out to BE an author. I should have lived life, searched for a husband, settled down, and at some point in the future, it would have happened somehow if it were meant to be. Trying to do things never turns out very well.

The Prayer of An Unknown Confederate Soldier

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for—but got everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all people, most richly blessed.

 

~ Author Unknown (duh) 

 

Presents

I've still got Ellie and Jordan on the brain.

 

 

Presents

A shiny black crow’s feather;
A freckled white stone worn smooth in a creek bed;
A pig snout of half a walnut shell;
A cobalt button in the shape of a heart, three holes for thread;
A silver locket of costume jewelry and its myth of pirate treasure.

Tokens from the yard as precious as gemstones to their finders,
Ghosted with the prints of a pair of honey-headed girls.
Propped along the window sash, silhouettes against the autumn sun;
They are Jane’s soft smile and Lizzy’s peal of laughter.
No one ever told him how priceless such presents could be.

Concerning Jordan and Ellie

There are things Jordie will never tell his girl, but he thinks them anyway.

She was silence in a world of sound,
Mercury in a porcelain frame,
Innocence and sweetness in undiluted purity.

Her mind was rich;
Her heart was bottomless;
Every part of her humbled him.

Joy and light,
Melancholy and thought,
Intense in a way the world was not.

She complicated his life.
Because of her, he felt things;
Things that did not need feeling.

Loving her was realizing that ordinary was so very vivid in her eyes.
Loving her was realizing that he’d never truly loved anyone before her.

A Poem

I am NOT a poet. Not by any stretch. I never could figure out how to adhere to any sort of real prescribed structure. So the end of this is formatted nothing like the beginning. Or maybe I should have just pretended I meant it that way? Yeah, we'll go with that. I meant for it to be this way!

Just the place my uncooperative mind took me in an effort to shake off my writing funk.

Love is Cool Water

May 19, 2012

The fire’s all burned out now,
The candles’ melted down to bone
And in these dying embers,
Nothing looks like home.
Passion brought us to this place,
And passion laid us low.
For in the dancing flames,
Not a thing was wont to grow.

The flowers are all dried up now,
Dust and dirt and death,
They taste of sour promises,
And choke with every breath.
Every wish has turned to wind,
And done what truth could not,
Cracked a heart in two,
And filled a vase with rot.

The gems have fallen out now,
They fell from melted gold,
The diamonds cut like razors,
Because affection can be sold.
We cry when we should laugh,
And laugh when we should not,
Because nothing really matters,
When this love was bought.

Love is cool water
and deep, thick mud.
It is earth and roots and all that is constant and keeps us whole.
Love that is bought or traded is not love at all,
but a glamour.

Love does not burn,
Love does not smell,
Love does not sparkle,
It has no secrets to tell.
Love is cool water.