On My Way
I’ve packed my bags.
I’m taking off.
Don’t say goodbye
or try to stop me.
You had your chance
to treat me well.
You blew that chance.
Now go to hell.
I’m off to find
a brighter day.
I can see it from here.
I’m on my way.
Hour 11
Brain Wrote to Heart:
Hey idiot, you do us no favors
when you long for him
pine for him,
obsess over him, how tedious!
Do I make myself clear?
You think he is a ladder to a higher plane.
But he is a stone. He is a stone
that we must carry, so you can
stand on it and dream
and if you could let us put it down
Just Put It Down
We could all rise up.
14. The Messenger XIV
8 Centers on 4 continents
And counting
Our brand is leading in its field
Really? Who cares?
How many lives changed?
That’s the real measure of Success
When we fly high
We can fall from high
No, it’s not the height that matters
It is
How to pilot, how to fly,
It becomes natural, and like the condor,
We glide and we can, then,
Raise very very high
Smoke on the Water
All my love for you
Is in all the clouds
Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
Hour 14 – “The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
She knows you
dear, heart
she’s felt your pulse
through the soles of your feet
from your first step
and caught you when you lost balance
Even when you forget
that there is love to be had
even when you forget
where your home is
even when you forget
who you really are
and what you’re here to do
When the whole of creation
has sent you spinning
and groundless
when you clawed at the floor
To remember
She’s got you
righting you
by the dense moss to the north
by the thick leaves to the south
showing that you are connected
to all things
by a cord that
cannot be cut
And in the end
like a tender mother
she will embrace your fragile bones
and sing you to sleep
An Ode to Liars
(An Erasure based upon A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II Sc. 1, Titania by Sir William Shakespeare)
Forgeries of jealousy, you creeping hags!
Haven’t you done enough to me?
Never, since the day we met in 1962,
not Christmas, nor Thanksgiving, nor Easter day,
by kitchen sink, or living room couch,
or in the vast spectrum of my life’s moments,
as I danced, and sang, and played a part too well,
but with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d my life.
Therefore the arts, calling to me in vain,
as in revenge, have suck’d up to your aging client base.
Contagious hags! Boasting on the land
your husbands’ pelting incomes made so proud
that they did overbear their lives’ expectancy.
And me? I stretch’d my yoke in vain,
losing sweat and tears, too green to see
the rotted beard of your faux nature;
so fold! Stand empty in your drowned fields,
you crows! Be fatted with another fuck;
the nine men’s folio is fill’d up with mud,
th’wives quaintly amazed by your wanton greed.
So wondrous spiced, thy graceless air is to the imps!
Wanton demons wish your winter’d souls
to eat on nights with hymn and carol blest.
My friend, the moon, the governess of floods,
pale in her anger, washes your state’s foul air,
and rots the walls of your vestiges:
what a thoroughly perfect disparaging of your lives.
These seasons, altered by whore-headed men,
dare find a fresh lap for a crimson rose
on an old man’s thin and icy wallet.
Thou odorous chaplet of discreet wicked buds!
I in mockery, set thee the spring, the summer,
the childing autumn, angry winter, charged,
you haunted criminals! And the amazed world,
who, duped as me, know not which is which.
We’ll see your progeny of evils come to jail!
You want debate? You want dissension?
I am their parent and original, by no relation to you!
Compass
Those days when I would go off by myself
into the woods, grandma’s admonitions
‘be careful’ ‘make sure you don’t go too far’
‘Too far’ was never really delineated
As an only child alone with grandparents
each summer, all summer, my independence
struggled to keep pace with my curiosity
With each passing summer I strayed further
from the confines of friendships with other kids
different grandkids of different grandparents
Those kids had siblings, cousins, confines
I had what I needed, filling voids and days
with nature, my own thoughts, inquisitiveness
self-taught solitude my badge of honor
Though I knew each square inch of the woods
surrounding Horseshoe Lake, every leaf-strewn
trail, downed log, sun-soaked clearing to sit
It was the land that knew me better than I it
The woods knew when I needed cheering
they brought me birds, scampering chipmunks
days I needed to inspiration – wildflowers
Rainy days, other homes feared bored children
but rain spoke to me, rhythmically, joyously
via scent, sound through open windows
Youthful exploration gave me an understanding
peers lacked, a knowledge of things unseen
a faith I could have never learned in church
Grandma’s long-ago admonitions to ‘not get lost’
were heeded, until adulthood, when I had to
recall what was, what I had learned as a child
When I was lost, I could always get home
even if the home was no longer there, as the
woods know you, even when you are lost.
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2019
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Next Door
Music streams through the window, conflicting
with my couch lounging and television watching,
rock n rock grooving
and the neighbor kids playing,
and I consider yelling out the window
that the music is great
but can they turn it down a bit,
decide to leave them enjoying their evening.
Then while I’m in the bathroom
that window open to the breeze too,
a man’s voice yelling, stop crying,
no more crying from you for the rest of the day,
and I flinch away in my space
which should be safe and calm
from the male anger outside,
feeling like the child down there on the ground.
Poem 15 “Is there Ever Such A Thing As Lost?”
“Is There Ever Such A Thing as Lost?” by Mandy Austin Cook
Is there ever such a thing as lost?
we think as we look with limited eyes
only able to see a tiny puzzle piece
of the entire pieced-together radiance of the horizon.
nearsighted squinting without glasses
trying to navigate one’s way
if you go off of what only yourself can see
then Lost will surely find you.
rather reach out with trust
knowing there is something beyond
your own tiny parcel
of what you’re calling
“understanding”
To comprehend is to realize
there is no understanding without guidance.
I still will squint to look for you
but i know you see the bigger picture
Lord thank you for being my glasses.
for I am glad there are things in this world
more vast
than my own small sliver of perspective.
Death Awaits
The sheriff stared looking at the condemned man.
He stared back at the sheriff, his cold eyes gazing through him, chilling his blood.
I can’t till she gets here. he coldly replied to the sheriff.
Till who gets here?
Just have to wait and see
Well we don’t have time to wait, let’s get on with it
The black hidden executioner slipped the noose over his neck
and positioned himself by the trapdoor lever
With a nod from the sheriff, the lever was pulled
and the condemned plummeted to the ground,
with a loud snap the rope broke, and the man stood up and gazed up at the sheriff.
What now? The condemned man said
The sheriff drew his pistol, three shots rang out,
none of them finding their home.
Befuddled the sheriff fired three more, to no avail.
Don’t just stand there, lock him up! the sheriff shouted to his deputies,
who ushered him back into the jail.
That night there was a knock on the jail door, a woman was there,
dressed in black wanting to speak to the prisoner.
The deputy showed her out soon after.
Well I guess we’ll try again tomorrow The deputy sighed
When he checked, the prisoner was dead.
Nature’s children
We are all from dust and from dust we will return. Therefore the land recognizes us as its children.
We will never be completely lost,
Maybe only briefly misguided by our own accord, only to find our way again.
We take our own path as if to tell Mother Nature we can do this.
Sometimes we find a loop that takes us around again and again and when we tire of the circles, we rest and gain our inward mapping abilities to put us back on track.
Other times we may think we know what’s best, and have to roll down a few hills before we can stand again and finish our journey.
We have the ability to read our path in life if we will only sit down and gather all of the information when we begin each journey.