Alive
Being alive in a world half-dead
Is torture in itself
For all the skins and tears and words that I have shed
No one will know as they collect dust on my shelf.
SAVED
I was ten years old,
weather was finally warm and my sister
and I began talkin’ about things really deep;
God and heaven and hell and dyin’,
where we would go if we did die and
would we be in heaven with Great Grandma –
Those were the days God entered my heart
and has never left,
only grown into the spirit that keeps me right
in a combustible world.
Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016
Thirty years is a long time to bear
I looked you up
It’s been thirty long years
Bitter first love
Stabs a dagger through my heart
Made me cold and distant
For all these years
I’ve let you go, I think
But could we have been?
No telling now
After all you’re somewhere far away
And I’m here almost gray
Going solo
the lot in life for a writer
solitary time savored
the attraction
lost on others not so
infected
alone is not lonely
my companions the ideas
in my head, struggling
to make their way
to freedom through
fingers artfully
laying them across
blank pages
remaining denizens of
the house sleep,
the dogs don’t wait up,
but will arise early to
join morning sessions
feeling some sense
of completion
I can close up my
notebook, shut down
my laptop
and with satisfaction,
wait for the world
to come to me
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2016
Offering (Prompt 10)
The people that give the most
are often the ones searching for meaning
searching for some type of recognition
Fulfillment in their lives
I admire those people
Who love without limits
Whole-heartedly, givingly, sweetly
But really there is no easy way
to receive love back
But their willingness to try
For the matters of their own heart
Helps me see the humanness in us all.
Prompt Hour Twenty-four–to do what others do not
A Mother’s Lot
Feeding everyone else first
while her own food cools
Keeping wakeful watch over sick
babies in fitful sleep
Wearing clothes with holes
so teens can wear brand names
Sitting in a backseat
for a carsick child up front
Sacrificing, scrimping, serving
so that others may thrive,
such is a mother’s lot:
to do, as so many others, do not.
Tracy Plath
Thank You for Dreaming (for the incomparable mystery writer, Lynne Murray)
Thank You for Dreaming (for the incomparable mystery writer, Lynne Murray)
Frannie Z
Your dreams cross the Bay
over the bridge
and yield magic.
I thank you yet again
for Sir John Falstaff,
sexy fat vampire.
Your San Francisco
never stops loving you
as you write her.
How many hills
do dreams cross?
Seven, you’d say.
Your fogs hide,
yet menace.
The past stokes the present,
and vice versa.
You never stop loving
San Francisco
As she writes you.
When I visit,
perhaps I will wear flowers.
Shhhhh, I’m Reading (Hour Twenty-Four)
Shhhhh, I’m reading.
There’s a world playing out in my mind,
While I sit stone-still, staring at arrangements of letters,
That give birth to whole lifetimes.
You can talk and laugh and walk around,
But please, please keep it down.
#24 – Not Attending Sunday School
Hang your head, the preacher man said.
There is a hole, within your soul,
and, you better fix it, before you’re dead.
Amen, the choir sang. Amen, the crowd chanted.
Amen, the church bells rang. Amen, the sinners recanted.
Holy Rolling comes hard to me.
I just don’t appreciate the show.
Its got the feel of a ponzi scheme.
Its like swimming sideways,
whether up or down the stream
Speaking Tongues makes me wonder
who’s talking, who’s listening and why.
I grasp the point, I hear their plea.
I even try to make some sense,
but sorry, it’s still all Greek to me
Hang your head, the preacher lady said.
There is a rip, deep within your heart,
and, you need mend it afore the raptures start
Amen, the choir sang. Amen, the crowd chanted.
Amen, the church bells rang. Amen, the sinners recanted.
Bible Verses are head scratching lines,
as my mind begets to wandering.
They seem to have them canned, in a jar,
waiting for some righteous opportunity,
but literal parables are simply too bizarre
Damn You to hell I’ve oft been told
the yellow venom slick within their veins.
It reminds me much of the golden fleece
and the wolf and the lamb and the ruse,
if they truly cared, perhaps the word to use is peace
Lift your head, the universe said.
You are a shining star and as you carry your scar,
THEY talk of god, yet, that’s what YOU are.
Amen, the cosmos sang. Amen, the Mother chanted.
Amen, the wisdom rang. Amen, the idolaters recanted.
#PoemNo24
In the dead of the night,
when the whole world is fast asleep
It’s when I am truly awake, enlightened and graced by words.
Every night, people are safely tucked under their favorite blankets,
dreaming dreams….
I, on the other hand, wrapped up cozy in a blanket of words,
my dreams take flight.
Living my dream with eyes wide open.
j.r.m© 2016