10k views, 2x BestPoetryCollection. A nothing from nowhere cast words to a world wide wind |
Like one of those adventure games where you go off questing in different directions but you don’t advance like the others. You earn pretty medallions gallantly while other players buy, sell and trade at market to get ahead without moving an inch. Slow burn…hey? You’d rather keep your dignity, or try to figure out their game. That’s where you really get lost. Game full of misdirects leads right back to start over and over. You could have stayed on your quest. Now, you have this. Redacted, censored, gaslighted…must be doing something right, my old boss would say. I’m not a sociopath, he tells himself. Equal parts, then? Mom should have had me tested. Because, life of turmoil produces stuff like this. Not going to call it beautiful agony…it gets a bit ugly.Tap on them. It’s part of the quest…see where I’ve been; see who I am: Right. I redact myself. The beautiful mess you made. Who are you? If I’ve been denied the right of knowledge, I’ve earned the right to judge. | Without knowledge, who’s to judge? | No gavel; no voice. "...politely reedy but ambitiously eclectic—moving effortlessly from hen-picking and bottleneck slides to a full deck of chucka-chucka rhythm figures." I had a lover's quarrel with the world - Robert Frost | I'm sorry you got caught in the middle. *Neurodivergent poet. *Don’t judge/hate. I love. *Honesty without mincing words. *Dump your prejudice outside my door. Hope you leave it on the way out. *Nothing to fear but people who surround themselves with rules, can’t be touched. *Real dialogue accepted. My words collect, arrange on a kaleidoscope spectrum. The true experience/acknowledgment of my writing yet to come...long after I’ve left WDC, am dead, or both. Truly been a blessing, but I've been pushing it — envelope, push world and all inhabitants away, push buttons to find boundaries, having no clue or told where they lie, where I've lived in your dark. Now and then, push dirt out of this hole; someone/thing/entity might envision me the way I need to be viewed. (if I knew what that was. Cryptic, I know. Try living in my dark, find comfort amid the strange, virtual walls that tempt me to try). *The parenthetical lawyer up? Foot free, I’m all over the place. Best Poetry Collection 2X, nominated three years. What does it mean? I was enjoying myself, head bagged. A happy idiot. Something messed with that. I won’t be a coward; not starting feuds or wars over ideals and beliefs. We all know that’s a pile of crap packaged with dreams of pretty things to sell the next boob that walks by. Been more than I could imagine or expect. My achievements aren’t going on a LinkedIn wall. But, I get it. You're sick of me. It's how I feel about myself when I dig deeper, push boundaries. Don’t care my words that aim for honesty, either brave or veiled cowardice, flinchingly flung, inadvertently hit a target. Get a back off shoulder shot for asking your motivations to write…won’t get me to bend over backwards to appease, again. There’s no prize to eye, not properly incentivized. So, does it mean when dealt the worst two cards before the flop, do the best with what you got? Yeah, rigged. Yeah, other tables — other ‘games’. But, something in my gut I’ll never be rid. My Pluggers: You are an icon here. You suffer, but you suffer brilliantly. Wow, what a great writer.{/blue} It’s like plugging myself, but using other people’s (reviewers) words…Review of "Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋" Your poetic muse is on fire! Some great emotion, well-balance(d), lovely lyrical qualities -- even the ones that were written out of sadness or anger came through in a clever cadence…It's obvious you've put a lot of work into each entry and the totality of the blog has eye appeal. Published four times with one a literary journal, including… "The Tender Core (Sedona)" I don’t submit because it’s too much work. Truly alone, know no one cares to show they believe/support me. Lip service feeds delusion. I’ve seen a lot of smoldering and snow. Try not be cynical, work hard at openness and consideration — work, sooo…gut thing. August 28, 2006 this blog opened ▼
No specific aim going forward (2014) ▼ This is old…. What? Oh, this? A rhetorical, self-motivational speech I'm working on. Don't just read the parts to construct your theory, as if to confirm (construed out of context) your opinion, mentally-stunted Neanderthal. Therapist wants me to be less negative toward myself. I see it as attacking, rather than being defensive. Fear I will chomp too many bullets unintentionally sent toward the unsuspecting. If you can be triggered for stupid reasons, then I? …just looked like me rolling around on the floor with myself. What Was NEW Who am I, you ask? My mirror knows that question, repeated daily. Just trying to create a little buzz, not boost my ego. #amwriting #poetry #blog #contest #freeverse #award #bestpoetry #freyaridings #lyrics #music #video #YouTube Can you believe it took this long for someone to put a quarter in me and push the button GET ANGRY? Mud 4 My Eye: Is that you, Poo? 💩 Secret Back Door ▼ |
Name it what you will... The worlds where I reside are imagined The worlds I spent years crafting now dying The worlds where I cannot reside don't exist The worlds in my mind clearly delusional Where is the visualization to live in reality? Where is the maturation to accept I live alone? The worlds that are fading were reality The worlds constructed safe havens The worlds sunsetting blind forcing me to leave Where is the hand in this dark to lead me out? 8.30.20 With youth, bliss ignorance. And, where are you now, of a different perspective? TOP 35 ALL-TIME Writing.Com AUTHOR: Rank 32nd, 8/2020 BLOG: "SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days" POETRY BLOG: "Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋" 2020 WDC Heart Throb Poet Most Talented Author 2011 2009 North Star Award eternally dead in this world |
Seasons In Soil (to my daughter with regrets) I cared for you throughout all the seasons, Tended to care all of these years And still see you struggle In this soil, with the sun’s love. It’s still a mystery how Something once so vibrant That produced the most beautiful blooms Witnessed, So ripe, fertile And tender with hope, Could hang so low before me. In all the years, Throughout all the seasons With joy I have feared You might wither before me, That you might not rise To meet the white-puffed blue sky From this humble earth Where I planted you. I linger over Springs enjoyed together, Summers in my heart, The bittersweet farewells of Autumn Before I packed you in With offerings of the maple’s love. You nestled with those friends. Now I watch leaves That slowly form to stick, Prone to curl and hide Immature in any shadow After the last frost; Some spotted black From the briefest drought, Do not shelter with buds. A few blooms unfold awkwardly, Eaten by starving beetles I shoo away. Maybe, I lack The love you need to bloom Again and again Like you once did, and yet I cannot give up on you As I’m your only gardener. You’re a mystery I yearn To solve, and one day Learn to understand. 8.30.20 Got the idea...yes, you guessed it, while tending to my garden. |
the withering go ahead and suck the rest of summer from my lungs; exchange my humid breath with dry, white dust to spew to the heavens, freeze the white ghosts hovering above the burnt ground, transparently inked with its black sheep roaming. pluck the stray hair from my decaying head, withering with no further purpose to frolic with tan fools; my skin burnt and raw from ignorance about light, and freck'ed by genetic predisposition, too late to alter. thanks mom and dad. slowly i go down between the remaining blades, yellow like butternut soup from squash spared in the cellar. slowly i go into the dark hole for what's remaining to eat, because i still have a hunger for something but did not cultivate the garden well. shuck my chafing skin like you husk stored corn; but no butter churned to spread. the bitter salt sprinkles my corpse still fresh, but soon rotting. with my last prayers spoke to a bare place setting, i have nothing left to give or share. 8.29.20 |
Lake Symphony To Begin The bassos single notes gulp silence. Brown minstrels grasp surface air, whoosh water to vacuum twilight wings Pinholes on ultraviolet horizons As violinists harmonize instruments In unison, undiscovered, lay down sound-beds for ears harvesting With eyes black trusting a moon Clear-cutting a path to the dock Stretching across the water To listen to the symphony begin To wonder if calm allows a mind To settle in as the mosquitos arrive for an unexpected banquet. 7.30.20 i don't know where i was going with this poem at the end of last month. just inspired by fish breaking water surface and frogs croaking in the humid night as crickets joined to drown them with their ongoing symphonies attuning. |
In a pandemic the fat men in small jerseys have no place to sweat, so the geese take the field. The long corridor to connecting avenues intruded by just one car on a Wednesday night greets us. You could scream and hear your voice roll down 12 city blocks to disturb dwellers in their cells divided. What joy is a car like a Sunday station wagon, cutting through humid night, free as a child in pajamas hoping for ice cream before slumberland. Small crickets in the best mating season warm to the throatiest chorus, fiddling on wing beneath a window tossed open. Air conditioning be damned. I want to experience this before we're lost again in the ensuing chaos called life. 8.27.20 don't know that this needed stanzas but I wanted to break the text up. Just struck me as funny there is no high school football practice, so the geese are all over the school property where we just turned in the last of my kid's school property. I remembered last night going for a drive and noting once again there is no one moving from here to there because there is nothing to go to better than a firepit and some brews in the backyard to look at the stars and formed constellations forgotten. Yup, I could incorporate all that. Another time. |
this needs more work... covers covers are cheaper if you find the right one, something that is familiar like the original, the way it was intended to be -- something that carries a heavy price, lacking cash we dream, but never see to pay for these dreams. so in this case, imitation is best. we can make do not being genuine, the way god intended. people see just fine these covers draped over souls, heavy with the burden. we can never reveal the true model. what a heavy price to pay for cashless cows huddling about wanting to be seen. paint any dreams on our covers, project and see who will believe how true to the original we can be. 8.26.20 written in two minutes about how being fake can be good when we are not strong enough to shoulder the burden of who we were constructed to be, because it does not come as easily. |
whispers of fall linger above the trees grass dries, dies brittle yellow-brown from a harsh sun angling to get away hide beneath a golden horizon like responsibility resting on your fence my arms flat beneath the chin as I consider all the reasons why we serve on this planet like ants until the day we too must die my blue eyes brighter than any horizon before discolored flame out whispers of something else calling i won't think about the white blankets I could crawl beneath I never want shoveled out but pile high to freeze my limbs to never lift again you can have your spring i won't be a part of it 8.26.20 8.28.20 it's too early for fall, but I have to be prepared for an eternal nap. |
truest colors a seasonal farewell that always feels final over our fence the mechanical whine whisks the fall offerings down the aisles of tall men. gratitude this season heaps in the grass with love, collected from stoic parishioners. air flowing up to the shiny god, sucked dry in sanctuary. wind offers more oratory: thank you friends for colors adding to our breezes. you have all been to me pure poetry like trees, always humbling my heart. if I could live one more season, show you my truest colors, that would be pleasing. 18 lines 8.26.20 Prompted by: gratitude heart friend from "Rising to the Challenge! - CLOSED" Written to support my friend, Lilli who needed more contest entries, but then forgot about mine when listing those for judging. DID NOT PLACE AMONG FOUR ENTRIES |
Containers Sorry I didn’t fit I wanted to dive within Snuggle in with someone Like you Sorry I’m too big Or too small to fit With someone like you Who has particular tastes I tried so long to change Tried to find the rhythm As I swayed on your floor Not nimble enough to play Mom and dad never told me Anything about my role If I was the proper shape To find a place to fit I rolled through life Missing and hitting All the obstacles on the way Until I fell into you Wanted to stay Sorry I wasn’t right For someone who sees me The way you do and that would be How? So, I know what’s true? These containers I see The world provides for us Doesn’t have the right one For me to crawl deep within I’m sad that I’m not the fit For anywhere I roam That will allow me to be near Someone like you I’ll never change again For someone who needs a fit Someone in the right container To hold onto within. Don’t want to lose myself. 7.19.20 |
It's not your fault I could have been dead on arrival but I lasted fourteen years, willing to draw dreams like clouds on your skies. You never felt obligated to marry my vision to yours in this strange bedroom I've been given, my heart monitor slowly beating. Fluids that filled my empty veins thicken an already dark soul hiding. It's not your fault I gave up on life before I arrived at this emergent room for hope. I could draw these last breaths of dreams, carried out on gurney, wheeled down dark halls. No, it's not your fault I had a fast car that I steered into steel buildings with windows like a bird purposed to message. My vision not your own, and I trust these instruments drain my life's blood, words of peace before I die. goodbye. 8.23.20 |
Trapped in a forest I parachuted in, a haven to spare me from humanity, one soul adrenalized learned to defend. In my hopeful woods I camped to forget, drew dreams in the sky with eyes that once could see; visions carved like a fool, struggle aimless in the dark nights. Navigating the lay of furry, green land, I witnessed brilliance in streams and a renewed face, distorted, ready to believe. The longer I foraged and trusted this Eden, I realized a projected fantasy in me, similar to my visions, a virtual reality. I hadn't lived, but gave myself to wolves with schemes to devour my spirit before my meat. I camp at the river of sorrow, the edge of tomorrow. I could put one boot outside these woods and never look back. I made this strange place my own; but, I owe something deep within. I owe myself freedom in true civilization one more chance. 8.23.20 I could pack this with so much more, about a virtual world where I landed seeking rescue, thinking I could find my way through a strangely familiar and comforting land only to realize I had isolated myself from me within the convenience of virtual reality...or something like that. |
Black Breath (Cheating Life) Sorry life if I cheated you, didn’t die young. Sorry that I didn’t careen cliff sides narrowly missing the rocks and open sea inviting me to plummet down. I have visited you; but was likely overlooked, the loner lingering beneath the umbrella woods, hiding from sunrises, glimpsing sunsets with regret. Sorry that I cheated myself, didn’t search for a truer love to lend my lips. Sorry that I didn't skywrite her name on blue, tug at the hopeful hearts, tears from crystal eyes. They long to live more passionately than I ever dreamt. Why didn’t I try? Was it because you devilishly dare too much? Impulsive, swim against river currents, dive beneath their tow? Sorry I cheated this life, didn’t take chances like those fools running naked into the night amid toothsome evils. Sorry I cannot hide this fear to live afresh. I wasted so much time, the horizon now fading. Clouds like fingers curled beckon a boy too old; digits spared from the sharp swords not juggled. I come to the edge of another cliff in my mind. I stare deep down inside a dried up well. I wait for the 18th degree of angle to draw at very last black breath. 8.22.20 Responding to lyrics of a modern song using the cliché line about dying young. Struck me as an idiotic convention to live life like there’s no tomorrow, when it’s obviously a narrative people buy into to throw caution to the wind and go in debt...that’s what I wanted to include in the poem. |
Where To Begin Where does the story begin? With the rabbit nibbling clover from my backyard, or the robin yanking grubs by beak from beneath patches of remaining grass? Does it begin with a squirrel raiding seed from bird feeder, spilled beneath the cedar? Kernels plummet beneath moldy mulch to grow weed in a summer season. Is it where the white owl resides, mystery in lofty pine, swaying with stiff breezes? Or, the mole hiding the day out beneath the deck, covered in waves of decaying needles? Do I find my story lingering about tiny sand mounds where ants carry harvest to caverns below, or with clever toads stoically snuggled in cool dark, within rock and dank clay, hunger the unsuspecting bugs to prey? What would leave me this way, wondering all the day, where to find my story start? in my robe, in my room, looking out the window above a sheet-tussled bed? Where I shall stay and drink this morning away? The coffee maker will have to wait. 8.21.20 I'm beginning to think my default is to not try until something inspires me. When I search for that thing or someone who can motivate me, feed off a good subject, project to fulfill; I'm empty. I might try, but it usually ends up with a daydreamer looking out at a world that self-sustains and wonder 'why can't I be like that?' My assumption is everyone can relate. People try to avoid getting in this rut. Mentally, I have to rock myself out, but then what direction to go? Where is purpose? You spend 14 years on a journey with writing that meets with obstacles and find you went too far south. Efforts to find paths that could lead you out of a maze find distraction, find a person wanting to give up. But, it's been 14 years, and you are a different person, to yourself, just not in other people's eyes. You want a fresh start and burn all bridges to the past. I want to leave everyone to be alone and find me, go on a journey where none tries influence me. I can make my own decisions and stop second-guessing, stop leaning on people who never got me or cared enough about me to let me grow my own wings to fly. Rather, mine have been tapered to sit in a cage and sing like Angelou's bird like freedom. The only person I should owe anything to is myself, but out of obligation have felt a debt to others. And, it is the work that I do to appease others that grows like cancer on my heart. I think they would love me if I set myself free and truly show them how I fly...if I only had true navigation. |
Some things you can't help thinking about... I said I was quitting you coffee, but you call me from the grave in the cupboard. I should have moved you to the back of the pantry. What does it matter? When I'm not thinking about you, there's some old cigarette ad burning on a reel in the back of my mind. It reminds mom and dad never smoked, but they did percolate a heavenly smell, brewing atop that tiny, corner stove where meals were frequently ruined. Coffee greeted me in the morning in my underwear, after I woke for school. But, I didn't drink you in those days, just warmed by your fire. Making up for lost time, and to stop being tired and/or late for work, you inspired me, lit my heart afire, lubricated a jaw with coherent words forming and flying free past lips that never moved so fast with ideas that never before materialized until you. And now you're banned in the kitchen of my heart, where I deny myself because it's not healthy. It's wrong to want to keep consuming you, coffee. Maybe, I should start smoking cigarettes. No. Worse idea. I'm going to start the coffee maker instead. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. I think I have a problem. Oh, well. Coffee... l l l 8.18.20 37 lines, freeverse I wrote this instead of starting the coffee maker so soon. 4:15 a.m. Hmmmm-mmmmm....I have a problem... |
In Michigan I live in Wisconsin. Don't worry. It doesn't get clearer. In Michigan I hung upside down and shoveled the snow from the ice, icicles form inside my runny nose. Eyes water and crystallize. I skated down hills in my insulated boots and on my head in Michigan. I took walks while the wind chased high in the sticks they call trees. My tormentor howled, threatened and sometimes shoved me in the back. In hung upside down Michigan I did. At night, calm by the frozen harbor lonely bells clang, perhaps in my heart. Yard lights blind spots on docks where night shelters mounds of coal piled high, waiting, radioactive monsters about to sneer with menacing green eyes come after me. In Michigan I wait eight months for summer. It never comes, in my mind. There's no place to put snow after March in Michigan where I dwell in my head. Hard to remember, sitting on the sunny beaches of Mexico upside down with Margaritas sweating the frosted, stemmed glasses full of icy concoction and warm Tequila infused with blended fruits... in Michigan, okay! I confess. I never left. 8.18.20 Got the idea from someone In Texas or On Tumblr...never mind, you wouldn't understand. |
Equal To Dead The brittle grass is too hot for my feet. I fear the dusty soil where ants have overcome. The sun hasn't been a friend to my yard. I don't take time to check in every day. What does the world want from me, this barefoot wanderer who seeks a garden to roam? For just a moment alone at this busy intersection, where I can hide like a child in bushes sought, these invading words pursue a once gentle mind not capable of bending more; travels to places away from chaotic billboards of cancel culture bleeding evident truths I can no longer consume. When did we become so truthful within folklore -- jolly fat men and bunnies toting chicken's eggs -- find nostalgia of some utopia underground, be lei'd upon solemn arrival to atrophy before frost? Where can I go to get away from you, who needs my (worthless) vote this and every fall? The elections I have to choose from in my head make me wish for an alternative equal to dead. 8.16.20 Cancel culture is singular in nature. It does not consider references to from things born from the past that do not mesh with the present law of eradicate everything that does not belong, starting with people over 30, hwo don't buy in. |
mediocre dreams and mistreated hearts what you see as old, beneath beats a tender heart what I see as hard, is a child with an organ cruelly mistreated not that I seek death in totality when I cannot resolve these fears I either need become that hero for you or die with this unwrapped gift I hide. but, come to think of it, this is no place to start that summit in apathetic reclusion. this is the hole in the center of the universe, a kind of purgatory where people like us go while standing far apart to delude or punish ourselves for not trying. commune among monsters that can't taste our flesh, sate immortality because in a thousand years, it won't mean a thing we die on our own crosses with none to witness know like I, nothing to fear to mend your heart and when that's fixed, get mine undone? so, yeah. maybe, this doesn't really apply, just an ongoing dream of mediocrity I'm in bed with. -dad 8.14.20 |
Dew Re-Visions Dewed grass seldom had my back, because I was a late riser with regrets. I missed silence, the most special of each early day. I remember clover fields, sweat and dust-covered to the hairline from the infield where I scooped grounders with my best friend after the third grade. I remember an dad's army knapsack packed with saran-sheltered sandwich dreams and warm, sun-kissed soda quickly guzzled. We laughed and dared the sun to burn our tender skin and dreaming up schemes for the future things. Mother called us home before dark consumed its small creatures. I haven't seen you since, or the little boy who's name doesn't exist but lingers in the fields where I would play alone. Flowered weeds sway and another orange light drops without her call to return home again. Is there a way I can climb back in the tangled mesh? Where is that entrance? 8.13.20/11.16.21 25 lines freeverse Imagination ▼ |
Burning Light Inside My Dreams The light is outside shining a well worn stoop, where I seldom glimpse sunsets since I stopped waiting for sun to rise. Burning with this dream-like energy that wants to spill forth, I too have seeds for the wind to disperse. Burning indoors with candle visions and tonight's wine, full bodied with just a hint of infinite possibilities, I rise to the door growing wider and taller than me, reach for the copper knob invisibly lost in this mist enveloping. how will I get out, stumbling, when dreams fear nowhere to play? I turn to one place, learn how the world played today to see what I missed, since I seldom replay the memories or reminisce. 8.13.20 "Burning light inside my dreams I wake up in the dark The light is outside my door..." This song is so truncated and wistfully sweet. What do you suppose she means? We can dream but reality is dark? Yet, if we look outside we'll see what's inside ourselves? I'm composing now in my head hoping I can come up with a worthy poem to relate to this song. I caught up on my sleep and I'm burning with this dream-like energy that wants to spill forth on this page... Dream another time |
excavating words and lost poets some have gotten so deep beneath the surface they've forgotten the rest of us lingering at the top, who need a tour guide to the excavations where constructs held within the dark walls don't illuminate well. so, flashlights are leant to daring explorers who take in the awe-inspiring images, wanting to know the artist's true inspiration. these thinkers, deeper below, have forgotten how they arrive to the places they go, get lost, sometimes need a guide to bring them back. which way is up? then, to see the faces of those who contemplate subterranean wonder, and, why construct these monuments buried so deep for the rest of an inattentive world to envision? i don't know. 8.13.20 |