Composed 4/14/16
Description: For Day 13 of NaPoWriMo. A snapshot from today.
I walk out
And there is sun!
Blanketing the streets in a rare warmth
Crowds mill in smiles and sunglasses
Flirting with their shorts and sandals
I can barely see them
They radiate
But the aura is infectious
Even music plays
Relaxing and summery
From an open car door
You can’t help it
You walk down the street and feel
Alive
With the magic of a thousand summers gone by
Composed 4/30/15
Description: Something short and sweet that just popped into my head. AND amazingly almost caught up with NaPoWriMo!
One day I may have this again.
How blue the sky
How warm my thigh
How lovely, you and I
Composed 4/7/15
Description: For Day 7 of NaPoWriMo. Mother Nature has taken this “April showers” thing seriously this year. And that’s okay.
The haze conceals any trace of stars
The sun seeps like smog to the east
Gray hangs low
Dew drips thick
I inhale air fresh with rain
Step into this open space and begin
To smile
Close my eyes and feel
Each echoed hint of thunder
And wonder
Why ever
You’d shun these days
Composed 4/28/14
Description: (Day 27 of NaPoWriMo) Yes, I know what you’re thinking; I missed yesterday. Whoops! But trust me when I say this weekend has been one of the busiest of my life! With my last semester of college winding down, I am drowning in projects, tests, and activities. Yet, despite that (or perhaps because it’s over) I’m having a great day! Oh yes, it’s a Monday, and it rained all morning, but it only inspired probably the happiest and most soulful poem/song I’ve ever written… So enjoy!
(And I do intend to write another poem today to make up for yesterday… so stay tuned!)
Rainy day mornings don’t drag on me
‘Cause the rain’s just a portion of an April’s spring
And I broke my umbrella and my hair is damp
But heart’s oozing warm like a kerosene lamp
‘Cause I’ve got hands to hold and I’ve got kisses to give
And I know who I am so I can really live
And no matter what troubles come out at night
I know the sun’s just waiting on the other side
Afternoon thunders don’t frighten me
‘Cause the flowers still bloom and the grass is still green
And the clock keeps ticking through the rain and sun
And I know I’ll be dancing when the storm is done
‘Cause I’ve got hands to hold and I’ve got kisses to give
And I know who I am so I can really live
And no matter what troubles come out at night
I know the sun’s just waiting on the other side
Windy evenings don’t frustrate me
Though it tousles my hair and sweeps me off my feet
‘Cause though the wind blows me across the way
I’ll be laughing it up as I float through the day
‘Cause I’ve got hands to hold and I’ve got kisses to give
And I know who I am so I can really live
And no matter what troubles come out at night
I know the sun’s just waiting on the other side
Composed 4/21/14
Description: (Day 21 of NaPoWriMo) Today’s poem was inspired by the Weekly Word Challenge on Susie81 Speaks. The theme was “Happy,” and, though we could write anything revolving around the theme, a suggestion that caught my attention was “write a ‘how to’ guide on how to be happy.”
This comes at a time when I am working on a statistics project in which one of the variables is happiness. Specifically, I am doing some research over whether volunteering is associated with/can lead to happiness. And, thus, this poem came to be.
I ambitiously tried a combined original and “reverse” acrostic. (The first letters spell “happiness is” the last letters, “reaching out.”) It definitely presented some challenges, but I liked the way it came out.
In your experience has giving to others brought you happiness?
How to be happier
A subject in which we popularly engage
Persistently results in a
Powerful longing for a future that deviates from chronic
Isolation and poverty – hated thirsts to quench
Needlessly these desires tempt us like the wishes of a djinni
Ending in disappointment when
Superior joy stems from giving
Simply stroking the heart of one who
Is in need of love may touch you
Surrounding you in the peace of knowing your energy was valuably put
Composed 3/11/14
Description: WDBWP’s poetry prompt came at the perfect time. It’s theme? Mood.
Yesterday I was in a good mood. In such a good mood that I wrote about it. And then I saw the prompt. Fate.
Yesterday I got what felt like the first taste of spring. Instead of twenty, teens, or below with patches of snow (which has been the average over the last few weeks), we had sunny and seventy. I felt like a different person. I could go outside without a jacket? I enjoyed my walks to class? Had sixty, seventy degrees always been this warm? It was culture shock. But a very, very welcome shock.
The day was so beautiful and glorious I knew I had to capture it in writing somehow. The result is found below.
How can I capture the beauty of this day?
I could run through the field
Stripping off clothes in laughter
Until I was free in my skin
And I would dance through the valleys for hours more
Unashamed
Just warm in the sun
Just
Free
You took my home
And made my haven my prison
And then you opened the door
And whispered
Run
Run!
And I dashed
Tossing chains
And dawning leaf-flower crowns
I could leap through tall grasses
And chase dust in the wind
I could climb every tree
Satisfy all desires
No one to hold me
No sword to smite me
Just my own body falling
Elated
To earth
Composed 1/5/14
Description: In response to today’s Daily Prompt Happy Happy Joy Joy, in which we are to describe what happiness is to us. Well, right now, as snow falls thickly and quickly from the sky, I am reminded of how HAPPY this kind of weather makes me. Really. Even when I look back to one of my happiest dreams, snow is a prominent feature. And, in almost all my happiest poetry, if it’s not snow being featured, it’s nature.
Let the clouds rain down from heaven
And sugarcoat our dusty trees with blessings
So they glisten brightly, fresh, anew
And cling like front porch chimes
More beautiful than their first spring
Let thick whipped frosting
Mask the sour twinge of our mistakes
The trash, the dirt, the grime of our lives
So we can remember
That once dull scenery can change
And grandly
Let us build up wonders with heaven’s gorgeous rain
And cool our hot hands, hot heads
With pure white
And rush back to our lives and melt
Remember what it’s like
To really feel warmth
Composed 7/29/13
Description: I always get excited when I can read back over things I’ve written and not hate them. Consider the following my bit of blogging advice.
True joy comes
Not from sparkling golden stars
Or
Slick, shiny plus signs
But from reading
Engaged!
Obsessed!
And emerging to find
That these words
Are yours
Composed 7/27/13
Description: Written soon after my last entry. It is only appropriate to post it tonight as well.
It doesn’t feel right
At the end of the night
To leave sad words behind
For I know that my life
Though at times filled with strife
Is more blessed than most my kind
Still I’m afraid I might slip away
Tonight as in my bed I lay
Sad words left as my last
They will read my past thoughts
Thinking me so distraught
They could have helped if only they asked
But such thoughts are untrue
I love life, I love you
My grief is so small in the end
I only write sadly
Because it’s so madly
Unlike the course life tends
Composed: 7/15/13
Description: I wrote this in response to We Drink Because We’re Poets’ Prompt “Happiness.” The prompt challenged us to write a poem about what makes us happy; so naturally, I immediately scribbled down perhaps the most depressing verse ever. Ha, but it does get better, I promise!
True happiness?
How can one know?
I’ve rarely seen that thing
The glow
Not here
Not on this stone cold earth
We are doomed to sorrow
The moment of birth
True happiness?
I’ve just seen a gleam
In a mother’s bright eyes
A toddler’s glad scream
And then in a book
That speaks of a man
Who loves me so much
When no one possibly can
True happiness?
No, not here
There’s too much sadness
Shame and fear
But the book is a key
To a skyward bridge
True joy awaits
Just beyond the cloud’s ridge
And that joy I can taste
When the clouds rain down
And the man holds my hand
So I will not drown
Scraps of Paper 