my eyes are totally on the prize
as I lockdown my life
I’m more focused than before
and my treasures lie beyond shore
yet the urge to mine those gems
keeps my purpose on point and aligned
a mood is lippy on a cup of something crucial
a person’s choice of lip shows social preference
hear your red and you’re redolent with riches
touch your pink and you’re prior to other pinches
taste your lip and you’ll experience that fully
see your beaut and you’ll believe you are lovely
smell your grey and you’re grazing something truthful
listen to shade: you’ll touch your wounded core place
Just when I’m about to give up on a creative life,
things from nature remind me of who I am and what I’m here to do…
The pale, pert optimism of spring daffodils
that always come up, no matter what, each spring.
The rustle of breeze against branch, a shiver of nature
that brings goosebumps when I’m aligned with my truth.
And a sudden, surprising deer, stopping in its path to pause and stare:
An emblem of creative spirit come to visit.
If I were a cloud I would love all my shapes,
shifting and wisping and forming with joy.
If I loved all my shapes I would welcome all change
and flow in harmony with the sky and the stars.
If I welcomed all change I’d feel freer to fly,
to carry aloft my dreams and ideas.
If I felt freer to fly I would grow my wings wide
and glide through the arc of a rainbow.
Second-guessing makes me lose my own mind.
Yet I spend my life seeking approval from outside.
Pleasing others is a fault in my design.
I’ve begun projects then ended up frozen,
unable to complete an abandoned idea.
Second-guessing makes me lose my own mind.
Reading minds is a skill I think I’ve mastered
but it leaves my creative output empty.
Pleasing others is a fault in my design.
I’d love to roam free in the land of imagination
freeing my thoughts to dance on the page.
But second-guessing makes me lose my own mind.
I can’t take the critic, it pierces and bleeds
my fragile self to the point I submit.
Pleasing others is a fault in my design.
I’ve spent my life waiting for the outside judge
to give a thumbs-up to my latest fudge.
Second guessing makes me lose my own mind.
Pleasing others is a fault in my design.
NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 5: write a poem in the form of a villanelle
What message for me in this fleeting fragment of spring?
Street illuminations shift the softness of blossom
to the moodiness of night.
The pink-white petals cluster in midnight suspense
like candy floss clumps skewered through the dark.
I twizzle my blinds,
the streetlight dazzles my walls with slats
and what do I sense?
A springtime promise, all hopeful and pert,
an epitome of creative grace?
Or a reminder of potential soon to be lost,
a petal carpet of regret to embrace?
NaPoWrimo2019 Day 2: Resisting closure by ending on a question
Eye the world with wonder.
Envy beautiful things.
View others take that leap of faith
while you watch from the side-linings.
NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 1: Instruction Manual
Pic copyright: alphaspirit
Come see with me, as the spring light fades,
a delicate pale dusk that hints at May,
a gentle hue that shimmers through
the retreating winter mists.
Come hear with me, as the birds make nests,
a caw and cackle from beaks unseen,
above me the drone of planes in flight,
beside me the sounds of nature stirring.
Come smell with me, as mowers emerge
from musty mould of damp old sheds,
to give a lawn its first shear of the year,
the encouraging scent of freshly chopped grass.
Come feel with me, the patio touch
of a lilac cushion, smooth bumps of rattan,
a still cool breeze upon the skin,
as fingers graze the pot-plant petals.
Come taste with me, this springtime zest,
let ice-chilled soda sparkle your throat,
the tang of past no longer bitter,
now savour feeling alive.
I tried to tend it, but nature overwhelmed my efforts
What’s the point of even trying
with all that withering around me.
Yes, take the leaves and petals, leave the ground free and clean
as I want to face life, not death.
All the flowers are gone, and I want them back
No, you can’t take their smell away from me
and I’m not sure about your odour of jasmine.
If it’s meant to be the call of my soul
then I’ll wait for the wind to blow it in.
This is an upside-down take on original poem The Wind, One Brilliant Day, by Antonio Machado
The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.
‘In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.’
‘I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.’
‘Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.’
the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
‘What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?’