a poem for uplifting things

 

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.

 

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 9: write a list of things

to my younger self I gift..

To my younger self I gift

a sense of knowing I have a right to exist,

imperfect and scared as I am

it’s alright to be me.

 

To my younger self I gift

a trust that life gives as well as takes,

that the blows and hurts won’t destroy me,

but will make me who I am.

 

To my younger self I gift

a self-belief that’s humble as it’s confident,

that the words I eventually write

will soothe me and touch others.

 

To my younger self I gift

a pen that scribes my truth.

 

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 7: write a poem of gifts and joy.

if I were a cloud…

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.

 

 

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 6: Write a poem that emphasises the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.

a mind-reading villanelle

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

my cruel inner judge

There’s a cruel inner judge that lives inside my head

It shuts down doors and fills me with dread.

 

Doling out shoulds and musts and oughts

It steals my dreams and makes me fraught.

 

A thought may emerge that’s shiny and hot

But the judge will shame and tarnish the shot.

 

When I sit to write, the judge becomes strong,

Knowing what’s right, telling me I’m wrong.

 

It’s scary feeling my work with no sun

Where judge lives on, my words are undone.

 

Scarier still is realising the fact

that judge takes control with defence and attack.

 

I’m scared that judge lives inside for free

and its voice sounds uncannily just like me.

 

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Write a sad poem in 14 relatively short lines.

a mistake on a lake

One last chance, you said,

to kiss and make up. With

a view from a lake, what could possibly

go wrong, you said, with promise,

that last time before the final time you said it would stop.

 

So much water had filled my lake, no more could I take.

The turquoise sheen, a diamond sparkle, kiss

from the rounded sun, casting even rounder

and darker shadows beneath

the neat containment, the innocence, of the balcony table.

 

Yet guilt you denied, filling my ears with

stories re-told, reconfigured, lied,

as I tried to drown you out with the lapping of lake,

the beat of the sun, the silent padding of feet

on the wobble of terrace concrete.

 

And that was indeed your last chance, as I caress

the rails, robust they are now after a weak defeat.

I’ll feel relief when I close the verandah doors

on a scene about which no one cares how. Just

that now I am safe – inside and out.

 

 

NaPoWriMo2019 Day 3: Write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time.

the secret of night blossom…?

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