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.
Middle of nowhere.
Country all around.
Car parked worryingly far away.
With nothing to do,
and nothing to see,
my ears attune to the silence.
Drips of rain down a curtained pain
Chirrups muffled as night descends.
I’m alone but alive with sound.
NaPoWriMo Day 8: today doing a poem of my choice
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.
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
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.
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.
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
I nearly completed all the days
of poems in April’s haze.
I nearly completed all the tasks
of life that won’t leave me at half mast.
I nearly committed to complete
a job that at first seemed so neat.
I’m nearly becoming the person
I truly wanted to be.
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.
inktuition 