“True success is love, not power.”

Power is so, well, potent:

manipulating, cajoling, forcing

one’s way to success.

Love seems weak, in the shade

of Power’s dazzling beams.

Softer, more passive, waiting.

Love seems vague, elusive,

not out to be grabbed or hurried.

Power can be earned.

Love has to be given.

Power is impatient.

Love is empathic, considered, kind.

And what does success mean anyway?

Can one love without power,

and be powerful without love?

My response to Day 13 of NaPoWriMo: write a poem from a fortune cookie

They say the darkest hour is just before you wake,

and so with my front-garden tree:

just when I thought the fragile branches

had succumbed to the fiercest April showers

it blossomed so sweetly and suddenly,

reminding me, perhaps, that life truly goes on,

through seconds, minutes, and finite hours.

My response to Day 8 of NaPoWriMo 2016: write about a flower

The sparkle bursts after you appear:

down comes the twinkle, replaced by dreary

nights of dark, of twisted hope, as

resolutions hit a slippery slope.

You’re endless, you’re mean, you bite

with cold, your grey obscures my light.

We have to endure you first, lest we forget,

the year looms ahead, as if a threat.

You bully the new year into winter submission

cowing my dreams and my fresh new ambition.

My door stays shut, the scratch of frost

makes my windows ache. My whole being feels lost.

My response to the Day Four prompt in NaPoWriMo: write a poem about the cruellest month

For the love of us, we’re

Always there:

Mummy, Daddy.

In a perpetual state of

Love osmosis.

You know what that means.

Perhaps the line missed its cue

Or I didn’t follow the Strictly rules.

Rather than feel I played the part,

Tapping into my falsest heart,

Reality veiled. Somehow I’ve tripped,

Although I convince, I fake, I vow,

I continue the line, dismayed somehow

Trying to make sense of the now.

The winds can whisper.

Waves can roar.

My soul’s still alone.

This is my response to Day One of NaPoWriMo 2016, where we’re challenged to write a lune.