The Haunting of Her Lips

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Linking with The Sunday Muse for the muse # 27

Love, thieves, and fear, make ghosts. ~German Proverb

You are a haunted house my love and I am the ghost that walks your halls 

I have every room memorized but you do not remember me at all

I kissed you once and I kissed you twice more

but before the next you were long gone out the door

you see time stops for only a few things in this world

childbirth/seeing a ghost/ and kissing a girl

I held you close in your red sequin gown

and paraded you on my arm all over town

but what made me fall was that first kiss

and now I am a ghost that you do not know exists.

The Magnificent Magician

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The Sunday Muse for muse # 26 and with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by Sanaa
come join us!


We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

It is a show I have performed on a big bright stage

 but it has never been magnificent, it has only been a comedy of pain

 Here comes the lady that performs magic tricks

  She makes things appear different with the click of a stick

 No rabbits come out of her big black hat

Only denial and excuses with a big black cat

If you do not look close you will never see

The trouble disappearing act from scene to scene

What once looked bad is now all covered up

With magic gloves under a magic rug

Turns out it only makes for a bigger mess

After the show is over and the rug gets wet

And every performance turns out the same

Turns something medium into a bigger pain

I know cause I did the show many many times

And it always ended the same come rain or shine

My problems magically grew larger right on the stage

And every show I still do that trick just the same

I finally had to take off my magic hat and lay down my stick

For only God can perform a true magnificent magic trick.

Classic enablers can be like a crazed magician or a frenzied maid, trying to fix the world around them and make the problems of those they love disappear.  It is a job that can make for a weary heart and was never what we were meant to do.  I know this because I am one, and I spent many years trying to smooth the rough waters of alcoholism and addiction right at my own front door.  One thing I have learned in the process is this:  the force of dysfunction of a classic enabler can be just as horrific of an addiction as drugs or alcohol abuse can be.  No wisdom of others on the outside looking in could stop me.  It is a struggle that I still wrestle with, but I have learned to see it for what it is, and not let denial cover my eyes with a blind fold like a magician’s ruse.

Drink Up

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Poets United for Poetry Pantry # 425


The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.

~Thomas Carlyle

We define ourselves
 not by the struggles that we have in life
 but rather by the way we face them
 and handle their affect day by day
 that decides what we become.
  Life and the battles we face are not a respecter of persons
  They do not withhold the blessings nor the strife.
  They come together with the air that feeds our lungs
 like a cup and saucer for us to drink up.
  Some of us sip it cautiously
 and others swallow it wholeheartedly
 and enjoy every drop.
 Drink up my friend!  
Drink up!

The "F" Word

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Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by Vivian 

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. 

~Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Frailty

fear

flame

far

finite

futile

frenzy

filthy

facade

fight

faulty

famine

fading

falling

fleeting

flood

final

fungi

fuss

folly

feces

F--- there are a lot of negative words that start with "F"!

But on the positive side:

Fierce

fearless

flow

focus

flourish

flawless

feasible

fine

faithful

friendly

fit

fulfilled

flexibility

free

future

frugality

forgive

flower

fair

fortitude

Female,

Fragile as a flower tough as a flame

 the force of a woman's heart
can stop a moving train
we may not have big muscles
but we have a gigantic heart
and when it comes
to molding people
we play the biggest part
we carry an influence
that is heavy like blocks of steel
and in our gentle nature
we have a strength that's real
for we are
fragile as a flower tough as a flame
and the force of a woman's heart
can stop a moving train.

I Fall in Love with Fall

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with The Sunday Muse for the Muse # 25

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees. ~Faith Baldwin

Autumn lives within my heart

deep and sultry

 stirring me to thirst

as I wait for October

all year

and when it arrives

I melt into the scenery

like the wax of a brightly lit candle

the crackling of red and golden leaves

upon my feet and a smile on my face.

The Songwriter

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform

~The singer sets the song to flight, but it is the songwriter that gives it it's wings.~


Raise your voice friend
raise it high
let the notes reach
from dawn to night
like a sparrow up in the sky
it has a song and it has to fly
it carries a story under it's wings
and pays it forward when it sings

*******

Raise your voice child
sing it loud
live your dreams
and live them proud
like a sparrow up in the sky
it has a song and it has to fly
it carries a story under it's wings
and pays it forward when it sings

*******
Raise your voice dear
cry out true and strong
give love meaning
give it song
like a sparrow up in the sky
it has a song and it has to fly
it carries a story under it's wings
and pays it forward when it sings



Dedicated to Amber Whitworth and Vicki Rogers, two beautiful songwriters I know and love.

Nature Has a Song

"The Hare and the Crow"  by Amanda Clark

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse #24

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature has its own scene with a sweet beat and flow.

It hops like a rabbit and calls like a crow.

The sun has a slow dance of seduction with the moon

and underneath their cadence, is where all the flowers bloom.

The wind whispers strong yet gentle to each and every tree

and when it is time, there is a colorful dance of leaves

It is like a love song that plays right before our eyes

For nature’s song has perfect timing that is lovely, strong, and wise.

I Crossed a Wild River

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by Pat


Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett


I crossed a wild river of all that was
and I lost all that I left behind
winds of change can be unmerciful
and even more so unkind

cobble stone and mortar
foundation and rail
oh the stories they hold 
if they had a voice to tell the tale

So much devastation so much change
lives lost, piles of rubble
and life's plans rearranged

but through it all
 we have grown strong and wise
rebuilt buildings, recovered homes
and repaired lives

Humanity is resilient 
and courageous in storm and loss.
man gives all when all can seem lost

So looking back now 
under a sunny and cloudless sky
I can see the miracles 
that in crisis did arise

for once I crossed a wild river of all that was
and I lost all I had before
but in the process
 I also gained so much more.

Opportunity * Hope * Purpose

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 23

I can't wait all my life
On a street of broken dreams.
~Journey

Hope is not a second cousin once removed that lives in a far away state
it is as close as a dear child planting kisses upon your face.

Opportunity is not some rock star that lives in California that you will never meet
it is countless pebbles along your path right at your feet.

Purpose is not a mountain top that you could never reach
it is anyone's chair that sits in an alley way so just walk up and take a seat.