Explorers of Hope

Linking with Poets United for Mid Week Motif ~Human
Also linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by the lovely Sanaa
and because my thyroid medicine has made me feel so much better I am also linking with The Sunday Muse Come join us!


Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.  ~Kahlil Gibran


We fly like sparks from the flickering flame
out toward greener pastures
our cells fueled by stardust
Halley's Comet racing across the sky
we leave our mark in due time
for every sparrow soon learns to fly
by leaping wings first
 from tree limb
or giving hands
humans are souls 
that search for 
meaning
marvel
and purpose
beyond the confines of home

explorers of hope

from one generation to another
grandfather to grandson
Earth to Moon
Moon to Mars
dreams expand
like wings in flight
we are dreamers indeed
our cells are fueled by stardust
and like all loving children
we will one day return
to what our souls call home
the glittering heavens

When Players Play

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform brought to us by Sanaa

Also linking with The Sunday Muse for muse # 7

come join us!

"Sticks and stones are hard on bones
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything
But silence breaks the heart."
~Phyllis McGinle

Why was your love always a cadence in E minor with a sad melody quick to come to a close?
Did you not see me here with my strong voice always holding every note?

The piano that I loved is abandoned now lost and quiet like feathers when they fall.
These days the only tone that rings out is your cell phone, but it won't be me who calls.

My love would have played you an orchestra with trombones and drums as I dance and I sing.
But all you wanted was a player piano and loud sex that technically had no strings.

Sailors, Soldiers, and Saints

Photo Credit




Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by Rommy
also linking with The Sunday Muse
come join us!

“The Brave die never, though they sleep in dust:  Their courage nerves a thousand living men.”

~ Minot J. Savage

To all the lost sailors and every soldier, my attempt at thank you is like a whisper in a hail storm

. It could never be enough.

 For those who sacrifice life, and limb so that I may abundantly live in freedom’s trust.

I have never known the brunt of war, because you paid for my freedom at the ultimate price.

No earthly possession of magnificence could ever re-pay you even if I tried.

So instead of thoughts and mere spoken words, my pledge to you is this:

To take this gift you have given like a pirate’s treasure and make it a beautiful life well lived.

I shall reach out with wings like angels and eagles and soar instead of perch in place.

I will leave a mark, not like pencil nor chalk, but one that time cannot erase.

Yes, I will walk in abundance choosing to grow, blossom and truly thrive.

I will not complacently lay stagnant and just attempt to simply survive.

I will live my life with passion and purpose, like a missionary in a foreign land

I will choose to make a difference, and for what truly matters I will stand.

My offering is plain and simple; I will give back by being a blessing every time I can

That is my pledge to the brave, living and fallen and every woman, child and man.

They Call Her Gemini

Photo Credit

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform, brought to us by Sanaa
and also linking with The Sunday Muse
come join us!


"Gemini is a lover and a fighter....rolled into one."
~Anonymous

She is a thicket of rare fruits and flowers somewhere in the middle of a barren land

Do not try to eat the berries dear nor try to understand

She is a snowbird that has ventured out far beyond the cold into the warm beach’s sand

Do not try to count the miles off course dear nor try to understand

She is a profound riddle written with invisible ink with a true left hand

Do not try to read it without glasses dear nor try to understand

She is a smorgasbord table with no food, but fine china from a distant land

Do not drink the wine she drinks dear nor try to understand

She is a long scarf for two that is worn by merely one like a single flag for each and every man

Do not let the flag fall dear, nor try to understand

She is a parallel universe that beckons millions, but only one may truly stand

Do not enter without knocking dear, nor try to understand.

Remarkable Calamities

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by Sanaa
Also linking with The Sunday Muse
 Come join us! 


"Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr


Like an eccentric artist life re-makes me
over and over again
building me up high
like a big city skyscraper
then burning me down
to ash
just to remold me
better and
stronger
lovely to the soul's eye
but do not be foolish
for
i am an endeavor
an arduous journey
that no missionary
would volunteer for
a vessel unseaworthy
a tiger with not all my stripes
a film not yet developed
a plant with few leaves
but there is growth
it is a process
with slow progress
a becoming of sorts
the lessons re-shape me
the alchemy of scrap metal
turned to coins of a greater worth
the cost of expansion
is a heavy price
a thousand bruises and tears
one hundred skinned knees
and many sleepless nights.

Wild Journey

LInking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform brought to us by Sanaa

and The Sunday Muse

How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man while he sleeps!  ~Mark Twain

It has been a wild journey

 and my soul has weathered many a storm

but my heart lost the sturdy umbrella

a long time ago

this makes for a sloppy passage

and wet shoes

I used to leap over puddles with ease

but now I tend to 

wade through slowly

like a used jalopy bus

in the rain

I don't mind a little mud

just give me somewhere warm

to dry my socks

and take a load off with friends of a feather

and I am happy

there is a luxury a mature heart knows

the comfort of knowing not to rush

and of course the wild journey of the past

has given us bad knees. 

Tread the City with an Open Heart

Linking with The Sunday Muse for our first picture prompt.

Please take a look we would love for you to join us!

Also linking with Imaginary Gardens for "The Tuesday Platform"

The heart carries loads that the hands cannot. ~Matshona Dhliwayo

Give your heart to a sailor it may get lost at sea

Takes a wild soul to do such things

But hoard your heart like a bitter old coot

May be stealing your own joyous loot

Takes a wise heart to see it clear

That being a giver makes for richer years

Those that are takers and hold on tight

End up weary from such wasted might

So tread the city with an open heart

That is when angel’s blessings soon impart

When Big Men Weep

Source


 linking with Imaginary Gardens for "The Tuesday Platform"
Brought to us by Sanaa 

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.  Without them humanity cannot survive."

~ Dalai Lama

It is a true expedition of the heart when big men weep

for walls are broken and lines of hate vanish when hearts open wide

humanity's song is a cry that echoes loudly

in a place large with solace where camaraderie of the spirit is found

it is not a luxury but an utter need to connect and feel

a need held by the eccentric the fool and the wise

we are human we reach out

we fall alone

yet together

we rise.

The Memory of Slipping

Crepuscule
Heinrich Kuhn (1897)

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Camera FLASH"  Brought to us by Kerry

"Nature is a haunted house ~but art~ is a house that tries to be haunted."

~ Emily Dickinson

The memory of slipping has its hold on me

so I fight the fall with all the strength I have

grasping at straws like they are railing

on the empire state building

trying to control a fall

is similar to trying to restrain a bullet 

after the trigger has been pulled

but still I try with diligence 

each step carefully laid out

like a Methodist worship service

but the hymnal is not in my hands

one cannot hold faith and fear

so fiercely at the same time

letting go requires a certain courage

the kind of strength that trees and rivers know.

A Certain Affliction

Source


Linking with Poets United
for Midweek Motif ~ Weapon

Brought to us by Sumana Roy

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
 ~James Baldwin

Love heals broken souls but only if they are willing and open to the treatment otherwise hate and bitterness seep in like a slow leak or a long disease

It is a certain affliction that spreads from mind and heart to soul for the mind can be a deadly weapon when it is enclosed in the suffering of hate leading only to tools that tear down instead of tools that build up

You ask why would one hold on to such a backbreaking burden I say maybe if they let go they fear they will have nothing left to hold  emptiness can be a heavy burden to bear when there is no love to fill in the broken places

For love heals broken souls but only if they are willing and open to the treatment otherwise hate and bitterness seep in like a slow leak or a long disease.

To Not Be Forgotten

~Courtesy Carrie's desk at work~

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform

~Today is National Handwriting Day.~

So we are celebrating the art of hand-inking our thoughts and feels into words.

Brought to you by Magaly

Come join us!

There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

Like soft spoken children they nudge me on the arm

and refuse to be forgotten

getting my attention one way or another

words

they have been a foe

and my faithful friend

an adored lover

and an annoying neighbor

relentless yet true

giving me a chance

to not just speak

but truly be heard

and ultimately strive

to not be forgotten.

************************************************************************

I used to write to not be forgotten

now I write to not forget

I spent years

filling pages upon pages

 with words and thoughts

ideas and rhymes 

hoping to be heard

and I still do

but now

I also have lists

upon lists of things

I need to do

it seems 

that list

never ends.........and

I am in a never ending cycle

of forgetting things on the list.

Takers of the Land

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Wordy Thursday" with Wild Woman ~ The Tree Sisters

Imagined by Sherry

The groves were God’s first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant, “A Forest Hymn” 

We are takers

takers of the land

using what builds our mansions

using what we can

inflating egos like balloons

then building high rises and their parking lots

cement stretched out for miles

we document our accomplishments

 diploma's displayed on walls

we are takers 

takers of the land

using what will build our cities

using what we can

S T O P

maybe it is time we started giving back!

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

Skinned Up Knees

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Fussy Little Forms" ~ Chained Rhyme
Imagined by Marian

A "Chained Rhyme" is where  the last syllable or word of each line is followed by a rhyme on the first word or syllable of the next line.
Here is my attempt:

"Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door."
~Coco Chanel



I used to think that my skinned up knees were from the asphalt
fault always seemed easy to find in the path ahead
instead I learned that it was my own steps taken
break en' my groove all by myself and my choice in directions
affections drove me like gravity and magnet's pull
full of lessons learned down gravel roads
closed with signs say en' danger ahead
in red clear as day, but I kept going anyway!