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!

The Heart is a Crazy Bag Lady

Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "The Tuesday Platform"
Imagined by Rommy

"A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon." 

~Arnold Haultain

The heart is a crazy bag lady that carries all it hears for keeps
and the mind stirs the contents like a soup to cook and feed
sometimes just one bite can leave a bitter taste
making an entire meal become an utter waste.

Words take flight on a silent breeze but they do not softly break a heart
and once they are truly free they do not soon depart
they fester like a neglected wound and linger like an unwanted guest
causing a deep discomfort and stealing peace like gold from a treasure chest


There is a heavy weight that words have the strength to bear
 so they can lift a spirit and send it high into the air
but when they are bitter they have the power to oppress
striping away self-worth like lovers get undressed


The heart is a crazy bag lady that carries all it hears for keeps
and the mind mulls over the contents like a tourist whose lost their keys
so next time someone offends you with words that cut to the core
remember when it comes to an argument sometimes less is more.

Open Door

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform

Imagined by Sanaa

Freedom begins between the ears. ~Edward Abbey

A soul that is hungry
will search beyond built walls
longing for a freedom
that some never know
it is a journey that can be
like an African safari in the dark
but like most cherished treasures
its attainment has a cost
for hunting can make some
choose to pick up a gun
and it is a lifelong lesson
to learn
freedom was yours
before you
opened the door.


This was originally written for a writing prompt we did at our Word Crafter Meeting last week.  Click here to read Chrissa's beautiful and mysterious response to the prompt.

Simple Yet Profound

Photo Credit

Linking with Poets United for Midweek Motif ~ Saints

Brought to us by Susan

SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX

At the age of 14, on Christmas Eve in 1886, Therese had a conversion that transformed her life. From then on, her powerful energy and sensitive spirit were turned toward love, instead of keeping herself happy. At 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux to give her whole life to God. She took the religious name Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Living a hidden, simple life of prayer, she was gifted with great intimacy with God. Through sickness and dark nights of doubt and fear, she remained faithful to God, rooted in His merciful love. After a long struggle with tuberculosis, she died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Her last words were the story of her life: "My God, I love You!"

The message of St. Therese is beautiful, inspiring, and simple.

Here is my poem in honor of her:


Simple Yet Profound,

Deeper than the deepest well
more distant than the past
there is a truth that few can tell
of a love and faith that is vast
it is a calling profound and true
a life of giving instead of take
it is employed by a mere few
life dedicated for other's sake
there is no extravagant need for glory
simply a mission of the truest love
a soul that has a greater story
even after it has risen to heaven above

I Fall in Love with Fall

Courtesy Google Images

Winter dies into the spring, to be born again in the autumn. ~Terri Guillemets

I fall in love with fall every time it arrives!

The Art of Forgiveness

Courtesy Google images

Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got. ~Robert Brault

The Only Way Out is Through

Photo Credit

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the weekend mini challenge "Boats"

imagined by Kim

"We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

A wise poet once said, "The only way out is through",

 and when it comes to flooding that can be very true.

Sometimes you turn around and leave the way you came

and others it surrounds you and there is no quick escape.

You can start to wade through it or try to walk against the tide

but when it comes to flooding your better off with a boat ride.

So as you hold your two allotted bags and leave the home you knew

remember with most recoveries the only way out is through.

The view of our apartment before we were rescued out by boat.

(Keep in mind this is on stilts already.  That is how high the water was already!)

It seems that the only time I get in a boat is to escape flooding.  I went through this a year and a half ago and again recently with "Harvey".  You do not realize how powerful water can be until you see it rush through an area and take up the land like a raging giant. I have grown to have a very respectful fear of water.  Frankly sometimes I feel like moving to Arizona, but all my family is here and here is where I will stay, just not on the lower floor of these apartments.  So many people in this area are trying to completely start over their lives with new homes or gutting out and rebuilding the ones they are in.  So much loss and so much to do to renovate and move on.  It is much like true recovery, where one much face the problems at hand, dig through the rubble, endure the cleanup, and carry it through to completion.  Like so many solutions in life, truly the only way out is through.