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The Imperfection of the Stars

27 Feb

Perhaps a bit melancholy, but then again, it is Thursday.

 

stars

The Imperfection of the Stars

I wished to be a beautiful creature

but found I was covered in scars.

But the sky, it pulled me aside and said

my dear, have you seen the stars?

They burn and crack and shoot off rage –

not so different from those lines

you seem to think a falsehood make –

my dear, do you know what lies

are really there? Smooth, flawless skin

is not a truth hood here.

My dear, the beauty of life you see

is in this thing called tragedy

and we are all but beautiful disasters

and intertwined to chaos make.

This world was not created by perfection –

no, all this was created by a snake.

And so we are not doomed but dared

to show our roughness and our edge,

those imperfections that now define

what is our beauty in every line

and every wrinkle and every crease –

we live because our imperfections never cease

and deviation does not evil mean,

so go ahead, my dear. Please show your seams.

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Fantasy

23 Feb

A poem for Fantasy.

Fantasy

I would like a Tardis to fly away

or perhaps a Wardrobe to crawl through.

Some pixie dust or powdered Floo

might do in case of a pinch,

or perhaps a heated air balloon

might be just the cinch.

I’d like to jump a rattling train

to cross the city bounds,

or follow up a couple clues

chased down by the Hounds.

I’d take a sequence of bricks to tap

or an amulet that listens to runes,

the kind of ring that knows a place

hummed in fireside tunes.

And perhaps a ship or craft would do

to bring me Somewhere Else –

just put me anywhere, anywhere

they say exists in those dreams upon the shelf.

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Unmeds

19 Feb

crack under door edited

 

Unmeds

My mind is blurry

and my soul is cold.

My eyes are bleary

and the trying’s old

to grasp at the sediment

of weathered, beat hope

chipped and chiseled

by the unending slope.

There’s not enough coffee

and it’s all gone stale.

The dawn’s too early

and I’m still pale.

The pills have stopped working

so I can’t take any more,

but I think there’s still light coming

through the crack under the door.

Maybe it’ll open,

and then I’ll feel the floor.

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A Storyland Poem

16 Feb

I was feeling a bit crazy and just kind of garbled this out, because I was also kind of lonely and was hoping the Cheshire Cat might come round…

 

The Cheshire Cat

I once sat down with a cat to coffee

(or was it with a bird to tea?)

and the cat asked what was on my mind

but my soul hadn’t yet learned to breathe

and so I asked if I could have some time

and the cat told me I’d had enough

and I said yes, that’s exactly it

you see I’ve had enough of this.

And the cat, the cat poured me some milk

(or was it that the bird tipped some sugar?)

and asked if I’d perhaps prefer a different ilk

to get my lungs again aquiver?

And I said yes, I’d much prefer

a different kind of trek than this,

a different land, a different sea, maybe a canyon

or mountain or few

and the cat just nodded thoughtfully

(or was it that the bird took off and flew?)

but we ran out of coffee (or was it tea?)

and I’ve forgot where I’ve put

that hat or card or book

that the cat had handed me

and so I’ve but this world of porcelain cups

to remind me of the smile I’ve missed.

 

cheshire cat crazy reality

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A Ditty for the “Oh God So Close to the Weekend…” Day

24 Jan

grumpy cat latte art

A Ditty for the Last of the Week Days

There was not enough coffee for my coffee cup.

There was not enough coffee to fill the cup up.

I overestimated what was left

in that most beautiful French press carafe

and now my caffeination is dangerously low

and my motivation center is synapsing quite slow

so you all got a half-crazed dump of a ditty

which I hope you’ve laughed at, even if it’s not witty.

Oh god, why isn’t it the weekend yet?

Note: Why the hell do I think of the weekend as “relief?” I usually have to get up several hours earlier…

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Talk

21 Jan

isolation

Talk

I want someone to talk to me.

I rant and rave, tweet and type

and make all the noises I can think to

in this world of ours.

I even say some words out loud.

But usually,

my only responder is silence.

I am tired of having conversations

with shrugged shoulders as my partner.

I wish that you would make some noises too.

At least then while we are lovemaking,

I will feel like it matters that I am there with you, a person.

Instead of just my shadow in the dark.

Or, at least in the afternoon,

you could say hello when I walk into the room,

or tell you something.

But there is no one to talk to me.

My words only sit across from silence still.

And so I will fill this table with my laptop screen,

and seek to douse this loneliness in the chatter

of a world out there having its own conversation.

I go online to have the world talk at me,

so that maybe all the buzz will help me feel okay.

I wish someone would talk to me.

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Insomniac Poetry

16 Jan

day night idea brain

Happy Thursday, my lovely readers. So, I’ve been scribbling about in the Twittersphere a fair amount recently – the 140 character limit on writing a meaningful blurb/poem is a provocative challenge, and it’s nice to be able to throw shorter thoughts like haikus or couplets or quotes out to the world of internet readers without having to scrounge up something as official as a blog post to do it.

Anyhoo. As many of you might know, the sleeping and I, we don’t exactly have the smoothest of relationships. “Oh, what’s that? You’re done with work and writing for the day and want to get an adequate amount of shut-eye? Then how about I fill your brain with ALL THESE THINGS YOU MUST CYCLICALLY THINK ABOUT IT!!!” *cue maniacal laughter*

Yup. My circadian rhythms and I really need to have a peace summit or something one of these days.

But, seeing as right as I’m trying to fall asleep is apparently one of times that I mind-spew poetry and the beginnings of other writings, I’ve decided that rather than futilely wait until morning to write down the 1% that I’ll have remembered from what I thought of just before slipping off into dreamland, sure, I’ll just postpone my going to bed for another five minutes or so (*cough cough two hours cough cough*) and jot down those haikus my brain is generating like there’s no tomorrow through a couple to half a dozen tweets or so.

Yeah, pretty sure most of my Twitter activity logs between 11 pm and 3 am. Woooo sleep disorders.

But, one writer’s sleep issues is another reader’s free poetry! So, in case you haven’t stumbled upon it already and also happen to be awake and trawling the virtual world for verse at two in the morning (or, you know, wanna check for updates that will still exist in their digital entry in my Tweet feed at a more reasonable hour…), just wanted to give y’all a heads up that you can find the poetry (mostly haikus) that I write late at night under the hashtag #insomniacpoetry. Oh yeah, my whatever-the-fuck-you-call-a-twitter-“at”-username (handle? I think that’s the term the UI folks picked…) is @MicealaShocklee.

Just because, here are a couple of insomniac poems I’ve written over the weeks past:

Haikus for Quiet Sleep

Silence is the best

kind of poetry for an

insomniac’s night.

 

Darkness is the best

kind of poetry for an

insomniac’s mind.

 

Haiku for Words That Won’t Let Me Sleep

A cacophony

of overlapping phrases

circles in my brain.

 

unnamed poem

I can’t sleep and my heart’s a bit bruised,

so I’ll write poetry.

 

Sometimes in life, we make such substitutions.

 

Lovely readers, here’s to all our waking dreams.

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a couple of poems about flowers

13 Jan

flowers

 

Clarity, Inebriation

I want to get the world drunk on flowers,

high on the intoxicating air of a clear spring day

when the scent of a world starting again

out of the rubble of winter

inundates you with the triumph of a million

petals opening up from their buds

and waving at you as the breeze bounces by.

I want smiles to bloom and blossom

and heads to spin from the beauty of it all.

 

Poem for a Lover

Bring me a bouquet of wildflowers,

for then I will know

that you have gone and seen the world.

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Haiku for Profanity

8 Jan

Here’s a blip of a poem (also known as a haiku) for a pleasant bump as you roll through hump day:

credit to some wonderful artist out there whom I could only find a mention of as "Lauren the cartoon goddess"

credit to some wonderful artist out there whom I could only find a mention of as “Lauren the cartoon goddess”

A Haiku in Defense of Profanity

Can there be beauty

in this grunge disgruntlement?

Dirty, not unclean.

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A Resolution

31 Dec

I’m not really one for the whole “New Year’s Resolution” thing. As someone who’s gone through years and years and more goddamn years of recovery, I’ve seen through myself that change is usually not something that happens through one grand turn around, one definitive pivot. It is a slow, gradual, back and forth of deciding and un-deciding and re-deciding over and over again, until somehow, as each sand grain of nearly unnoticeable tremorous choice has slipped through the infinitesimally small bottleneck of the hourglass of our life, we look up and realize all of a sudden – it’s over. I’ve done it. The sand has all passed through now. And in the struggle of the moment, I didn’t even notice.

It is the second-by-second way we live our life that matters. Sure, change can begin with some grand declaration, but a proclamation is not the same as an action. And as history has shown in coups and diets, monumental momentary revolutions rarely last. Change requires more upkeep than that.

And so with all that in mind, I’ve written my hope for the world as turn the page 2014. A hope not so much for resolution, but for recovery.

possibility

2014

My wish this year, as we turn the page once more,
is that we will embrace a new language for these further pages,
to write a story no longer of the old deadbeat rhythm and rhyme
we have clattered with and clod along, year after year,
but instead a story the sound of which is strange in the ears of life,
the new noise of decisions spoken in a different tongue,
To build the world, not break it.
To grow new life, not gore it.
To turn hope into happening
and loss into learning.
To realize that the chance to change
is not tomorrow but all the yesterdays that were today,
and that with every second the breath of possibility whispers,
“Now.”

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