Arbitrary baseline of creativity.
Believe in the beats that are felt,
ask a lyric to see where it goes.
Nearby is that heart on a sleeve,
describe what is dying inside;
say it with all the courage you can.
Bang it out let it heal your pain
allow for a release to come.
Captivate yourself,
keep calm if tears start to fall.
Best what you’ve created before,
okay it’s hard but always worth it.
Never bend find the breakout,
eat the hungry audience up.
I have 33 reasons
Why I won’t go home.
I am a loyalist
Tortured by iniquity
Captive of antiquity
But the snake inside me
Is unfolding its fibers of cypress
And the water is thicker than blood
I have 33 reasons
Why I wont go home.
Baby birds
Tucked in warm pew-nests
Mouths agape to catch
masticated lies
Rather than growing
Mature enough to bake
The bread of life
Frightened animals
Leaving blinders on
So our blind leader
We can trust and believe
Rather than being
brave enough to look
At truths before unseen
Scorpion stung prey
Backbones turning to mush
With the poison venom of
What we want to hear
Rather than standing strong in
The boots and armor
Of Truth we should wear
Endurance upon the page
Edited with audacity
May these words persevere
To catch the right complacency
Written with courage
Erased with fierce endurance
May these words come to me
Fortified by my assurance
It is daring, to say the least
Like cool, calm heroism
May these words be my virtue
Extraordinary prowess in a prism
This here is my backbone
A skeleton of determination
May these words I share remain
Brazen-gold without citation
Written with full tenacity
Combining letters with gumption
These words are from me
To you, regardless of presumption
No Backbone
Tom’s Opinion
1/15/2021
S-elf centered
N-arrow minded
O-verly sensitive
W-retched
F-ake
L-iberal
A-rrogant
K-illjoy
E-ntitled
S-pecial treatment
First thing I saw in her -- She spoke her mind
I didn't have a car; she didn't care
She challenged me, though not at all unkind
"You have a car ~ You need to drive somewhere."
I thought about it; she was clearly right
My teaching jobs were both not far from home
She smiled and said, "I thought that you might fight
A woman with some steel in her backbone."
And that was nineteen ninety-five. What's more --
Although two people sometimes disagree
We're married-best-of-friends, and that's for sure
~ Because we disagree so pleasantly
About that car, we thought you'd like to know
That three we own... We have somewhere to go
November 26, 2019
Best Friend Sonnet Poetry Contest
Iambic Pentameter
Sponsor: Regina Riddle
Jayaha, the ameoba for the chemistry lab, was shy but she had a cause
She had a mission – she wanted to be emancipated
She asked me to be her spokesperson
Because she sensed I was a girl who would not say no
I was young then, and she was right.
My lab partner had gone to the bathroom when I got my chance at the microscope.
Jayaha was waving a sign that said “help me!”
She was holding it with the tiniest pseudopod I had ever seen.
By the time my partner got back Jayaha was in a slide in my pocket.
Why couldn’t she stand up to her relatives herself you ask?
Have you forgotten that ameoba has no backbone?
Written 5/18/2019
Poetry Contest: Dial it Back
Sponsor: Maureen McGreavy
You don’t have a backbone!
You don’t have a backbone!
You don’t have a backbone.
Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.
I don’t care, the spider said.
You cannot hurt me, the beetle sang.
Never wanted one, replied the butterfly.
Wasp flew up and stung both of them.
Its as if you were raised on the devils backbone
Strong doesn't begin to cut, especially compared to your knife
You don't care if dead or actually alive
You bring an abruptness into any form of life
You make nothing seem like everything
But it comes with a price
You sure know how to make it look evil
When it comes to playing nice
And like an army vice
Why do you need the help?
Treating no one as you need them, ever
Never as how the sea breathes the kelp
So many take you for granted
But your not even noticing their ignorance
You've even found ways to be okay
Be comforted by it in your own way of bliss
And I wonder if you hold on to anything inside
Has another woman made you remember her with just a kiss?
I wonder why you act so mad yet don't mind if I follow
But your eyes all the same towards me hold this hiss
And ill never take you for granted
Don't even care if I ever get to hold your hand
When it comes to strength and handling loneliness
By someone like you, I'm proud to stand
My antidote to the venom
My smile behind the pain
My hope beyond despair
A Family beyond compare
Cliff they’ll climb for me to bliss
Never tired and never failed
But ‘cause of my stone head
Their heart reached by Blade
Lessons learned I nailed in my head
To close the wound I have created
To draw back smile that I’ve erased
And to utopia I’ll be the seed and head
when you are with a woman...
what is so hard bout being there for her every need
what is so hard bout being there for her at all
she chose you for a reason
one i can't fathom
from reality your spinal cord had a chronic continuous spasm
i wish my girls well in their conquests
i wish my girls the best
when they end up with punks who can't hold her own
it drives me up the wall
from sanity simple... you have seemed to fall
how can you look in the mirror and not cry
how can you call yourself a man... much less even a guy
how dare you criticize me, a woman... who can fulfill your shoes with more
to spare
a shame you exist at all...
for some reason my girl for you proceeds to care
I love life I love people
I love people I will meet a week from today
but you, my child... you lack
BACKBONE
that to you is all I can say
Depletion of souls
Scattering wildly
Across this
Backbone-graveyard
Yearning for home
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