There are skeletons in my closet:
Well, we all have some of those.
Everyone has secrets
They’d like to hide I suppose.
Most people’s hidden skeletons
Are minor ones, no doubt.
Just a bit embarrassing
If anyone found out.
Little indiscretions,
Committed long ago.
But things they’d really rather
Their family didn’t know.
But the bones that fill my closet
Are not a metaphor.
I have a pile of real ones
Littering the floor.
For I am Jack the Ripper,
A man of great renown.
Slaying ladies of the night
After dark in London Town.
And, until the police catch up with me,
I intend to keep on going.
Soon I’ll have to move house.
My closet’s overflowing.
Thank you God, for the earth, may we all care and keep it perfect.
Thank you God, for today, for every day is a blessing and we learn something new.
Thank you God, for all our lessons, may we learn and correct any of our indiscretions.
Thank you God, for all our people, may we all work together in perfect harmony.
Thank you God, for all our days, may we use them to make you proud of our achievements.
Thank you God, for removing all the bad, may you keep the opposers of God away from us and lead us to paradise.
Lifting prayer to God, today and always.
THE LONELY KNIFE
The lonely man grieving a lie,
a stranger to his life.
No one left to speak his name,
an undeserved strife.
His body tired, his mind replete,
remembering his wife.
Watching the news from dawn to dusk.
What keeps him from the knife?
A dutiful life without complaint,
content to love and live.
The lady was only interested
in what this man could give.
He loved her still despite each shot,
a rude, crude, one sided feud.
A patient placated pac mule
whose love was always skewed.
Manipulating affections,
habitation in his head.
Yet her diary sits unfiltered
on her side of the bed.
He wont invade her privacy
although she's long since gone.
For all of her indiscretions,
her last shot stays undrawn.
This cleuless, lonely, love lorn, man
his ignorance is bliss.
Tis character that just as much
saved him from the abyss.
Is it better that he should mourn
the lost love of his life,
or suffer the truth her betrayal?
Which ever stays the knife!
Sometimes, in the mornings,
The morning crows don’t sing—
Perched and preaching by a loblolly.
Breathe in this metanoia,
We all live for it.
And if the morning crows never reverenced,
Sitting at my doorstep,
Waiting for my feet to touch pavement,
I might’ve deemed you worthy of abasement.
But the morning crows chant my indiscretions,
To the man in the moon,
Too far to touch, too distant to see—
So I cannot tell him
Of my worries.
Fill up this cup with your americano—
It’s been so long since I’ve tasted of it.
The morning crows fear I will be different
When the sun sets
And daybreak ends.
So I hide in my sleigh bed,
Too frightened to tell you
That I am revolutionizing myself.
The morning crows now mourn the loss of youth.
As I settle down to become holy,
They sing my death—
Heedlessness,
Widening your eyes,
Sharpening your grin.
When I wane once more,
The morning crows will say,
They told me so.
Perched and preaching by a loblolly,
I am reclaimed, rosy-eyed.
Breathe in this metanoia.
We all live for it—
As I reach old age
the greatest lesson I've learned:
to forgive myself
of youthful indiscretions
even if no one else does
Indiscretions
1962
T.W.
The young man's heart was as a lion,
but his stature somewhat slight.
At times, settlement unknowingly came,
by God's supreme might.
Oft times a conflict necessitated,
his donning of a brass knuckle.
He deemed God's punishment worse,
than any rodeo cowboy's buckle.
“It isn’t the size of the Dog in the fight,
But the size of the fight in the dog.”
Mark Twain
My Grandmère and I have long, gossipy conversations,
where we fall into our own chatty, slumber party rhythms.
She’s met or knows everyone important, and people tell her things.
They DM her or whisper secrets of lives ordered but loveless,
of careers choked by excesses and indiscretions.
She gets stealthy, leaked business reports of purported fortunes gambled and lost or of innocence wasted in bittersweet embrace - delicious, tangled narratives that expose the gaps between facades and realities that can’t be purchased.
Sometimes we pop popcorn on our private ends of the Atlantic
watch Netflix, share secrets and laugh conspiratorially.
.
.
Songs for this:
Us by Regina Spektor
Young And Dumb by The Bird and the Bee
I have almost everything I've ever wanted
I have been granted answers to almost every dream
The only things I don't have are pretty much the unreachable
The unattainable
The totally impossible
Like loved ones not being dead
Like being able to go back in time
& apologise to those I have hurt
senselessly or deliberately, so very long ago.
Pointless, useless wants
So I've tried to turn my grief
Into emulating the strengths of those I miss.
The qualities that make me miss them the most
I've used my shame of past indiscretions
The needless pain
Given to innocent by-standers
As I raged past them on my thorny path
Damaging the sweet perfumed flowers
that should have slowed me down
If only I'd stopped to smell them
My shame and sorrow are the rocks I used
to build a bridge
a bridge to reach others in need
Hoping to ease their way through
Help clear their path
Seeing myself in them
and understanding the "why" of it all.
Because that is the biggest question of our whole life.
WHY
No skeletons in my closet
No consequences to fear
No need to weep or lose more sleep
For my conscience now is clear
No petty indiscretions
No wasted time, just livin'
No words to say or hell to pay
For all my sins forgiven
When conflicts raise its ugly head real soon,
our nations won’t inevitably swoon;
a time that real détente and peace attune.
Some people still record the slights most ever stored.
Thus escalate discord, their armies can’t be bored.
But bearing painful past in mind, endowed
ensuing loss with angst, so many bowed
with hidden resentment and furrow browed.
In corners hide the past, persistent ghosts which last.
The indiscretions vast: those overboard and fast.
It shan’t depend on inner child if strewn:
‘To never stand against the wisdom roared.’
Do kowtow when rambunctious children vow
t’ ensure revolt replaced by great repast.
All my efforts to rid my ghost
Leave me distorted and filthy
Sick of bearing my indiscretions
Circling the same widen spaces.
I am not perfect, I am weak in all my sins.
In your strength I withstand.
I open my closet to release my skeletons
More sins fall upon me
How can you look at me and
say that you believe in me.
I am not perfect, I am weak in all my sins
In your strength I withstand.
Let the demons that I hold inside, be
cast away.
Allow the evilness, and cruelty, be gone
from this outer body.
For it's you I want and you that I live for.
I am not yet perfect, I am no longer weak in most of my sins
In your strength, I can now stand on my own,
I can endure plenty.
A writer should never yield
Too readily
To the itch of authorship,
And should hold
In check
The urgent wish,
Desire,
Proclivity
To put on public display
His private pleasures
Or indiscretions.
Think On This 2
Tom Wright
9/3/2010
Life is a marathon & death its finish line.
In our youth, we sprint away from youthful indiscretions.
But youthful indiscretions,
become memories, that are long distance runners.
They always seem to be right there at the finish.
Remembering Indiscretions
Miracle Man
2/16/2023
Our minds are complicated things;
many things we wish to forget, it remembers,
and things we wish to remember are oft forgotten.
It is like a computer where all thoughts are stored;
those things we can’t remember are not missing,
just misfiled, and while God Forgives,
The price He exacts for our indiscretions,
could perhaps be our memory of the same.
O barren one, sing out, break forth in song!
Prepare a room, no, add a wing to host
the children that you’ve waited for so long!
Your offspring will inhabit every coast!
Lift your sweet face, o spurned, deserted, scorned!
Let go your indiscretions of the past.
For I, the Lord of Hosts, have you adorned,
and tightly, with compassion, hold you fast!
O city, desolate in smoldering waste,
your rebuild has commenced this very hour!
Your enemies are routed, flee in haste,
for I, the Lord will stand watch in the tower!
Recline, put off your burdens and abide;
come all who thirst, drink deep, be satisfied!
(from Isaiah 54)
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I originally wrote this as a sonnet, but entered it into a contest with the last two lines expanded to a quatrain and classified it as a lyric. Trying to collect all my sonnets together, so I'm adding the original...
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