an angular face
stoic and gray
as if she’s been chiseled
out of a mountain of granite
she looks resolute
unassuming and determined
she inspires hesitation in others
many fear inflexibility
do you have an abhorrence for anything?
murder, rape, child ****, sex slavery
any repugnance for anything else?
negative attitudes, bullying, meanness,
any other revulsions?
know-it-alls, vandalism, arrogance, inflexibility
hostility toward any animals?
I am not super fond of rats, snakes or mice
but I do not think I am hostile, merely fearful.
I watch my choice couples from heaven.
Two of them could show me how to argue.
Experts, they disagree on the weather.
I would be able to divide and conquer here.
I would be queen of the house, or king,
Depending on what sex I was born into this time.
The second -choice couple is super religious.
Religious about rules, recommendations, and religion.
They are full of absolutes; there is no gray.
I could benefit here, for I am all about gray.
I could learn inflexibility from them, it would be new for me.
My third-choice couple is full of gun-loving self-spots.
They get a thrill out of killing.
In my last three lives, I refused to step on spiders.
I cannot fathom being raised with guns, bullets, gunpowder.
Can I have a fourth choice, please, God?
What are you looking for? He asks me.
Liberals who understand that life is changeable.
That your idea today might not be your idea tomorrow.
People who are open-minded and flexible.
You already had that, he told me.
I decide to wait for the next round.
For the couple I know will love me and handle me.
Not here yet.
From beneath a long frozen earth
ancient human bones surface,
they rise far enough for an eye-socket
to be seeded.
A sapling grew from out of that skull.
In time the skull became a tree.
Like many tree’s its skeleton was on the outside
but the bone-tree’s bark was harder.
It grew gnarled and knotted, grimly striated
were it knurled as if a twisted growth
had tortured wood into blackened bone.
It’s leafage was scant, spiked, and leathery,
thorns were it canopy.
Some claimed it to be an old apple tree,
yet no fruit did it ever bear.
After hundreds of fruitless years
it fell, stuck down
by its own inflexibility,
its unbending bones broken forever.
From beneath a long frozen soil
where once a garden flourished
a serpent slid away
seeking more blind eyes.
Convictions
susan Q. miller © 2011
Song Lyrics
Maybe our convictions are convictions after all,
They lock us in a prison in our minds.
They keep us from living in this moment.
We’re out of synchronicity---out of present time.
Convicted by convictions, we are prisoners, prisoners.
Living in the past we will never be free
Until we breakout, until we break out,
Open up and live our lives today.
I'm not looking for a pot of gold
At the end of some long road.
Treasures wait around each bend, we can uncover them.
There is no end to the wealth to be discovered
When we break out, break out of our delusions,
Break out, break out of all our past conclusions.
Then we can be free, yes we can be free to live today, today
Let’s live for today.
Maybe our convictions are convictions after all.
They lock us in a prison in our minds.
Each of us are wardens and we hold the key.
There is no one else who can set the prisoner free.
So if we breakout, if we’re willing to breakout
Of past conclusions, our delusions,
Then we can be free
Free to live today
Free to find a better way
No time to waste on blame.
It’s time to break out.
We’ve got to break out.
A major intransigence these days:
when does life begin- conception,
fertilization, a beating heart- with
first breath- taken outside the womb?
How could thinking be so varied
on this disputed topic regarding life-
financial, religious, or political gains,
or even self-centered appeasement?
A major intransigence these days
about this gift- the miracle of life.
Sandra M. Haight
~4th Place~
Contest: Intransigence
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Judged: 07/22/2019
Intransigence. The state or quality of being intransigent
or refusing to compromise or agree; inflexibility.
Why is it the intransigent
find the intransigent
to be pigheaded, willful,
inflexible and pertinacious?
Engaging, as it were,
in an endless “tug-o-war”
neither side allowing
for consideration of
the fallibility of the inflexibility
of calcified recalcitrance.
Stags, horns locked,
dying on an empty stage
bleach-white bones
rattling in an unfelt wind.
©7/14/2019
Intransigence Poetry Contest
John Hamilton sponsor
Personalities, no names just the same
personalities, say what you will, after
swallowing a mediocrity pill...personalities
self inflicted pain, bold lies told
protect and defend at all costs
in the middle, I can’t stop
I want to but for pieces and parts
say NO way
samurai swordsmen conspiratorial debut
punctuated by delusion of self
even when I don’t know, I know
even when I know, I don’t know
Progress debuts again without reframe
Tired, sick of and too...
moaning with heaviness, inflexibility
what do I want, what do I do?
25 hours of sit down in a basket is not a notable worthy way to spend time or adjust. One should not place antlers in fridges for a gammon steak could rise to form a dough ball. Disregarding a helium balloon made from mashed potatoes is quite relevant at this time. And fleeing from fleeces is great fun in many fields. Always watch a magisterial mouse. They are quite fascinating and can tell the time backwards whilst spinning. Spiritual spirited sprites. *** hahahaha and number of pointed noses on the fishes. 1 2 3 4 5 inflexibility x.z.x
What My Youngest Son Taught Me
By Curtis Johnson
My wife worked at a hospital at night, and I did not want her to drive herself.
Our youngest son had just gotten his drivers license. So he was very excited about driving her to work. Invariably, after he dropped her off, he would never return straight home.
I could not understand why it took so long for him to return. After he returned one night, I could not resist asking him about his goings and comings. His reply to me was not what I was expecting. He said that he visited some friends, and then what he said to me went something like this: Dad, you need to be more flexible and do things sometimes that are not a part of the path and plan.
Perhaps I already knew that, but it certainly was not the way I had lived my life.
But from that night forward, thanks to my son, I was compelled to reconsider the goings and comings of my life. That night, my youngest son planted the seeds that broke through the hard clods of inflexibility in my life. In so doing, I was freshly renewed and enriched.
cj02142016
The morbid law of the rigid
It is a principle for the principal
A belief that holds the total
The standard not for the normal
Above reproach, beyond nominal
A law for the feeble and mortal
A rule of tyranny and inflexibility
Found in a principality
Observed as a quality
Anything besides is nullity
Transgress, face penalty
Regress, become nonentity
Redress, labeled mediocrity
Resolute, named superiority
Meek, called inferiority
Compromise, cast as frailty
Opinions equated to profanity
Fairness shunned as evil and vanity
Rationale is called disdain
Don’t drift, remain
Don’t shift, sustain
Don’t twist, maintain
Don’t lift, retain
That’s the law for the deprived
The morbid law of the rigid
Oh! How I loathe intellect,
because out of this inflexibility
logic is born;
and logic is the most bigoted of
all one track minds.
© Harry J Horsman 2010
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