I’ve been working on this poem
it’s called (Blown Away)
Don’t worry, there’s no bullets
just some points to be made
I can write it with an arrow
from an old weathervane
dip the tip in lead
and be on my way
with a heavy sway
I’ve been feeling kinda dizzy
but can’t explain
how I keep going south
into a hurricane
Double-barrel primed
I’m ready to blow
blinded by flashes
This can go anyway
who gets to say?
I’ve been crossing minefields
on a pair of stilts
The wind’s at my back
my trousers make sails
I’m falling to bits
spinal tissue exposed
my ribs come detached
But the outlook’s okay
I had spare ones today
I’ve been throwing paper planes
on the rehab lawn
They’re below Mach speed
and the gardener waves
Gliding on zephyrs,
let’s the edges unfold
Unraveling daisy cutters
my payload explodes
No time to pray
but I did yesterday
(yes I did yesterday)
By David Kavanagh
I like to give all things
living personality --
wind, for instance, not just
complex science
but conscious velocity --
mindfully determining its own speed
and direction...
---------------------------------
Time is not all lineal
you know --
I often travel freely back
and forth,
casual jogs over stored memories --
The good ones require no careful stepping
While the bad can be minefields --
I wonder how you recall me?
Perhaps a mixture of pain and pleasure?
An occasional vintage along with the bicarbonate
Like those deeply grooved records we wildly
Danced to:
My confession, I yet listen to them…
Thinking fondly of you, ignoring the hisses and
Scratches. To be young again would be enough!
Nietzsche declared that God is dead
Since thoughts of Him man’s heart has fled.
If it is true that God is dead
Let hearts of men be filled with dread.
Once God had died the race was on
among the gods man’s mind would spawn,
which one would fill the space God left?
Yea, who would occupy the cleft?
The no-God notion tried and failed
To fill the void man’s proud heart veiled
The need for one greater than man
Whose essence man’s mind cannot span.
Materialism also failed
As grift and greed man’s heart assailed.
Possessions could not fill his need
Once man from his God did secede.
Scientists tried God’s role to fill
Their efforts cannot fit the bill.
The inventions their knowledge yields
spawn hazards that are like minefields.
Marxism, and all the other isms
has left society mired in schisms.
Man sought freedom by declaring God dead,
The absence of God brought bondage instead.
God’s replacements have failed to quell
The yearnings that in man’s mind swell.
These cravings only God can fill
As man accedes unto His will.
The Lord is my protector
The shield of my life
In tormented times he keeps me safe
In today's turbulence he holds me fast
To give me courage
Not to fail him
Through the minefields he leads me
To praise his name
In the midst of darkness
He shines his light on me
To keep me on the right path
Where I will grow in strength
From starvation he keeps me free
Untouched by hostile forces
Confident in his embrace
So that I stride ahead strongly
Wrapped in the comfort he provides
My days look ever brighter
He is my refuge and my shelter
During my days upon this earth.
Not physically but mentally
as I reckoned with
my precarious situation
caused by years of
philosophical indifference
bestowed upon myself
while I was skipping
to and fro through
the minefields of existence
wondering where I was heading
with a gleeful exuberance
that bordered on naivete
Now I felt as if I had
been kidnapped by circumstances
As if things were
spiraling out of control
But I knew
deep down inside
that if I remained
calm and balanced
things would work out
For Natalia Kills
Are the majority
of things in
life controversies?
It seems like
there is always
another side
of the story
You have to
maneuver delicately
amidst the minefields
of trepidations that
pester your
daily routine
Even simple decisions
can cause angst
Who to go out with?
Where to go? When?
Others are involved
making it hard
to appease everyone
Such is life
are just black and white ~ grey areas in between the nightmares ignite
doesn’t matter if i err left or right ~ minefields lead me here each night
By
David Kavanagh
Not A Classic Poet
I write with meter, like to rhyme;
Start lines with Capitals, make phrases chime.
But quickly clear it is that I’m
Not a classic poet.
Not Wordsworth, Coleridge or Poe
Not Browning, Plath nor Longfellow.
I’ve never read a Shakespeare, so
I’m not a classic poet.
Though aiming to be conscientious
I lack the urge to be pretentious.
And though occasionally tendentious,
I’m not a classic poet.
Sometimes I have been known to wander,
But rarely do I walk and ponder
Mother Earth or what’s beyond her.
I’m not a classic poet.
Some call my writing superficial,
Their view of it quite prejudicial.
I understand their curt dismissal.
I’m not a classic poet.
“Why write at all?” you may enquire.
Well usually it’s just desire
To pen some words, however dire.
I’m not a classic poet.
And so, with little sense of wonder
No fantasies to labour under
Through rhyming minefields still I’ll blunder.
I’m not a classic poet!
SOMETIME HOPE
Sometime in an epoch not too distant from here
Where seas are calmer and people care about each other
And not their pocketbooks or bank accounts
We will have peace
Somewhere in time there may be absolution
but not if it is dreamt of by misanthropes
who begin wars and make victims of us all
yet, even then, the dream of peace will continue
At times when the wind blows cirrus clouds across gray skies
my mind finds hope in that place of peaceful solace within me
that strangely hides in plain sight
like the aged waiting for their daily walk
As adults, we also wait for hope to take us on our daily traipsing
through imaginings of wordy minefields to help us know ourselves
to grasp the essence destruction of war ingrained in us
but our future is out there for us to make better or not
The question is, do we have the intelligence and compassion
required to survive our own conflicted selves?
hope is embedded deep in our core
as adults we use the idea of hope as children do the myth of Santa Claus
But hope is more than a myth; it is our lifeline to the stars.
Moments
By Michelle Morris
13/04/2021
It's in the lonely moments that a single parent has alone in the dark at night,
After another long day of making it through this challenging life;
Of getting kids to school and to jobs to earn a wage;
Of putting food on the table and doing homework for all ages...
It's in the frantic moments of children who have trauma and fevers,
Who skin their knees and hide their pain from bullies and meanies;
Of social minefields in every direction,
Confusion in the media, hurtful intentions...
It's in every way and every day that parents and children go about survival;
Of refugee camps and night time lamps, studying to get educational freedom;
Of moving homes and unsettled norms, and people displaced by war;
So many lives put on hold or destroyed because of human fears...
And then we stop and see a butterfly flit daintily around some dandelions, and instead of seeing a weed in the dirt,
We make a wish on these blessed flowers...
© Michelle Morris, 2021
Pretendia
David J Walker
Whatever forever
means to you
It means to me too
The two of us on tiptoes
Pirouetting through
the minefields
in Pretendia
the laid away land
with a down payment of sand
on pavement to our
inheritance
bowing to each other
turning to the audience
applauding the ice storms of silence
and
the spring storms of defiance
I have it on good faith that
The architects of Pretendia
Agree only with
Zodiac figurines dominating
Their dreams of
Immortality
Let my heart rest in minefields
I am quiet.
Winter approaches like a legion,
All the animals wait through the night.
I am so lonely for you.
You don't burn like drugs,
More like Russian roulette
Please let me go.
I am by myself again
The dreams have left me
The sun peaks through the clouds
It's a bit vexing.
The grass is still green
the sky is still blue
the ocean's still there
and where are you?
Under the starlight when the night
is so still
watching the universe as galaxies
spill out
and will you be happy
behind the darkness when the Sun
breaks through
in front of the mirror where the mirror
is me seeing you?
until
and at the side of a sea,
I call myself Galilee.
Some disciples with scruples
some without such
beware
the touch of a Judas.
I have grown in the minefields
and have
blown away in mindless days
but
Summer was always so.
so
what do you need to know?
Your thought-balloons are filled with wild and magical freedom ~
until madness seizes your think tank
trapping your ceaselessly chirping ideas
within the teeth of its snapped steel-jaws
refusing to relinquish you; lest you chew up and spit out your mind-racing brain
ire over this cognitive quagmire is quite understandable ~
like the murmuration of startled starlings
amassing in angst and taking wing
your thoughts, your second thoughts and afterthoughts
gather in pulsating dark masses
swirling into flight and shifting directions
turbulently twisting into tornadic spins
unable or unwilling to unravel and unwind
as they hurl themselves
in a pessimistic panic
through the maze of gray matter minefields
not wanting to explode their legs-to-stand-on should they alight...
...and despite butterfly nets vying to capture them
they are whirling dervishes twirling out of control --
holding your damnation in a state of suspended animation
Susan Ashley
March 24, 2018
A mischievous smile belies a trembling lip:
as pleas get uttered in the name of friendship.
And with sad eyes glazed in a foggy stupor:
you beg forgiveness, for yet one more blooper.
I painted your heart in a coating of trust,
now, its metal's showing, and starting to rust.
But while sharing a moment weighing your pain,
my heart got crushed, on hearing you cry again.
As your dreams dissolve, you readily succumb
to any sensations in a heart gone numb.
And hope's lost in a maze of needles and pills,
chasing death through minefields of chemical thrills.
You keep falling, even when I hold you tight,
slipping into darkness surrounded by light.
And, fleeing from reality's nightmare screams,
you shoot up in pursuit of vanishing dreams.
I tremble at the mere thought of losing you,
whatever pain you're feeling; I'm feeling too.
And I'll not sever that bond and let you go,
but will fight for you with every trick I know.
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