plodding footsteps respect no rhythm
life’s forward tilt, a sneer
what passes for ho or hum
sucks the vigor from its beer
but complaints wear out
a million frowns
and peeves are hope upside down
So, on they trudge, footsteps plodding
scuff life's wedding gown
Plodding through desert land
Thirsting for a sip of water
I came across a wishing bottle
Inviting me to see my daughter
I lost her long ago, in many ways
With each person who bid me adieu
Never thinking her presence a nuisance
But watching the flick of the finger shaped like a shoo
...shut down
She is me, I am her, again and again
My mother sits as her, wanting sincere care
Grandma has arisen from her grave
And she's brought her own chair
Wait! She's wielding a whip of control
Her face is angry, eyes still and dead
She has filing cabinets against the wall
Keeping account of every word that's ever been said
...stone cold
No one ever wanted anyone that came
Did they all just endure and treat
Wound after wound healed and scarred
While cracked heels and blistered feet
Walk on..walk on...never relief
The promise of water is nothing but hot sand
And generations of daughters yearn
To be held by a masculine man
...transformed
Written by Trudy Schrader on 07-14-2026
Sorrow draws its own heart
Out a pool, stagnant.
Quail-tracked this quag around
Hear its plodding sound.
Gladness, from out sunned airs'
Vital-zephyr flows.
Finch-traced this field about
Hear its zealous shout.
hazy memory recalls
muffled, echoing footfalls,
and, even a rat can learn,
just as I, again, discern,
plodding down cold empty halls,
stuck inside life's unseen walls,
"oh no, another wrong turn".
I introduce myself as Douglas
some immediately shorten it to Doug
Should I just accept their choice
and metaphorically bury it beneath a rug
Politely I request a favour
would you please use my full name
There has been two or three resist
they don't want to play my game
One day I met a man called Les, abbreviated my name from his lips it came
When I asked my favour he described me as pedantic
So I asked if I could call him Lesley his full given name
not at all, it raised his ire, an interesting semantic
Is the name I prefer to choose,
my expectation, perhaps a bit too romantic ?
One day it was revealed and it made me realise
that when I'm seen running I must have a loping plodding style
So the locals dubbed me Draft horse well that really made me smile
What really matters that if you abbreviate my surname you'll come up with Gill
If you address me in a loving way that will fill the bill
That's too much information
Speak slower
Oh my, that was too loud
Be quiet
I don't like when you talk
Be still
Words...so many WORDS
...restraint
How does one find balance
Truth must be spoken
DISLIKE Declarations
Have left me broken
...silence
Pressure builds
Hope thins, like ice inviting a skate
Movement feels like plodding
Toward an armed gate
...stymied
Breathe of life, failed
I can not sense my heart
It may be beating, yet
I know not where to start
...lost
Trust feels odd, out of sync
No forward, no going back
Nervous system, reset
Discernment has gone black
...grace....whispers
You are loved
Written by Trudy Schrader on 02-18-2026
Geese arrive or go,
nowhere becomes a somewhere.
Straight lines crisscross the sky.
A history of headless contrails
are trekking over
a borderless yonder.
Under
a brightly birthed daylight
eyesight cannot settle,
but skims around
the unseen tips of fleeting wings.
Peddle bikes
with their hunched riders
whoosh past.
A streetlamp speedwalks
from one glazed eye to another
blurring a roadmap
in a plodding mind.
Whichever way I go
the sky gets there before me
ever ready to redraw
that which has
just now
occurred.
A black armored predator
plodding (as beetles do
when not chewing upon other insects)
around the lip of a bowl,
clapping together stubby wings,
razor sharp mandibles
swatting at the aromatic steam.
Beetles are tanks
they are built to withstand
all in-coming,
Birds don’t eat them,
they taste like baby goo
dipped in crispy aspic.
How small
can a natural born killer get?
The beetle tentatively,
marches around the edge of a bowl
as if hunting its own trail.
Will it find enough of itself
to make a decent beetle meal?
These and other questions of girth,
capacity and predatory prowess
must wait,
for it has fallen
into the tomato soup.
This particular beetle
cannot swim,
perhaps its mini motor was out of gas
or its tank too heavy to float?
I put the soup aside,
not that hungry anymore.
On the 7th day of Christmas
it was new year’s eve,
and on that midnight 2025 ended
- just like that -
with the poof of fireworks.
Did we have to rush right into 2026?
No. We could have talked about it,
and come up with a better alternative.
We’ve all seen money
- you know, dollars, euros and pounds - right?
Those little pieces of paper have no intrinsic value
- we all just agree on their worth.
We should've channeled that extrinsic power and agreed on something else,
Like deciding that the year after 2025 would be 2029.
You know, the midnight when 2025 ended - poof - 2029 could’ve begun.
We’re all adults - must we amortize this horrible mistake we made?
Think about it - Donald Trump would’ve been out of the White House in days.
Or is it the ‘Trump-Gold-House’ now?
It’s hard to keep up with CrAzY.
.
.
Songs for this:
That's Me Trying - William Shatner
Hakuna metata
In the fields
of broiling air
plump lambs gambol.
The daytime star
smiles and whirs;
a lone tortoise toils
in plodding rhythm.
His docile baritone sings
the timeless chorus
“Hakuna metata!”
to fretting lions
who grapple tousled
and tangled.
In times like these dark times anxious
men and women of the land will pace.
Back and forth, and forth and back, like
the endless cogs of machinery.
To what purpose now? We spoke,
believed the best of Fellowman and
friends. But what of man's Best Friend,
a momentarily forgotten pet?
Anxious Rex, seated near an open
window, looks as if to see a horseman
plodding up the path. Perhaps he bears
news of food, with cautious dogs in tow.
But what becomes of us, we ask.
In silence Rex meditates, replies with
eyes--his steady out-of-window gaze
signals us to hope for better days.
There was once a dashing lad
from the mid-coast of Maine
who courted a comely duchess
from the Westerly. Now, Maine is
two lands off from the Westerly
which is a province under
its own sovereign rule, on an Island
named Rhode, but they rescued
what desperately needed to be loved
in the other’s marrow, each
of their own souls being so rare
and wanting over a great big sea.
The lad, a sailor by making,
and she, a re-claimer of lost species,
returned to their clutch after his
bucket-driven crossing from Spain,
--just like in flat world days--
until both were discovered,
and their home now together
has become the un-floating Ark
of the critters---those stripes
of the in-danger and wanting
--of shells, scales, and fur--
all-a -woof and mewing,
plodding and crawling,
scratching in their own
--singular--
language at the door,
all in need
of a roof.
A crescent of high cliffs
rooted into a plateau of heathland.
From all directions cloud mottled wings,
dart between the light and shade -
falcons, their wingspans
aerofoiled for instant chase.
Heads and beaks
seem to part the sky,
as the raptors javelin the air.
Peregrine’s dive through
their own wind-dancing arabesques,
their streaked silhouettes
skimming over the towering rocks.
Camera's gaze to hold and capture,
lens's fishing for those ever passing
bolts of speed.
Malham's soaring cove
seems to be both their nesting
acre of sky,
and a place for plodding minds
to only follow.
the blood runs thin yet saturated with ideas
foreign and forgotten of home's idyllic nature
day's twinkle welcomed the white svelte blankets as
golden needles pierced deep through the fabric of her sky
the world's warm embrace held where happiness ebbed away
dragging and plodding until there was nothing left but
the last rain's cleansing nature
the world around was reborn
the rain washed my skin and soul
the blood that once ran iced thawed
the chambers broke free from rust
forever stained and broken
yet renewed and young
intersperse were the rays of gold beyond the
fields of fruition and hope
returning inside, dripping
i embrace absurdity
that was once my prison as
the once maddening stenches
run clean
"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." Rumi
John 4: 20-14
Words from the list: heart, river, eclipse, shiver, cold, tender, lush
Heavy-hearted searching for something,
Seeking solace
Slowly walking
Down to the river
Feeling cold, shivering
Plodding through
The lush, verdant
Damp undergrowth
Chilled to the bone
Down at the river
My spirit revived
While absorbing
The bubbling water spray
All those negative ions
Turned the spirit on
I could feel peace
A joy in my soul
His presence near
Eclipsed my troubled soul
Then the hand of Jesus
Touched me tenderly
He drew me in
Oh, what joy that filled my soul
Something happened and I know
I have that river flow
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