Unfinished projects
Just sit on the shelf
Collecting dust like that old elf
Remnants from an obsession now gone
Now barley gazed upon
It's not the first of its kind
No not by a bit
But it's also far from last
Of the projects ill quit
Paris is about attitude and the art of slow living, where nothing’s urgent and everything’s fine.
But if you’re in school, that’s not true. I just began a group project (gp), and to paraphrase William Shakespeare, the storm has come again! GPs are big affairs with slow moving parts, like conceptualization and collaboration - and all that happens before any actual work is done.
Some cultures treat deadlines like casual suggestions but I get absolutely hinky in the loom of deadlines - I pace, chew fingernails and fret.
The other day, a TA (teaching assistant) asked me if I was trying to “prove something.”
The French invented ‘laze faire.’ after all, but I’m American enough to have dismissively said,
“I’d like to prove I can complete the assignment on time.”
Let’s get poet-y..
A trial comes, like a cloud, so dark it should thunder
but there’s no bromide, offer of shelter or tent to mock the storm,
it’s for us - as strangers - to return results which opinion crowns fair.
.
.
Let’s sing the blues:
O.K. I'll Play the Blues - Deanna Bogart
Emotions and Math - Margaret Glaspy
Preachin' Blues by Larkin Poe
Steppin’ Off
My Platform
I
Will
Miss you,
It’s only so long
And not a swan song
I have projects awaiting
They need some attention
An untenable encumbrance
Far too many to mention
So I’ll be takin’ time out
Or bound to get worse
September First
Steppin’ off
Take from this life whatever it may offer
Opportunities will come you least expect,
Many gifts and talents fate will proffer.
Spend time building a healthy self-respect
Cling to those values that merit reward,
Opportunities will come you least expect.
Melody is important, but so the major chord
In your life events try to find synchronicity,
Cling to those values that merit reward.
Challenges often come in quiet simplicity,
Many of them help us set personal goals
In your life events try to find synchronicity.
Keep in mind we are all individual souls,
Involving ourselves in projects which bring joy
Many of them help us to set personal goals.
Avoid making of life a complicated ploy
Take from this life whatever it may offer
Involving ourselves in projects which bring joy
Many gifts and talents fate will proffer.
Written April 3, 2022
I put on makeup so I can feel beautiful
Put up curtains so I can feel at home
Got a baby that's half a family
20 years old looking 15
In the middle of the ghetto and gentrificA-town
By the Projectz and the precinct
I've got a closet full of donated clothes
I ask God why this is the life he gave me, mama says this is the life I chose
Not quite white with Latina ancestry
But you'd never believe it, if you took a look at me
Hold on my baby's crying
I turn up my music so I can't hear a thing
Just for a few minutes...
Sometimes I picture myself photogenic behind a picket fence
Wishing I could ignore my present situation
I pick her up feed her the milk from my breast wishing I could be babied and loved without bounds
Another single mother tally up another statistic
Product of molestation young and misunderstood by my miserable mother moralizing prescriptions of medication for her daughter because daddy is the one who's money making
That's the least she can do cuz her name ain't even on the lease
Gotta let men rape cuz everybody wants a piece, right?
All old white men look like creeps at night
At least to me
A land uncharted
Explored by bravee souls
Never to return
To stay the course of penned projects
Some long, some short, on sheets of white
Solitude, my thoughts and I abide
But this course we love, sometimes fade
I need jist of that potent thing
The very thing I miss, each time
My muse, my thoughts and me resist
Staying course with certain projects.
*
like sparrows on the streets and in caves
consider how they swoop and dive
and fatten on dusty pizza crumbs
consider the raccoons how they squawk and squalor
peck and fight for space to grow fat gray hairs
and live as a family in the wild consider them
consider the homeless man on East Euclid dragging
Giant-Eagle cart on the sidewalk every hour
with rags searching through litterbins for a meal
consider the hare the rabbit the crow and ants
with no pay stubs yet with no long days of boredom
and they lie in cleanest beds and smile at dinner times
then consider me after the gavel and the long sentence
living with cancelled checks crying over lost purpose
scarred of sirens and hunting shelters for meals
consider me sleeping in fields with dead numbers
consider me whose far-distant ancestors never crashed
in any trash but drank coffee with Carnegie on his birthday
consider me coming out of institutions that mark me forever
with a bindi that blocks my name from the list of humans
and to live I have to peep through thorn bushes and grunt
I am born in this world, but I know not why;
Yet is a plan of mystery, a project in the mind of God.
He is holy and I ought to be holy,
I am His property, and He's my Eternal Designer,
He hath made me in His Image, and I ought to reflect His,
He hath made the world for me, and I ought to live for Him,
He's the ONE dwelt awhile on earth in flesh,
And I ought to know this mystery in which my credits lie.
His plan of redemption is the grand project,
And my life for Him ought to be my credits.
But where do I stand with my'credits'?
I have no virtues on my part as engulfed in desires,
I dream on earthly 'values' gripped in fear,
I lay projects on my own; but crumpled in debits.
I reap failures with my self-styled ideosyncracies,
For I deny the Truth of the Eternal Engineer.
How can I earn credits if I incline myself to myself,
And forget the statutes of the Maker of the Life Project?
My pains will turn joy if I add my projects to my credits,
My failures will turn success if I do my projects without debits.
What if my projects are done in selfish motive?
So, here lies the way to escape debits without Self, but with HIM.
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