Spent my whole life learning how to survive,
Yet never quite learn how to live;
The mountains, the rivers, the wildflowers wait,
With a beauty I fail to receive.
Too short to live, too long to die;
Quite easy to be hurt, too hard to cry.
I can easily surpass violent storms,
Yet fail to fit into these social norms.
I beg of you, set me free, unbind my soul,
Let me write, roam, and sing without a role;
I do not wish to merely spend my days,
Not live a life confined to borrowed ways.
And when I die,
Please don’t cremate me;
Rather bury me in the meadows,
And sow a sunflower seed above me.
And if religion denies it,
Then burn me into ashes;
But please don’t cast me away
Into the vast sea of vain.
Plant me in those same meadows,
So I may return…
As a wildflower once again.
The betrayal offences rendered on us daily unsettles swiftly progress.
They simmer and stir and spread.
Resentment, unforgiveness lead us to revenge.
Bitterness spreads so contagiously like a disease.
Infests and infecting all within reach.
God’s guidance keep my emotions in check.
Clear my heart of all distress.
As I mediate on your love and goodness
As feelings seem to resurface.
I seek your forgiveness,
You so graciously give.
Living with compassion and easily forgiving
is a commitment we must make.
There’s not much to love in the land of
72 ounce steaks
Air-conditioned grace droning over
AR-15 soaked Saturdays
Remembering is not the problem these days
Rather it is forgetting that
Children can have new names
If they pick them up with their own hands
The bootstraps have all but worn off
these snakeskin boots
And I am tired of something I can’t put my mind to yet
But I never thought I would love
Bird feces soliloquies
Thanksgiving apart from family
Humidity on top of humidity
Or evenings that never turn to nights
So I’ll just hold my own name
Firmly in soiled hands until I can
Plant it back in the ground
Where it belongs, beside a cool swift stream
Shaded by a bigleaf maple
leaf birls in floe winds
trees harvest flaming dry fire
earth’s robe a suite of patterns
November 2, 2022
Brain Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
Unsettled Calm
Why am I writing this,
when they say...
really no one cares?
I don't believe they are right.
The more "they" try to prove themselves,
the more "they" show who they really are,
and their true intentions.
"No one." is out there. Just like me.
Wondering if there is anyone left,
that is still trying to make things
different than they are?
"No one" has not given up.
They are simply feeling alone.
Altogether we are empty,
but as one we are full.
The object lesson is to wake up
and live the time that is passing.
Not just pass through.
Tiny hearts,
courageous, brave souls...
the remnant of the whole,
left behind to remind
others about the coming...
of the Lord
on that day "we" will pray,
thanksgiving at last.
~ Welcome to 2022 ~
A time of conventional and possibly nuclear war
where no one can be sure what each side stands for
A time of global power struggles and shifting alliances
in which the old world order cannot be relied on
A time of soaring cryptocurrencies with no real-world basis
challenging existing monetary systems' homeostasis
A time of 'social media' controlling folks' minds'
with algorithm-based feeds both cruel and unkind
A time of pandemics and variants, one after the other
when masked men fear to shake the hand of their brothers
A time of 'us against them,' secular versus religious
of simmering hatreds on the cusp of explosions prodigious
A time of lightning-fast change so shocking and weird
the dominant emotion around us is fear...
Waves rolling
onto shore
granting me
inner peace.
Can turn
deadly at
any moment.
Greeting children at our school from the car line yesterday.
First car seemed to be parked. No one appeared to be in it.
Maybe someone is gardening, I thought. The garden is six feet from it.
The brake lights came on. I expected a child to get out.
No child did. I had a peculiar feeling about it, an unsafe feeling.
I went inside got a pencil and paper and wrote down the plate number.
Continued greeting children. The car did not move. No one got out.
I was feeling unsettled.
Was someone waiting for a particular child? And why?
That afternoon a man claiming to be a father tried to get into the school.
He was shaking and kicking a side door. A teacher asked what he wanted.
He said he was a father and wanted in. She told him to go to the front.
He went to another side door and tried it.
I gave the license plate number to security when they came.
Because I had felt unsafe.
Man was mentally unstable.
SCIENCE UNSETTLED
In times when magic ruled the world
When charms and spells gave power and sway
Then words of sorcery were hurled
To vanquish foes and win the day
But now in days more civilised
We’ll not decode entrails of birds
Though, reasoned thought process devised
We still resort to potent words
One such expression widely voiced
In substitute for fact reliance
Flagged with blithe conviction hoist
This holy sacred mantra - ‘SCIENCE’
In blatant contradiction to true meaning
‘SCIENCE SETTLED!’ bars rich scientific gleaning
Summer on I-10
old van,
no air conditioning
furnace oven days
long hot tiring
pushing on
dark night
stop for directions
abandoned buildings
streetlamp
roadmap
landscape moving
like waves on the ocean
What the hell
Open door look at ground
no ground
only endless carpet
of locusts
far as the eye can see
moving rolling
chilling
slam door take off
I remember
crunching sound under tires
for miles
I shiver
Unsettled People
When you go to HIS house on Sunday,
You are greeted with kindness and smiles.
No one says a thing as you help yourself to coffee.
Spilling it from the foyer all the way…
to the farthest seat, way in the back.
There no one can bother you, or see if you are sleeping.
You cut your nails, and drop candy wrappers.
Sometimes you leave other things,
Whatever they may be?
You are still welcome.
One day I pray you find a moment,
While filling up your cup…
To see the shining place,
a seat, a space, for your bright face.
It has your name, a spot for you.
No stains, no hiding, no sullen few.
Acceptance by us is just okay,
But His name is “More” in every way.
Call on Him, and state clearly…
I have come here more than yearly.
I want to know what it is to be,
Just as free as it is to see.
Humble, pride return your steps,
To his house of Holiness.
Scrub and rub, vacuum and clean
You know who you are
and exactly what I mean.
Unsettling the evening brings with it cold
As the night holds the last of the warmth
Burrows of her brow lives likely to unfold
And her heart leaves with it dire and soft
The night holds mysteries from her heart
Unsettling the evening brings with it cold
Where she buries her feelings to impart
Burrows of her brow lives likely to unfold
She freezes where men bring her flowers
The night holds mysteries from her heart
The time is elongated by the night towers
Where she buries her feelings to impart
No other person can understand her eyes
She freezes where men bring her flowers
It’s one of a many distinguished disguise
The time is elongated by the night towers
She forces herself to embellish the night
No other person can understand her eyes
Softly she extinguishes nearly gone sight
It’s one of a many distinguished disguise
As the night holds the last of the warmth
She forces herself to embellish the night
And her heart leaves with it dire and soft
Softly she extinguishes nearly gone sight
Russell Sivey
Anyone know if this is a form? It's not a true Pantoum! A reverse Pantoum maybe?
ABA’B’…CAC’A’…DCD’C’…XDX’D’…BXB’X’
Integrated feeling
Connected and willing
Comes on a unexpected reeling ...
Feeling confused, that's what we're feeling
Sensitive souls just knock knock
The words of soft , We need to unlock
Learnt to discard the fregile feeling ,
To engage the feeling of hard rock ...
Stroke the soul silently to silence ...
Sincerely realise the loves abundance
Say the calming sentence
Engage trust hearts. Release tense.Smile, dance
Title: Unsettled Gain
A letter from moon came with hopeful
Scattering calm and peace for earth’s human beings
Opening window I found smile in face of the moon
Demanding surety of peace not only keeping words
Rays of the sun whipped encircling rostrum
Stop such non physical matter address, next
Bombs and bullets are today’s religion
Why you aren't understanding phases of human beings!
People say, hear, religion emerged from cowardice
Stop to allure me O sun, as you are your burn
You, cannot bring mild gentle numbness
Which requires through dialogue, peace, born
No, brother religion is gain of knowledge
To bring in rest for unsolicited mind and kind
To bring harness of unity and justification
I know more than you because bright reigns religion
A culture of natural brother hood accepting other dues
A pure science of trust and perfection at least to meet God in heart
Which enables to proclaim realisation of heaven or destination
Farther beyond human beings’ knowledge.
Staring into the night as time slowly ticks away,
Pondering things of life and why they happen this way.
Sleep evades the eyes of age like thoughts that are fleeting.
Deafened ears can hardly hear the heart that is beating.
There are thoughts that haunt an unsettled heart,
When life appears to have fallen apart.
Giving no thought to a life of one's own,
Lifting up others, pedestal or throne...
Then the silence gets louder as the darkness shines bright,
The eyes open wider as the soul gets a fright.
Those that defined this life, they all go away.
I stare into the night just thinking this way.
I find sleep with out rest for peace can't be found.
My hand on my chest my heart it does pound.
All around are busy in life, children, parents, husband and wife.
And when life begins to slip away, who will hold my hand?
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