Through Smoke and Laughter, Thanksgiving Holds
By Alan J Winters
The oven groans, the timer fails,
the turkey smolders, smoke prevails.
Children cough, the dog runs wild,
chaos reigns, yet spirits smile.
The table wobbles, a leg gives way,
gravy spills in a tidal spray.
Uncle trips on the welcome mat,
still insists, “It’s perfect imagine that!”
Through burned pies and forgotten rolls,
we stitch together fractured wholes.
Candles flicker, power dies,
yet stories rise where silence lies.
Grandma hums an old refrain,
her voice a lantern through the rain.
We pass the plates, we share the bread,
tradition lives in what is said.
For every mishap, every fall,
the feast is not the food at all.
It’s hands that reach, it’s hearts that mend,
it’s gathering close when troubles bend.
So let the turkey char and crack,
we’ll laugh, we’ll love, we’ll circle back.
Through smoke and laughter, tears and song,
Thanksgiving keeps us holds us strong.
Sticks and stones may break the bones
But words can break the soul
Words stick to the mind like super glue
Replay over and over
Jumping over hurdles to get over
Imprinting the narrative
Creating self limiting blue prints
For we are our own beliefs
Sticks and stones will always be thrown
But words leave wholes the will never heal
They steal the places in the head
Where the mind is mislead
Casting aside logic
Like using black magic
Spell bound to the words that was said
Cutting deep deep inside the head
Sticks and stones may break the bones
But words can break the soul
Simple slip of the tongue
Cut throat to cut deep
Irrational words to speak
Casting aside your true beliefs
Becareful with the word's you speak
It can cause someone's soul to get buried deep
Simply by the words we choose to speak
The world of some enormous things
Where Star, galaxy, satellite swims
Some mysterious concept lies
Just like Black wholes vanish like mice
It becomes bigger day by day
Without any limit or any stay
It is home of Sun and Moon
Planets, comets, star's bloom
It is beauty with darkness, full of twinkles
Colour of auroras just like dimples
There is no any air and sound
Just its darkness and stillness found
A large Star known as sun
Bright and hot,full of gases fun
Around which orbit other planets
It's gravity pulls all like magnets
These all are occuring in the space
Wondering, dancing with exuberance
No body till now found its end
New mistress day by day make it expand.
Note:This poem is written by a fellow of Anila Batool,Ambreen Zehra.
You've read it correctly,
that's what the directions said directly
but
it's not some innate random homogeneous gift
that encourages and displays these internal poetic rifts,
we are somehow blessed,
betrayed, besieged, bestowed, beleaguered and bemoaned
by words, phrases, unmatched rhymed teasers enthroned
upon some grandiose display of mismatched garble
a picture, an image, a brain's ensemble, quite remarkable,
the integral, seamless agreed-upon selection
of who or what could be prisoner to our dissection,
there within the confines of heart, body, and mind
lay hidden pseudo images soft, hard, vile, and kind,
therein those coherent enigmatic systemic wholes
buried, shaped, unseen, rhythmic whispers of our souls,
the center of our individual, molded, subservient whole.
#4: Time Always Minute
Time, inspired, now expired, on-site, sit tight.
all that stands subject to change constantly,
from one crossroads to milestone, overwrite,
the turning point, grains of sand, presently,
exchanging circumstances pertinent,
time-space continuum, situations,
time-slot columns, sectional, alignment,
segments prepare a course of durations,
stages invent themselves accordingly,
time and again they reinvent the wholes,
tis uncompromising strengths ... primary,
repeat performance, seconds intervals,
full showcase entertains a split instant,
shifting affects all their pulled souls; constant.
("Corpus Callosum", 2018, original encaustic)
Left Brain Right Brain
The two halves of our brain
exist like opposites in our world
but as wholes within our heads.
Sometimes it seems the left -
the side of words and logic and manageable things -
disregards that there is even an other,
a side that is in fact the master
that all perceptions filter through,
a gate keeper ever watching without judgment,
a side that knows
but doesn’t say
speaking instead in gesture, music and image,
that only hint at the truth,
that takes us down
the rabbit hole
to realms unknown
yet all our own
where sequences build
and break and form
kaleidoscopic worlds are born
where wind can talk
and Sun does sing
and logic becomes a playful thing
that turns to noodles
we sell at roadside stands
eat with chopsticks
that dance to marching bands
and feed to snakes
as they hum the rhyme
of ancient mariners
now lost in time…
(first published in my second book, LITTLE PINE, 2016)
Why are we quick to label with a name,
trying to ensure no one is the same?
Our egos expand and place us above those
struggling, who we should be drawing close.
Walking by those with their beds on the street
moving quickly, hoping none we will meet.
If steps are slow, we'll hear their silent call
and remember God above made us all.
So quickly we judge, before we can know
there goes a new friend, if only we'd show
compassion, for which our very souls yearn.
How many tears must it take us to learn?
Paintings with one color standing alone,
we find we're missing a colorful tone.
Many colors would give it much more pow,
complimentary colors placed somehow.
Colors together form beautiful wholes--
paintings of wonder speaking to our souls.
We must, at last, care for every heart,
blending as one, which we were at life's start.
January 5, 2023
for "The Way We Look" contest
by Unseeking Seeker
7th Place
Friends...
They're the few people who accept silence over conversation.
A relationship like this denies silly promises and persuasion.
You don't feel the need to second guess thoughts or measure words.
Their love comes in wholes, not halves, not thirds.
They're the ones that guide you through when fate takes a turn.
Fights, small and large, end in forgiveness, never a burn.
You forget about first impressions and the feelings they brought.
You're grateful for who they are and you forgive 'em for what they're not.
@inked by muna
We are much further than two halves that complete each other,
we are wholes that harmonize... !
Some say love draws us near?
Fair enough, I guess – I'm happily married.
But fear rules the day on a much larger scale,
the magnetic completion of opposites, making
for wholes – the undeniable physics of greater society
which can't seem to break its grating bonds –
Do we fear more the dark, or that which
light exposes in us?
Many admittedly buying and selling nearness, for temporary
safety or appeasement. Magnetism!?
The differing poles of fear and
love...hate and love – up comes
down – in, an out process – God and
his man.... Oh were love a dominant
constant, permeating all society,
at all times!
Seeming, more often, outside of
theology and poetry, a myth of
the failed heart...a grade less,
necessitating the attractive quality
of heaven and hell –
Noiseless Nonsense
am sure pure nonsense
bought things that are noiseless
which was so intense
is a leaf raker
while being a heart breaker
needs an undertaker
to him have handed
when things he loudly sanded
to leave cat our demanded
should see him sweep and sweep
when the pile was wide and deep
went to sleep after counting sheep
Put together doors
Big wholes creates and bores
were rotten to cores
Connection - Attraction at first sight
Attachment feels right
Love - Promise of forever
Passion ends never
Marriage - Joining of two souls
Merging of two wholes
Baby - Creating new life
Celebrating with wife
Family - The unit of love
Gifted from above
Contentment - Want nothing more
Satisfaction galore
03.13.2021
For Charles Messina's "List with a twist" contest
Where to start
together more than still apart?
On our enlightened circling parts
and empowering pyramid wholes
of strategic win/win choice
Triangulation mediated default
where Earth's survival is of greatest health potential
Here in my personal experience memory Space
Now in your continuously unfolding
eco-political
multi-regenerational TaoEncircling Ways,
except probably still too eager
for your most resonant praise
Bicamerally healthy future imaged
wealthy past re-membering
re-connecting courage and nonviolence
re-ligioning interfaith green co-interdependence
CoOperatively owned
and managed
health imaged
re-imagined EarthCapital wealthy
democratically empowered
enlightening green communal Time.
all can be as 'wholes' of creation...
it is written
evolution is one's own variability...
no two exactly the same
according to this reality's rules...
each perspective be as unique
yet all share the same constants...
meaning realities demands are scaled
and those in charge can not be as wholes...
claiming to be sent by some god
yet with the knowledge of a fall guy...
unable to tell truth because they know it not
just make up realities based on some momentary logic...
that fills the vacuums of their own mind
stan sand
Feel me, my rough and bitter creeks, dark wholes
and covered up pain. Days of havoc I can't breathe,
scream for a change why let darkness get the best
of me. Feel me, feel me breathe.
Do you believe every life has a destiny?
Fear not that they dreams might come true, nothing over
takes me, the world has so much to offer you. Doors opened,
how would I explain that to the world, breathe, one step
at a time. Discouragement doesn't live here, only high hopes
and dreams for tomorrow. Feel me, feel me breathe.
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