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Best Poems Written by Susan Manley

Below are the all-time best Susan Manley poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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How to Get Out of the Funk

I am recovering my mojo, though I have almost no hair
That damn Chemo stuff took it away, and one day it was not there

And it really did fall out in a matter of days
Almost comical your mind says HEY!

And despite being a woman, I feel I look like a man
A bit embarrassing you see, it was not in my plan

I had worn the "cold cap" that supposedly preserved it in health
But while they were nuking my body, they nuked it to hell

So I wear those funny hippy hats now, 
those slouchy knitted caps that you see
And I do my best and pretend they don't see

I know it grows back, but there is embarrassment still
And it may come back curly.. good lord a new hairstyle I will

But for now it's an inch, and a little sparse on top
And for a while before it all came out it was an Albert Einstein mop!

I kinda laughed horrified when it went to that point
And well, I now smoke those pot joints

It helps with the nausea which I still have
and it relaxes me on the things that make me sad

See I just lost an ex business partner to hospital error
and that played my sleep, her wife in despair. 

Losing my hair is nothing compared to that loss. 
I know it down deep, I have suffered that cost. 

And so now, I laugh at the vanity hit 
and put makeup on when I need to look fit

And I still run around braless you see
because well I am a heathen, societies freed

And if dignity was bent by the small sacrifice
I project my personality and suffer that cost

Keep swimming, Keep swimming... 
Like what Dory said
That's my motto that sings in my head

How to get out of the funk.   Artimus  (C)  2/3/24  Susan Manley

Inspired by Rebecca Heineman , my friend, former business partner who lost her spouse Jennell Jaquays.

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Reality, Wow What a Concept

Reality, wow what a concept
lifes provable facts
those incontrovertible truths
things that stick out and not fall in the cracks

Its subject to interpretation you see
describing the elephant for the blind
this part the leg,
that a tail, this part a trunk!! Divine!

For reality takes an observer
to set itself in the track
if that tree fell in the woods with no one to hear
did it make a sound of a crack?

Without perception it's all contention
if it ever existed at all
and we are all running around with vivid imaginations on ground
till incontrovertible evidence is found

See it, touch it, document away
till the item in question is in decay
or maybe even obliterated away
the observation itself causing the obliteration to stay

And so that was how faith was born
for people to believe in others known truths
we didn't have to experience it first hand
we just had to trust like a youth

And from that comes charlatans 
who mangle that truth for cash
and make the world a caricature
and history rewritten despite past

With no firm understanding of what is
or firm understanding of what was
people lose their compass
and look to god above

Reality, wow what a concept. - Artimus  (C) 10/11/2023 Susan Manley

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And Here We Are To My North Star

Our friendship has always been my North Star 
The guide to everything out there 
And when we lost touch 
I lost my compass

I sealed the wound with fire 
And trudged on with desire
Trying to recreate what we had 
The effortless close bond, over time becoming sad

People did not meet me half way 
They did not grasp the world the same way
And so a small boat adrift I was 
Alone bereft for me 

And that became my norm
And a new me for a time was born 
I did not want to be close
Relationships made me morose

Pleasure was all I sought 
To dampen grief and doubt 
And that way I existed 
For a long time just sort of delisted
Artimus born

Few wants, no needs 
Completely free and no nervous energy 
It’s calm to withdraw
To view life as a brawl that you no longer engage 

And then I hit tastes of want
And it became need
And I tried again
And did not succeed 

So I settled and I slept
Most of me to myself I kept

And then once again you were here 
And well with joy I could interact without fear
And so I started again to create 
And life is not over, it’s not to late 

And here we are 

And here we are to my North Star - Artimus (C) Susan Manley 8/21/23 for Alan

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Ascent From Misery

It’s a long slow trip into misery
It starts by putting that bad feeling aside


By narrowing your expectations
And removing all of your pride
 

And as you make you humble
You actually cripple as well
 

You reach so far to have someone else
That it actually puts you in hell
 

It’s a long slow trip into misery
From which I must return


And in order to do this
I must internalize the lessons learned
 

To believe in me
To set me free
 

To walk into the light
And possibly disappear from sight


Ascent from Misery – 2001 (C) Susan Manley (on my divorce)

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The Manic Phases

Sometimes I am a shadow

Casting images upon a wall

Having no effect on life

A curiosity to all

 

Sometimes I am a rock

Moved by others pain

At times like this I wonder at the thought

That I am insane

 

Sometimes I am an animal

Drifting along at whim

Doing things without a thought

Of love of life or limb

 

At times you think you know me

At times you know you don’t

 

Just remember I am all me

Even when I won’t

 

The manic phases – Susan Manley (C) 1985

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Simple, Hot and Deep

Simple, Hot and Deep
An entrepreneurs creed
I learned this phrase from working with Trip Hawkins indeed

That's the key to a good consumer product
make it easy to navigate, sleek in design and just this side of crazy
Make it feature rich and customizable
Give the consumer the controls so it's not lazy

It's the fantasy of control that drives a consumers engagement and enjoyment, that relevant detail lost on many a developers deployment

As a producer I see it time and again
they get lost in bad interface and endless steps to get to the end

Trip isn't always right, he was responsible for the single button mouse on the MAC. And us experienced PC users make bawdy remarks about that and a few wise cracks.

But Trip is a genius and inspirational to boot. 
And I listen intently whenever he opens that chute
Because the nuggets of truth and refined thought that pour out
are gold mine worthy, have no doubt. 

Simple, hot and deep.  Artimus (C) Susan Manley 10/05/2023

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Meeting Was More Than Chance and Far Past Fate

Turmoil and Transformation, beyond imagination
My first love, North Star, became my guiding light

He swept me to the shore, I was alone no more
Truly a one man in armor shining knight

Bumping shoulders and holding hands
a furtive kiss but few demands we had an early first love

And though each went our separate ways
we thought of each other many days 

And later when we met again, to have and hold as more than friends
we became molten, magnetic, the tide

Speaking to him is passion and pleasure was pure surrender
 to thought, emotion and pouring rhyme

The only thing we two don't seem to have
is enough time to make love, and entwine that deep sharing into the night

But that is coming I know
As sure as the sky is above
We will make it all happen and make it right

Because this love you see, is pure poetry
it delights and excites us both alright

And the glow all around
Is here to stay for all time
I can't imagine being without his love or him without mine

We will build our love nest 
and love each other unconditionally
never again lonely our lives provide

We will care for each other
in a long life together
and be there side by side as one

For he is my twin flame
my dance partner my other half
and our meeting was more than chance and far past fate

It was a click of two into one
and a glow as glorious as the sun
passion and pleasure welded, fused and won

Meeting was more than chance and far past fate - For Alan  - Susan  Manley (C) 9/30/2023

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Corn Dogs and Ice Cream Cones a song

It's rare that most would call me a hot head
I am usually the coolest cucumber instead
I have no tells, so their heads don't swell
and I don't get entangled to soon

But there is this tall lanky guy you see
who plays a mean bluegrass guitar so sweet!
and he's turned me on my head
my tongue lolling out the side, I feel a big oh wet appetite

Its going to be corn dogs yeah baby and ice cream cones
I have to whip up these muscles and work on my tone
He gonna have expectations of meee
and I intend to make him sing oh yeah oh how deee

I do drive like a race car driver I confess
and mr ex officer may have to give me a new test
until he gets over that 
I will have a bit of time to press

But never before would anyone claim I swear
that I was a hot headed daredevil minx
its this tall lanky boy and his talk of being my toy
and I don't ever want it to jinx

It's going to be corn dogs yeah baby and ice cream cones
I have to whip up these muscles and work on my tone
He gonna have expectations of meee
and I intend to make him sing hot diggity!

I wonder how he likes his ice cubes.  jagged or smooth
and how stiff he likes his drinks 
on the rocks or straight shot no lube
And I just await tying him down so we can just work out the kinks

It's going to be corn dogs yeah baby and ice cream cones
I have to whip up these muscles and work on my tone
He gonna have expectations of meee
and a month of head bobbin review with a view

- Corn Dogs and Ice Cream Cones  for Brian - Artimus  (C) Susan Manley 4/22/24 1:51AM

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What Is Love?

What is love?

love is osmosis
something absorbed

it creeps up on you
right through your pores

it cant be avoided
unless there is no contact

it generates heat... and a yearning for contract

Love has moved mountains
love has dug depths

Love can pull you into a emotional wreck

A spiral up... a spiral down
the elevator underground

Love knows no bounds
it knows no time
it continues on
without reason or rhyme

it can take you to the depths of your very soul
and cradle you in comfort, be your end goal

For Stephen ... what is love (C) Artimus  Susan Manley 

How do you turn it off? that was your question I know.. I haven't a clue... I am just a Bard.

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The Mystery of Life and Love, Laws of Attraction

The laws of attraction, rules or abstraction?
For keeping life in check and at bay.

Is love and the divine merely centrifugal force sublime
and God a form of magnetism, attraction that sways?

If we look deep out our own focus and sweep
our ability to grasp and construct

Within our own cells the laws of the universe tells atoms and electrons orbiting away

When it comes right down to it, all things are constructed through it and all energy, light and why not love are born this way ?

For if its the transfer of might, that creates light why can't God in the universe be "love".

So love is attraction, and centrifugal force in abstraction keeping things moving together through space

And an exchange of ideas is merely mutating your molecules as I steal or bring your electrons to excite
And neutrons and protons the defining chemical phonemes the very base of our simplification of all...

For we are all little worlds of whirling galaxies through space and time waiting
and evolving to share energy and become one for a while
changing the very elements of your being

And we move through space, never remaining in place to go on throughout history evolving human kind

the mystery of life and love, laws of attraction - Artimus (C) 2006 Started in 2006 completed in June 2023 Susan Manley