The next mini-collection of poetry is here! For this month, I really am trying to stick to all the prompts from Robert Lee Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog over on Writer’s Digest. You can see his daily posts + prompts over there.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am writing these daily (sometimes late at night as I’m falling asleep and go “OH! WAIT! I DIDN’T DO MY POEM TODAY YET!). I’m just posting them in chunks now so I can (hopefully) get some other blog posts out in the interim. I sorta failed at that plan/challenge/task last week, but it’s a new week and the second half of the month, so it’s a great time to pick up and get started again, right?
But first, the next set of poems…
Together, But Alone
Four beige walls and a brown tile floor,
Brown leather chairs, and not much more.
Each there with different reason,
Each life in a unique season.
We sit listening to the same song
Waiting for someone else to come along.
Single offices wait, with individual chairs
For confidential talks, away from the stares.
Our purposes to one another mostly unknown,
We’re here together, but together alone.
To The Writers Before and After
I will raise a glass to you
My first and oldest friends
Who wrote the myths and sonnets
The brought muses to my door.
And then those who wrote with pictures,
I will raise a glass to you,
For showing simple morals
In the most enduring of ways.
The ones who wrote the chapters
I first learned to read myself
I will raise a glass to you
For showing me who I wanted to be.
And those who write beside me
And those who will write after me
All those who bring words to life
I will raise a glass to you.
The Art of Growing Up
What does it mean to grow up?
Is it simply marked by the passage of time,
Or is there a more specific meter and rhyme?
Maybe it’s the first time we adopt a pup
Or know the proper way to pour into a teacup.
Perhaps it is when we are finally wed
Or put our own child to sleep in their bed.
Is it the bills that we find ourselves struggling to pay?
Does it happen the moment we forget to play?
Or maybe it’s when we see less hope, and more dread.
The View Right Now
A Florida plate on a white Mazda CV
Seems out of place
Among all the California shoppers
And their mini-vans
Parked beneath eucalyptus and palm trees
Not native, but planted to look that way
To give the massive shopping complex
An “upscale” and “getaway” feel.
There is so much green
Among the white and black and chrome,
And the afternoon sun slants
At an angle that bakes the seats
And gives them an elegant glow.
A crane in the distance
Signals more expansion, more progress
While the retailers inside wonder
How long they can last
In a world that eschews brick and mortar
For next-day delivery.
But this lot is full.
So somewhere out there
There are still hundreds of people
Who prefer walking the aisles
And touching the merchandise
Before making a purchase.
(The State Of) Denial
There is a difference
In thinking everything’s fine
And just wanting it.
It can be hard to
Discern if you are walking
Or crossing the line
‘tween optimism
(holding on to blind faith) and
Naive denial.
But it is not naive to
Keep hope alive when doubt appears.
Okay
Right now
It feels like very little is okay
Or will ever be okay
Again.
Right now
There is doubt, and fear,
And grief – so much grief
Everywhere.
Right now
It seems more tears are shed
Than hands are held
Together.
And right now
Worry, and anger, and wanting
To give up just seems
Easier.
There will always be the shadow of sorrow…
But we beat on, boats against the current…
Because
Today is a brand new day
And we can choose to make it
Okay.
For previous #APRPAD entires, see:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7-9
Colette Marie Murphy 