Happy New Year Poets of Prose
"There are years that ask questions
and years that answer."
-Zola Neale Hurston
The last couple of years have been more of the former for me. Lots of questions, transitions, and
internal shifts, a little short on the answers and clarity. As I reflect on this I realize that one problem is I keep trying to manufacture my own answers. If I have any resolutions, one is to be more patient, with myself, with the Universe, with God's plans. Instead of grubbily grabbing for my own solutions I want to open up spaces in my heart for answers to be given to me.
Gifts are so much more fun! Prose is one such gift for me! What am I even doing here? Well, about three days after I joined the twenty first century by finally getting an IPhone, my dear friend grabbed it and said, "You like to write, here is this App called Prose." I think it was her sweet way of saying, "You need to get out more."
Anyway it has been an unexpected gift. Before, I shared my writing with almost no one and I expected no one to take notice of my God ramblings. You have been gracious and kind. In return, I have been amazed and moved by the writing posted here. I have my favorites it is true. Besides enjoying his poetry I like @CRaMcGuirt because he first got all up in my grill about posting someone else's poem but then liked
some of my stuff. Besides, who can resist a Drunk Poet??? I am always waiting to see what wild thing @JW1GGYTHELOON will say and I love the way his writing flows. And let's face it @Yowwa is a rock star! So many more beautiful souls! What a great community! Ah but the limitations of this kind of thing...I just wish we could meet at a warm pub somewhere, at a big round table, have a few beers and share writing.
So Happy New Year to the Poets of Prose, you enriched my life this last year, I am grateful and I wish you all the best!
Grace, Love, Light and Peace,
Gracenote
I think I went too far but it’s too beautiful here to turn back
we're all just trying to be true to the muses
to prove we're not useless
to anticipate the next rhyme
we tap out feet in time
with the melodies we cannot comprehend
until it's on repeat in our heads
we are grounded and floating
wandering through the gardens of our minds
swimming through the oceans of our souls
when will the maps show
there are so many more
than seven seas
for each of us has
an ecosystem blooming and dying each day and each night
we are breathing putrid air but. it's been filtered through our throats and come out a little sweeter
and sometimes I think it's worth it simply to see the trees grow
I have counted my blessings
I have added up my sins
I've divided and multiplied
but it all came out fractions
my mind has never been healthy
I came out squalling with the horror of it all
I've turned pages in search of my own heart but not even old books smell as good as cigarettes embedded in my father's coat and I'm suffocating on pleasure
it isn't the pressure anymore it's the lack thereof
I've become accustomed to your breath on my neck but I remember my gasp when I first felt it there
and sometimes I'm scared
because you never knew me when my skin was bare
and I wonder if it's the scars that make me beautiful to you
I'm a bullseye
a bullet hole
from when it hit me
I'm more grateful for the exhale than in
when did I begin
to pick at it
I don't remember
the before
but I know it was there
how do you erase
this
I passed an old lady on the way to work this morning
she was walking and though I only saw her for a second or less I noticed her hands, so wrinkled and bent around the knuckles -holding her pink drugstore bag her shoes weren’t shoes but green slippers which rather slid than stepped her back was bent in a question mark and her hair was frizzled blue wrapped in one of those old lady’s bandanas also blue see-through and tied beneath her chin she was sliding along slowly, grimacing but there was grace in her stature a sort of royalty something special and in that second or less I thought of her as a little girl, picking dandelions as she walked with her father they must have blown the fuzz from the top together and discarded the stems on the sidewalk she must be now over 80 back then could she have even imagined... then the second or less passed I had to find this address off Marshall and Cretin a steep roof to tear off when this dumbfuck I worked with drove around me and threw
a Big Gulp against my door I hit the gas and followed closely behind him.
Old Friends
Christmas came and Christmas went,
And bare a cup of cheer it lent,
Save for the singers every year,
Who save it with those Carols dear,
And children gathered 'neath the tree,
Brings home the message clear to me,
The little ones who matter most,
'Tis those I raise my glass to toast,
And with a tear dropped for the past,
My friends whose lives did never last,
To greet me at this solemn time,
Remember how their smiles did shine,
Alone and wishing I could pass,
To join them for one last repast,
It's Merry Christmas out of key,
And who will sing this song for me.