The professor was always
watching me, chasing after me,
whispering warnings as though
he were my father.
Still I tore at those wounds,
those itching scabs of words
until I ripped off their secrets.
At night he played piano in a
sleazy bar singing about revolution
in his ragged jeans smoking weed
and preaching anarchy.
When the soldiers tortured him
he told them about my treason,
writing poetry at night while
he was sleeping.
comes a time
pressed into
the memory of leaving
names and places
thought erased
by getting on –
by dying
from moments
unrepentant
truth returns another lie
trust was once
so easy –
now denied
words succumb
to silence
an echoed I love you
whispers
as the morning wakes –
to beckon me anew
. . .
you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening. -Janet Lee Logan
**Image via Pinterest; text added by Natalie
“I am a survivor. So why would I
ever stop fighting now?”
Perhaps this is where my story comes to an end. When, after all these years of battling wars against myself, just trying to survive, I’ve finally reached a place of contentment. A place that felt like an unreachable Utopia. Until now. I could try to accept that my life is what it is and give up everything I’ve done to bring me to this very moment. I could say, I’ve done it, my war has ended. But I cannot. Not until those whispers in the shadows stop telling me who I was supposed to be. Not until the memories of all I endured are safely in the past, not threatening to carry me back in time to relive them over again. Not until I have beaten everything that was ever done or said to try to break me…
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remember the rain? ~ wet drops soaking everything ~ and how the sun shined? —© Lize Bard @ Haiku out of Africa
exotic fruit
fluttering island skirts
flash silky thighs
feeling an urge for sin
I feel the rhythm
before the music begins
palm leaves sway
along with enticing hips
mango and passion fruit
linger on inviting lips
some cravings
are as irresistible
as the pull of the evening tides
my desires ebb and flow
memories fall
fantasies rise
a dreamer or a fool
surrounded by exotic fruit
longing for a taste of
only you
Photo taken by me.
[The goal of my poetry is to]
“make people think about their thinking and feel about their feeling, but even more important to think about their feeling and feel about their thinking.”
Kenneth Nordine, 1921-2019, poet
In sadness, I walk along the beach The ocean lends me its energy When I am thoughtful, l sit under a tree In its shade I remember to be me
Source: Nature – Poetry For Healing
Editing is an arduous process and reading the draft I wonder who wrote the words. It makes my headache and my stomach churn. Each occupation has a process which is unpleasant or uncomfortable and oh so very un-glamorous, and I consider editing to be a nasty piece of business. I push forward, deleting, rearranging and tweaking the piece.
Editing, I realize is an integral part of the writer’s job. It makes the words shine and flow. Done well, editing renders the words a secondary consideration. They become the tools used to tell the story. It is the story which moves the reader, transporting them to the world of the writer’s imagination.
How do you know when your editing work is complete?
_________________________________________
Keep on writing.
Jo Hawk The Writer
**Image via Pinterest
The Reluctant Poet 