Redefine

Why must there be hate?
Why must the lovely be killed?
What possesses those
Who cause inestimable
Harm to individuals?

Somehow combat must
Ensue within hearts, homes, schools,
To irradicate
That nurturing such malice;
LOVE must permeate, prevail.

Exemplifying
Kindness, LOVE, bringing wisdom,
Generosity,
To the commonest of days;
Change may begin, take hold, win.

It can happen now
If our hearts – love and care, embrace
For the human race,
Treasuring each thing shared here,
LOVE leaves nothing still undone.

When I read of people meeting a violent end, it cuts into my heart and makes me feel that there should be better ways to handle life. All the stories ended, when a person dies are such a horrible tragedy to me.

Apologies To Allen et al.

You sudden, wake up,
To find the world is not all
Things you had in mind,
But still, life beckons much like
A closeted skeleton,
Reminding you, “Time
Waits For No One,” exacting
Its toll on bodies,
Minds, the frolics of each day
Fading quickly now away.
You hear a whisper,
“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,”
While the tears run down
Your face without any trace
Of the deeds, you are obliged
To do in your hurry
To become who you will be
In the darn, “Who’s Who”
Directory, which you have
Always wished to discover
Some method, madness,
To propel yourself to fame
Which is not tinted
By the same “True Colors,” as
Everyone who makes
Good the journey, slowly begun,
In the paltry neighborhood
Where we each were born
With not one shiny penny
To launch us into
The stratosphere, you will know
Of which I mention because
The tarry residue clings
To the racy wardrobe amassed
Along the way to the present
From the seconds of yesterday.
You shout, “Failure is not an option,”
While looking over your shoulder
To see hungry wolves clawing
Their way minute by minute
Through the balsa door erected
In haste to shelter your dreams
From the awful extremes of envy,
The monster that turns friends
Against friends and makes lovers
Into the direst of enemies.
You are reminded never
To settle for less than the best,
While begging an agent to take
Chances on a story you could
Hardly tell because of impressions
Which impelled you to recognize
You sold your creativity
Off to a lower bidder without
Believing you had “The Right Stuff”
And “The Matrix” could not come
Together in “The Field of Dreams”
For we are all just prisoners here
Captured by the devices that
Will not allow us to enter paradise.
Still, now, do not succumb
To that black-feathered bird
Whispering above the door,
“Nevermore,” for it has no idea
The greatness lying awakened
Within the love-lorn heart beating
Tell-tale inside of you
For you sail with the angels
Across an endless sea into
Whatsoever, however, whenever
Will come to be your slice
Of “Supernatural” reality.
At last, there is no peace
In which to rest, because
Debtors have no recourse
But to pay, and pay again
And so must go on writing
Even ever and evermore.

Sometimes I play, like the child I once was, left alone for a moment on a snowy day, when nothing could longer destroy who I believed I might be, given an opportunity.

Prompted to Excel

The temptation to quit is one we must continually push away if we are to become the people we are meant to be. We do not have the luxury of taking our eyes off our objectives if we wish to be the best of who we can be. Some things seem to us good, but we are after better and best. We cannot settle for less.

Run well, be blessed, follow your dreams with your whole heart.

Restraint?

You do not know much
About who you sit beside
Unless you inquire,
What makes them face every day
What they hide within their heart.

So careful, easy,
With those words, you loose to say,
Hurt is hard to undo,
Violence it may to souls convey,
Guilt, pain never goes away.

If you must judging
Speak, avoid the “I would never,”
And, “I don’t see how,”
Sometimes life serves up lessons
No one would ever freely choose.

We each walk strangers
In this shadowed valley with
Our complement of sorrow,
Definitives we better leave alone
Black and white turn to ash gray.

Judgment is a cruel game
That often turns its teeth to bite
Those who hold its leash,
It is not kind, nor has justice
As its governor, it merely hates.

Caution you, caution me,
It is much better to be generous
To exhibit kindness
Than let rancor have its destructive way,
Because vengeance lays to waste every day.

All we are should answer
To the name of love, understanding,
Every question belongs
Between the individual and God
Or whoever to which we may turn.

Recipe for Creating More

This is not meant to be definitive. The hope is to present some ideas. There is some background to draw upon.

As much as possible, put your internal critic in the dungeon, a nice one if you like. You can liberate the rascal when you begin to edit, and absence makes the findings sharper.
If you are stuck, do something else; a different style, media, genre, voice.
Do Morning Pages as instructed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.
Use a different method; notebooks and a variety of pens, computer, tablet, phone; acrylics, oils, watercolors, pencil, colored pencil, pen & ink, canvas, paper, wood, sculpture; color, monochrome, macro, zoom, panorama, varied lenses, day, night, indoor, outdoor.
Take a break and read something inspiring, or if you are more audio-visual, watch some how-to’s on YouTube or find some podcasts. Use music when you can, it can ease tension and promote imagination.
Work in a different location: Go to a cafe or restaurant, a picnic table in a park, a bench or table in a high traffic shopping center, a library, a ball game, a parade.
Give yourself permission to be an amateur. Everything does not have to be perfect. Even if something you do does not get glowing praise, it was an experiment in which you gain knowledge. There is no such thing as perfection. What you do at the moment is perfect in that it is an expression of yourself and was done courageously by you. Work, and in time you shall gain mastery.

This is brought to you by my son, Alex, saying he was having a hard time working on his novel. I thought it might be a topic worth my exploring since I consider myself a creativity expert.