We are about to start episode number 3 of The Bachelor. Don’t think I forgot about my episode two recap. If you missed last week, this is all you need to know.
The Bachelor Beat: Episode 2 – A Haiku
Chris kissed lots of girls,
Almost too many to count.
Ashley S. needs help.
Happy Monday everyone!
It is finally time for another installation of Poetry Friday. I’ve cradled an inner poet since I was very young and will always hold it close to my heart. I’m happy to have a place to share a few archived poems and some new ones to come.
This poem dates all the way back to 2003, which happens to mark the beginning of the relationship with the man that would later become my husband. It’s nostalgic. It’s young adult. It takes me back in time and that is why I love it. I hope you do too!
January 10th
Your hat was on backwards
the day at the train station
I picked you up and
we drove away.
The lights of the skyscrapers
twinkled like seas of fireflies
above the backyard of my house
on Pinehurst Street
on humid Midwestern nights.
My hair was freshly cut
like the grass.
I am allergic to grass.
You said you liked it
even though you weren’t sure
you did.
My heart beat differently.
You sat next to me
your arm leaning on the car door
vibrating from the bass of the stereo.
I sang softly to the windshield
and the steering wheel
as the city grew smaller
and smaller
and smaller.
I could hear you listening.
You looked at me and smiled
as my car held us tight
and headed to
another place.
April is National Poetry Month. Let me tell you – I love that poetry gets an entire month. I’ve been affected and impassioned by poetry since a very young age, with different poems inspiring me at different times. One poem that will stick in my mind forever is “If” by Rudyard Kipling. We memorized this poem in eighth grade, prior to graduation and our grand entrance into high school. (Yes, I still know the entire poem by heart) Writing young adult fiction brings me back to this time in my life with this poem being the background for making my way into the world as an adult.
If
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Happy Friday!
For my very first installation of poetry Friday, I’m kickin’ it old school with my very first published poem, printed in my college literary journal, The Marquette Journal. It’s a little serious for a Friday morning, but I hope you enjoy!
Frustration
Was it reality in the form of a dream?
Or a dream in the form of reality?
Everything I desire,
unattainable
Every emotion,
unshared.
While I seek wisdom
I gain futility.
Where I find my trust
I replace it with lost feelings of loneliness
and greed for the ideal.
I rationalize myself yet defer all regulatory thought
and dream only of imaginary futures;
Balancing imagination with truth
And truth with love
And love with desire
Leaving only hollowness in a space-less mass.
I retain gaps between heart and mind
Idea and action,
To consume not only what my eyes believe
But what my heart deceives.
My feet stand firm above the pettiness of nonconformity
and negatively driven ambition.
Yet my heart lies unvoiced
anticipating broken silence.
Time leaves nothing
Yet time never leaves.
It only ticks in the night as I try sleeping.
Its taunting presence nerves my ill resting mind
as sleepless hours drain the night of beauty.
The monotony of each breath drowns the impulse for drawn out fantasy.
The desire for connection stagnates
until the inertia of the next moment
forces opposite direction.
If there are any poets out there, I’d love for you to share, or link to your site! Have a great day!