Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
~
October 2023
HP Poet: Maddy
Age: 65
Country: USA


Question 1: We welcome you to the HP Spotlight, Maddy. Please tell us about your background?

Maddy: "Retired Teacher now Media and Digital Literacy Educational Consultant and writer."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Maddy: "Been writing since I was eight. Three years now as an HP member."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Maddy:  "Poetry wakes me in the middle of the night on airplanes and when I walk. It is still one of my best friends other than my husband, sister, and Best BFF Irene."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Maddy: "It is my friend and companion and is a precious asset. Without it my life would be empty."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Maddy: "Thoreau, EE Cummings, Sappho, MAYA Angelou, Carole King, Emily Torres, Mary Oliver, Millay, and many here on HEPO."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Maddy: "I love Travel, Photographer, Nature, Cooking, Theatre, Concerts, and Reading."


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to get to know you, dear Maddy! You are a wonderful addition to the series!”

Maddy: "Thanks and looking forward to it and your review of my book on Amazon."



Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Maddy a little bit better. I indeed did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez (aka Mr. Timetable)

We will post Spotlight #9 in November!

~
Maddy: "My books 'Put Your Boots On and Dance in the Rain' and 'Beautiful Heart' are both available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and local bookstores in the US. My best poems are here on Hello Poetry, you can choose."

"Here are five of my favorites." - Carlo C. Gomez

Anatomy of a Poem:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4440901/anatomy-of-a-poem/

Special Someones:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3265576/special-someones/

Isles of Skye and Iona:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4427746/isles-of-skye-and-iona/

Only You:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4731877/only-you/

Beautiful Heart:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4569936/beautiful-heart/
t Jan 2015
I wondered if I was too soft, too pliable, to bendable, to breakable

I wondered if my sensitiveness would be better served on a censorship list

if it would be better to weather my own emotions until they eroded

a road not known to be so gentle

because when you're always spoken to like a mistake

it starts to be the only thing you can taste and you end up feeling less like great and more like pain

my mother swears that I am the air that she breathes

so when they diagnosed her, I hope the doctors didn't blame it on her environment

and when my friends would talk about that chick and wanna bone her

 bone would carry me back to the skeletons in my closet

while they were only concerned about getting in between that girls hips, when they ***** her

              I wanted to be that girls hips, the bones inside of her

                    because without me she couldn't move alone

                                   and without her heartbeat

                                           I'd just be bones

I can't tell you how many times my friend Maddy was battered up on   homeless plate

but we still dug out love

she was rocked quite often, but was one hell of a mountain climber

she payed a hefty price to wear his fists, and they were the most expensive eye makeup I've ever seen

when my friends would brag about how many lamp shades they would look under in their room, how many metaphorical lamps laid on the nightstand surrounding their bed

my mother always said if I let them shine in my mind, I wouldn't need not even one night stands

    I hold them high

                   spell a woman

                                a woman is a
                         man
                   on
            wo

and you can still be fly if you land on one

disrespect them, and we're kicking dirt on the land from which we all grow

while most guys are treating the inside like a candy store, I found that all the getting inside in the world don't matter until you feel like you've found your golden rapper

while most guys are wishing that girl is blind enough to see their ulterior motives

they've forgotten most women have super powers

all they see are invisible men, and I wanted to make her feel my words like brail to the unseen

I wanted to bring life to those frozen in time words once told to her

because those 'I love yous' and 'I miss yous' from her exes were paralyzed from the neck down

they were just trying to get ahead, and once alive, need oxygen to live

and sooner or later she was only living to breathe life into those words, and I wanted to breathe life back into her

my mother taught me things

she said, just because someone before you  

                             spent time in her boiler room
    
                                 doesn't mean they turned

                                              the heat on

she said, no matter who smashed you make sure you love that girl to pieces

a girl's past is like cremated ash, it's been lived already

my mother said, kisses are like stitches, they heal all wounds as long as they don't remain hidden in a bottom right corner of special occasion birthday cards

       because every kiss does not begin with k, they begin with lips

                                         and so does every life

                       It's time for us guys to start

                 respecting where

         we came

    from.
Byron Nov 2012
Who needs love
Frantic boils of delirious pink lusting
wanting power
You ask me shadows
and the picture-less language winds
She stops me fast,
the gorgeous void
Lather eternity over me
Stop thinking what will manipulate them
and moan out the recall
Life is a bare and fast beat
please worship it with delicate moments
from sad skin some can soar
i am drunk
She never sees what I see, in that mirror,
She never sees what the world sees,
She never cares about what we say,
Understand how we see you,
                please.
sam Dec 2018
dad
Is it better to have your father
To have your father around
Do people with runaway dads
Do they wish they’d come back

But they don’t understand
They don’t understand
Having a father who’s by definition
There
That isn’t there is far more worse

It feels as though
They don’t have to deal with
Scanning the crowd
Every concert
Every game
Every speech
Every **** day
Looking for him
Wishing he was there
But
Instead he’s sleeping

You never get to receive a hello
But neither do I
Don’t mistake me for privileged
When I have to deal with
An absent father
Whos is there
But doesn’t care
About you

People don’t understand
What it’s like to not be the favorite
To have favorites in a family



Maddy
Maddy
Maddy
Where am I
Where am I
Where am I
I know it’s not maddy’s fault
I don’t blame her
I don’t hold it against her
I hold it against you

I don’t tell people
Because then they’ll feel bad
And the worse thing
Is to be
One of those people

I left my orchestra concert
I started crying
Do you even know
The sounds
A cello can make

I left my soccer game
I’d rather go hide in the port-a-*****
Then run down the field
And not see your face
Score a goal without you there
I don’t play defense anymore
Did you know that
Do you even care

I don’t have a dad
I have a sponsor
Someone that feeds
And clothes me
Barely

I don’t have a dad
I have a runaway
That stuck close to home

I’m there to do chores
To clean
Sweep the floor
Take out the trash
Collect it
Fold the laundry
For everyone
Bring in the groceries
While a ghost sits
And drinks the beer up

I have a spirit in my house
That calls me names
I have a lost soul
That clings to a lost home
Punching a door
Slamming into the bathroom wall
Is that your symphony
It’s my fault you know

I don’t have a father
Did you know
I disowned my connection
Before he could disown me

It’s better to not know
Not to know the truth

It drags on
Four more years
But i’ve been saying
Blank more years
For fourteen years

Runaway dads
They still remember birthdays
But not my spirit

Four concerts a year
Four concerts a year
For five years
For five years
One
Grand total
Did you enjoy
Jingigle bells in C major
Before i knew what c major was

Did you enjoy me
Breaking my tooth in 7th grade
Oh wait you weren’t there

At least with runaway dads
Slob lazy liar
Don’t mean anything
Neither does theif

So as arrogant as it sounds
Enjoy your runaway dad
While i enjoy my spirit
Calli Kirra Sep 2013
What the hell is wrong?
What do you think I'm on?
I'd prefer a downer,
And that you forget about her
My hair is longer and golder
I look like a mermaid when it falls over your shoulder
My waist is small, I could give it all
A bad baby with an always broken heart
When you tell your stories I listen to every word
And I love your shampoo and your sadness
And you know how to read the method to my madness
And how to talk me down when I'm freakin out above this
And all the weird things you do, I do too
Since I was a little girl I didn't think I'd find it
A shooting star that knows how to rocket
Rock it, rock it, dance with me
Smarter than Miranda, prettier than Maddy
Darker than Zoe, sweeter than Bella
And I know it's true cause you always want more
I never get old, you never get bored
Make the smart decision boy, you're a genius
Here's a quarter and a scratch off ticket
Ill be under the first layer
You'll know when you see it
Maddy May 2015
My own calmness
My energy
I float
I am golden

Maddy
Madds Feb 2012
"Whatever you do, do not travel alone.
That way you have memories you both could only ever have known.
You'll always have something special with them.
Travelling with another person is a gem.

-"What if you'd rather travel and see the world on your own?
And just meet people along the way?  As you said, you're never truly alone."

"Why's that, Maddy?"

-"Well, what if you're happier alone with oneself?
And, sir, you can't leave yourself..."
It didn't exactly rhyme but you catch my drift.

I'd rather travel the world alone because I find it soothing and I've never really been close enough to anyone to want to travel with them.

Also, I have a fear of everyone leaving me.
Maddy May 2015
The songbird is singing outside my window
I touch you
I feel you
I feel calm
I trust myself
I know it's true
I can't wait to see you again
and coil myself
Around you
Base of the spine
Do you feel that

Red energy lifting
Calmness
Warm feeling
Healing

Maddy
Madison Ruffin Dec 2018
Even as my life becomes dark,
I walk a little slower
And dance a little softer
Taking everything piece by piece.
The darkness may hinder me but will not halt me.
idk who could use this
Ingrid Ohls Dec 2012
Is it so hard to remember my love,
How you felt?
How you would smell my hair and let out a sigh beside me.
How you would make me feel the way no one ever has,
No one will.
Do you remember smiling, by just looking at me?
Do you remember the inside jokes,
The sleep ins, the late nights.
Do you remember candy land?
How Maddy would always win?
And how terrible a loser she was.
Do you remember coming home 8 years ago,
After that week apart?
Where you fell on the floor,
Came to me and just grabbed me as if you'd never let me go again?
How we didn't have money, but we had each other.
And that was always enough?
Where did you go?
Come back here,
Please one day fall through the door and kiss the floor and be thankful I still love you.
Arlo Disarray Sep 2021
death keeps calling my name
and i'm trying to avoid the temptation
of answering

i see them all in my mind
maddy, and daddy, and matt
they're all waving to me
and i'm waving back
there they are,
waiting in the black
telling me that
once i say yes,
there's no turning back

death is dancing on the dirt
that will soon be my grave
and yelling to me that it's okay,
because all my friends are doing it
this way

i wish they had been stronger
and stayed longer
but i know just as well that it's exhausting
to pretend
that you want to be present
when you want it to end

it hurts
to fake a smile
when your eyes
are aching
from the tears
you're holding back

but none of us
ever
bother to
talk about that



I felt like Maddy
In the house,
waiting for Olly
To take me to the ocean

I found a new part of me,
The good side of me,
when I met you...

And I felt ALIVE,
Living like never before
LOVING like never before

If I stop myself now -
I will never experience
The mystery of
Being ALIVE in LOVE

It is always easier
To do what heart feels
Even if it may
Harm one's health (life)

I am willing to sacrifice
EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING
To LIVE one
Perfect day in LOVE...


Inspired from the book & movie EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
it's...
listening to metric - clone (2012)...
sipping a whiskey...
pretending to smoke a cigarette
with an unlit cigarette in hand...
the feel and the texture...
the scent of unlit tobacco,...

and then it's... contemplating...
british and "british"...
              and the caves... and... speaking
a language lacerated...
loan words...
   music of corvus corax... katrinka...
i would never...
listening to such music...
attire myself as: bwitish...
technicalities...
              the prefix will do...
                 anglo-slav...
                         like... those anglo-saxons...
but less specific...
because: you'd have to also call them:
   anglo-pseudo-germans...
          or quasi...
                        i'm not being
specific either... an anglo-slav i am...
a patchwork of guesses...
         serb? croat? slovenian?
       the yugoslav? ukranian?
           russian? czech? slovak?
                    i've just been listening to
some videos of nostalgia...
from the natives circa 1978 and...
nik nak paddy... old man... something...

to associated with the british...
to be british...
  do you suppose... there's a turk these days...
that would associate himself
as... an ottoman?
         i wonder...
         maybe the concept of empire being...
domino... connected by land...
and not scattered like the greek diaspora /
empire...

           the empire of roman?
weird... isn't it? to be surrounding a massive
salt pond...
            while the constant chance of having
your back turned...
seemingly protecting this salt pond...
yes... sea...

- i found the stare of love at first today:
but i was numb to it...
deer eyes of an indian girl -
darkened / riddled by the equator...
while i was... picking three kings of chillies...
some fresh coriander...
cumin powder... kashmiri powder...
and black cumin seeds...

    - i saw eyes and i also saw two
nuggets of charcaol...
   my knees left nothing of the sort of iritation
fo drop everything and swim
against the current like a salmon...

- come mid-thirties and...
   i'm starting to feel comfortable...
with the solo-project... the dodo-project...
looking for signs of: waking up
to what could have been an abortion...
or a genocide into a tissue, flushed down
the toilet: the horror of being circumcised...
without jewish or muslim...
social structures...
         it could be much worse... i could have
been circumcised...
i could have been born with
both a ****** and a strap-on *****:
seeking the ****** st. of tic-tac-toe and
a skipping rope of:
  that i have kissed a man...
that i have gorged on a *******'s
****** like a wrath and love of god...
that suckling to the **** didn't
pose a problem: got choc tinged teeth
and bitter-corn in between...
oh i'm pretty sure she wasn't in love
with me:
             a wry smile while i didn't
speak the "proper" native...

mongrel soul retaining a weird question
about who's who and who's a token
postcard on loan from...
lost from former forged empires...

on my way back home...
   i was... once upon a time...
that sort of guy... loitering... waiting...
making waiting... a ritual...
worth smoking a cigarette...
patience is a religion that's not invested
in peace to all: for all...
     first comes first...

nearing the magic number 35...
it's very sensible of me to state:
it's quiet impossible for me to share a bed...
with anything or anyone except
my shadow...
considering how when i expose
my shadow to sunlight...
mindless shadow pretends to have
eyes... when it crawls into my head
at night: when i sleep...
and tells the alternative story of
the day...

    to be wedded and with children...
one would most certainly need to be coupled
with prospects in one's early 20s...
after the mid-20s... well...
the boat's about to sail...
the solo- / dodo-project is...
  a bit like... with writing being concerned...
one's hope for a career in...
    a chemistry lab...
or the selfless-acts of hippocrates' students...

all very well to love children...
but... ******* them up...
never really becoming that...
nobel prize winning psychologists
with a break-through...
when the whittle cherbus... gremlins...
kritters arrive...
an over-zealous cat meowing / moaning
about curfew is one of those spin-offs
of madness...
talk to me about a babe crying...

- and yes... some people shouldn't drink...
their genetic disposition: ah ah...
their individual metabolism...
they never conjure up the amphetamine
(metaphor) ***** from the lullaby
zombied-out death-cult of sedation...
- and these same people shouldn't pick
up smoking a ritual tobacco stick...
even i venture to call it:
a bullet to the head...

  how is it... to become... selfless?
when... one... has become...
self-realized... past the groan of:
the facts... aged 25 and your brain
should stop... window-shopping
function suffixes... no?

i had an idea for a glove...
with a rubber-band...
to... restrict... the natural laziness
of the hand when walking...
but because i drink and only jargon
poor poetics...
in rage i ripped the rubberband
off my arm... lost to history:
lost to the void...
oh i know how that it feels...
would it have been of use...
i guess not...
     a bright idea in a bucket
of maggots and maggot ****...
is... about as much worth as...
a screwdriver is to a forest of nails...
chisel... n'est ce pas...
i was... asking: grit teeth...
soul... clenching... bizarre objects
of gradations of sharpening...
the obvious square-headed axe...
pulp...
      a whole rainbow of objects...
perhaps a scalpel is the last resort...

i smile because: i've turned angry into
funny...
who doesn't have the monopoly on violence:
well... i also do not have the monopoly
on c.c.t.v. -
   little help from coming from
under the iron curtain...
the local seem to be... all ah...
oh so detached... missing las vegas cousins
and...
if i could only allow you...
to allow myself... to fathom...
the maldives of my mind...
a drag of a cigarette... a bottle of whiskey
35cl... you start the bets...
who's about to...
      find prison in solipsism...
solipsism as a mental illness...
as an altruism: as a atheism as a...
genius maddy: spezial neds: youz callz
'em... quivering folk?
what'z that phra-phra-puccino?
    autist-spec:   ah yes! those rare breeds!
spazz-taculars!
i was one misunderstood for one of them...
i took the insult to the grave...
well... i took it to her grave...
by the god of the hebrews and by the mythology
of cain... from siberia came the huns...
the turks... the slavs and the mongols...
only germans ever came from
       afri-*******-ah-hahaha!
they skipped the toll of sanskrit:
the birth of writing...
why? it became complicated...
when beijing was founded...
but sure... a replica tux of skeleton came out
out... fringe kenya and landed in: old delhi...
as many consonants if not more:
down to the core: with the spices...
the unfortunate indians of north
america...
the somewhat fortunate indians
of: south america...
brazil: post-racial mecca...
argentinian beef and...
                             myths of nazis
living to old age...
                 no... oh no... i will not die...
first comes ol' lizzie then comes
my sodden sorry ***...
envelope of a missing postage stamp
of a world: we've been to the moon...
via new york and the leviathan london...
where's afghanistan cave fighting...
the pashtun women of... glorifying
copper and cinnamon / cumin and coriander
ash... and beauty...
how doesn't it sound:
the day the music died:
we sang dirges in the dark...
                 bye bye: may-pole luck with
christ: the advent of...
the crucifix is hanging... ornament piece...
but the... iron maiden isn't...
           it's enough to identify a god...
it's quiet another matter...
to torture him... and... sorry...
but if i were to be crucified...
   sooner me and the comfort of hands...
outstretched... than... hands-tied...
pushed onto a pole: to impale...
lost advent of etymology: slav...
and the lost "e" of paul...
to remind... the crucifix... well...
            to impale...
                       looks like...
the crucifix is missing limbs... it would take...
days... the arms that would be
flapping... agitating an imitation
of a swan breaking into flight...
the two lungs... imitating drowning...
while hanging... extended...
     to crucify... hardly: the affair of...
being... impaled...
perhaps joking: slav(e) gave the clue...
germans: whether orthodox
anglo-ßaß - celtic mingling...
    germs... who's eating what... "leftover"
etymological clues...
we can play this game... forever...
it's hardly the hebrew the original:
indu- prefix of... roaming... or not...
                      
guise them up as the exodus as the fomer
lands of Jagiełło...
the battle of Hastings: blip...
             who am i... but at least in england...
i can speak the language
like some conrad of masovia:
readied to sell the "lesser creatures"
for the... encouraged...
integration to the *****: kneel...
of the baltic pruß...
who weren't... coddled...
the welsh weren't coddled...
they were "told" to... brighten their
day to day... expand...
fathom the easily accessed seas:
expand...
who owned the monopoly of
the baltic sea: as if it were
the bosphorus...
beside... the danes?
expansion of: ****** come together
with a ******: breathing
h. p. lovecraftian h'america...
loot maine and call it... start:
bittersweet apartheid...
not me: i'm still half of Vilno...
and the most remote aspect of L'viv...
no... crusader songs... no crusades: per se!

i used to play video games...
i became... more fascinated
with the romance of: a lost year...
that the school re(a)d... it wasn't in any
fathom of an iota of red:
or a synonym in burgundy:
for the worth of the burgundians:
leftovers of the angevins...
that richard the lionheart
found a love for england...
the island... an abhorring testimony
of youth and no solance...
that old age never found him:
akin to: the needle never found
the mystery of the haystack...

i am not! lithuanian!
common practice of exodus polacks...
paul-lacking:
slav and "e" dribbling...
      like the germanic peoples:
who aren't lingua franca revisions...

    ⰏⰑⰣ     ⰔⰑⰂⰑ...

lingering "blame"... darwinism via
the default...
the monkey skeleton left africa...
arrived in india.. left a schism...
some went to хины
             some went to:         чeнa..

   anglican via: the great mother siberia...
is a mother...
beside the zenith advent of: mother...
muffer: af-af-rye-c'ah'cah!
******* twins to mind the rhodes!

the skeleton left africa...
yes...
   but... the hindu morphed the genesis...
a second time... into writing...
what... phonetic encoding...
beside... the primodial...
   hieroglyphics... from africa... would have...
ever... arrived at our...
emoji internet advent... door-step of
extending democracy / demographics...
central?

the wheel and the square also
left africa with the skeleton:
the arithmetic of bones and muhammad...
but the triangle settled in greece
and became pythagoras...
and the letter: Δ....

    the inter-racial violence of north
h'america... is not... beside the wery bwitish
advent of ****-stan... as... imaginary
loitering of a border: coming to survive
with Belfast-Kashmir...
           that's making priority of...
the written word...
over the skeleton jump-start...
       bypass...
              and the emoji... and... grafitti...
clue out of africa...
never met... the sub-continent of india...
or... the chinese ideograms...
or sanskrit...
but... ******... *** and bounty...
the mongols never made...
crimea... their capital...
hastings was forever a washington's
survival guide...
       that theatre gave the birth
of lincoln and... whitman was...
everything any other poet: including
homer and dante always dreamed of...
that europeans invited themselves
toward: finding h'america in a can
of sardines...
and that the h'americans believed
they found europe... in kent or essex...
or... in books...
or... in loitering... or being...
allowed to be obnoxiously loud...

            like that **** would still stink:
100 years from now...
but yes... the libido of a genghis khan...
i trace my libido to:
how i imitate the people who
check their blood pressure when i *******...
i... genocide my... fractions into
the moloch couldron that's:
beside... the prayers of a...
        tele-evalngelical church of praises!
h'america is nothing new...
it's just better: regarding...
what remains... a solid old.
Mitchell May 2011
Another fast fight saying their was never a day
That Billie Holiday living
Seemed to be the only right away
Long car crashes bending metal upon crooked metal
Ringing bells white with dust blue oceans crash
Fitting the rooms with walls a color I used to breathe to know
A woman prances through the air
Telling me to
Hang in there!
"Yeah Right!" I scream back
"Hanging from pillows makin' me the way I am!..."
But she's gone outta sight back into the night
Off and away for another man back a couple months from way
With the slow wheeze of the vibrating trampoline
Friends are mischief makers with masks made of daff
Dollar around the hour begging for power
Made outta that Mr. Easy's pearly conch shell
A sea break in the depths of Maddy P.'s over ease
That Voice!
The Choice!
To listen to the sneaking tease of a breath beneath those knees
A million hours reminding themselves that these towers
Can fall so easily
Spinning wheels makin' me feel
Black red counter top stopper belts
Lost her again
Yeah'
I lost her again to the fray of the haze again
A write I thought was in sight
A right I thought would bite
A wright I dreamt tonight


Alright
Maddy Tidrick Feb 2013
I walk in the hallways now,
seeing friends smiling at me,
and the smile I return
is no longer a plastered
mask.
Long talks are a
daily commodity,
be them great,
or not so much.
I’m happy that
I can talk to them.
Happy that they
want to talk to me.
Happy that I get to be
with people that don’t
know how fake I was,
and that accept me
because Maddy
IS important.
However, I am mostly
just happy that I can be
me.
Maddy Oct 2016
Lovely evening
Shared with you
We enjoyed unexpected surprises
delight and joy.
Treats for the senses
freedom in the high vibration
Joy
and  unconditional love
Art
Magic

Later...
The film was Neruda, very layered
with many hidden messages
One  I could take with me......
a reminder ....
to always feel like a leading character in my journey and story ....
I feel I was able to let go enough with you that I did not have a need
for the safety of the masks I can sometimes wear.

Thank you for accepting me as I am
With no less intensity of love and healing shared.

Maddy
KILLME Nov 2013
Hey there
my sweet baby sis,

I just wanna say sorry
if it felt like you missed,

out on a great celebration
of your special day,

it's not fair to any one
of us the way

things have been lately.

mommy's been shaky,
daddy yells irately,
Maddy changes daily,
and I haven't cared greatly.

But you can bet your happy little birthday cake,
you know the one we made together
with all your favorite candies,
that It will get better.
And I will always be here for you.
always.
She has those mad eyes
you know any man so would
she is a cute little thing
is mad eyes Maddy

I bet she is a nightmare on legs
maybe a red head naughty girl
but I must not think of mad eyes
for at least I have my own

This was for you
and so **** easy to do
know my eyes are turned
to a girl liken to you

Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

By NeonSolaris

© 2013 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)

— The End —