Dear Daddy,
Do you know what these men say to me?

With their
eyes and their mouths
when I walk on the street.

With a grin and a nod
and a look up and down.
A wink and a kiss
and a cat call heard from downtown.

With my skirt short
and my top
low,
It’s a cold world daddy
and no
doesn’t mean no.

Daddy do you know
how these men look at me?

Like I’m a piece of meat
strutting down the street?
With my head buds in
and my favorite song on.

I’m asking for it Daddy,
I’m in the wrong.

Do you know how it feels
not to wear what I like?

To walk a little faster
when I’m alone at night?

Daddy the world is my predator
and I am it's doe,
Daddy what happens
when I can’t say no?

There is a stillness
in the absence of the television’s
jarring advertisements,
lethal dramas,
and fast paced sitcoms
just gnawing away at what little time we have here.
The last hour has been a week
of the relaxation I pursue daily.
Stuck in a world where the constant
is a sprint on a treadmill,
meaningless because I’m moving nowhere,
as others move about a steady change of scenery,
I am beginning to feel hopeless.
Will I get to climb my mountain?
Will I get to trip and skin my knees on the rugged earth?
Will I get to lay on a cliff,
enamored with a view I never thought was meant for me?
Will I feel pain?
Will I feel triumph?
Will I simply get to feel?

These years are getting old.
This faith is turning cold,
fickleness growing bold.

We often forget to stop and just breathe.
Look around.
Reflect on your life and you will come to realize
That life isn't just stress and darkness.
There's those small wonderful moments in life
Which makes life worth living.

What a shame it is
that we spend most
of our time these days
committed to standing
on unloving
ground.

Instead of loving
our neighbor as
ourselves,

we seek unfettered
validation,
no matter our
own candid transgressions.

Our minds are full of stolen
ideas,
like eggs from the nests of eagles.

We spend our nights measuring wolves.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

The putrid smell of others hate,
fills my lungs in a heinous state,
what words can do to the fragile soul,
the spirit colour as black as coal,
drink it all up at the chime of night,
blinded by this hideous sight,
emotion tips the balanced scale,
too much said for the ship to sail,
so now I must repent in haste,
relinquish this most bitter taste.
calm the waters of raging pride,
swim to the safety of the other side.

The wind carries secrets,
crashing waves on rooftop shores,
whistling through the bones of trees,
carrying whispers of sleepless souls,
lost lovers names as whispers in the night,
swirling shadows of bending boughs,
knocks and rattles, tumbling shakes,
angry breaths on the eve of morn,
soothing sighs carried in from dark,
rustling leaf's do a dance of delight,
carried forth to slumbering rest,
so listen carefully my friends,
to the secrets in the hearts it tends.