A Place for Sharing - Hello Poetry

Dec 2024

Em MacKenzie

The Year I Almost Drowned/ The Year I Learned To Swim

The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
I was weighed down pound by pound
and things were looking grim.
My arms flailing; began to tire
and my mouth was tasting salt,
just days ago I warmed myself by fire
and by lying on the asphalt.

Shadow stalks and kicking rocks;
irrelevant if your shoes are tied.
Checking locks and kicking rocks
get carried away by the tide.

The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
I could view the sandy ground,
though the image was quite dim.
My head; just barely above the water
and desperately I was gasping for air,
and I could swear it was getting hotter
but the temperature was actually fair.

I’ve got currents and tides
within my mind.
And when I finally rip out my insides;
more water and waves you’ll find.

The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
While being tossed and pushed around
I discovered I had every limb.
I could see a shoreline in the distance
it’s beaches with perfect white sand.
It seemed within an instance
I started treading steadily with each hand.

#year #drowned #swim #learning #struggling #surviving #ocean #preservation

Dec 2024

Hannah Willker

Dear you,

I‘ve looked at you for a long time;
Your wish to be extraordinary
Is that yours or mine?

Is it narcissistic tugging at my soul;
the world
Or do you make it whole?

I‘ve looked at you for a long time
Searched for your flaws
But I found mine

Love;
Why have you left some souls behind?
And is that your fault
Or is that mine?

#love #lonely #loneliness #soul #flaws #heart #peace

Dec 2024

Abbott J Hardison

Scrapbook Poem #61

Am
I
  Truly
   As
    Unique
     As
      I
       Can
        Be
         ?

It's too early to be doubting yourself, have a great Thursday everybody!

#unoriginal #scrapbook #poems

Dec 2024

Elizabeth Kelly

Dead Poets in Central Park

I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman
Strolling side-by-side,
Palms grazing the plumes of yarrow feathering the byways of Poet Heaven.

They died less than 8 months apart, lymphoma and mental illness respectively.

The inhabitants moon over Death incessantly there in Poet Heaven,
But you already knew that.
You know poetry.

I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman drinking strawberry daiquiris and smoking in companionable silence,
Enjoying their unlikelihood in the sweet midday glow of Central Park.
Still dead of course,
Unnoticed among the rabble.
What is poetry without the living? We yearn for blood and contrast.

Buying some art from a guy who is also selling bootleg DVDs;
Throwing birdseed to the crosseyed pigeons;
Smoking cigarettes and letting the soft animals of their bodies love what they love,
Free from consequence and commodification,
Free from the every day clamor of the train station.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, he might say.
But it did, she might reply,
Which is all you can give sometimes when you’re a steward of the truth.

Two of my favorite poets who I reference frequently. I hold them up together and they are polar opposites but, as all great poets, equally gifted at distilling simple moments into universal truths.

Dec 2024

Bekah Halle

i keep looking over my shoulder

every minute of every day
I keep looking
over my shoulder,
wondering if today's the day,
you're going to say
goodbye.

goodbye.
door shut, don't even try.
and as I keep chasing
down the shadow,
I lose who I am
even to try, again.

Dec 2024

Elizabeth Kelly

Baby fever

Uh oh

Here we go

Everyone look out below

Is it sickness?

I suppose.

Baby fever’s

Got my nose.

Dec 2024

Bekah Halle

Missing

I still see you as a little girl,
With your whole life ahead.
But now, you are missing,
Becoming a statistic instead.
At not yet 14, you are out roaming the streets,
drinking. and. only God knows what drugs you are taking,
You are somehow finding comfort there than at home, beneath your sheets.
Come home, Coco, we are missing you,
Come home, Coco, these teen ways are not you.
I know when your mum and dad split,
It split you too.
But come home, Coco, with love
And with better choices, your true life can be found.

When did she start disappearing? Was it when her parents first separated? When did she start playing Fortnite online? When she had far too many sick days? When she was put into a diversional therapy group? When?! All these questions fill my head.

Dec 2024

Traveler

Credit Scorch

We are but perpetual donkey's chasing a carrot
on an invisible rod
suspended from our collar.
Oh how I love that mighty dollar.

In my pocket, in my bank
I love the way money stinks!
Credit unions deep in debt
I haven’t lost my bitcoin yet..

Invisible credit shall suffice
like you the bank robs me
most every night..
So....
Buy some silver, buy some gold,
buy some land before you fold..

The love of money
can be a hell of a load..

Traveler 🧳 Tim

My real nest egg is my good health!

#traveler #banks #money #credit #debt #lottery

Dec 2024

Sadia

Bond

Through trials and storms, love remains intact
No distance can separate us when love is pure
Time may pass, but love continues to grow
Eyes hold a blaze,
a fire of love that never dies
No power on Earth
can break the bond of love between you and me

Dec 2024

Elizabeth Kelly

Existential crisis, late afternoon

It’s dry and still in the house this afternoon,
The way houses are at 4:00 in December.
I feel a little itchy and claustrophobic,
Sitting on the floor.
I hate this ******* carpet.
Berber.

I know you love me,
But sometimes I wish you would let me destroy myself completely.

Darkening winter gray settles over us in a dull film,
Berber carpeting the world.
It seeps into the house through cracks in the doorframe you kicked down when we were locked out that night.
Into me too, coating my brain and joints and dreams in liquid fog.
The streetlights will be dark awhile yet.

Cotton ***** fill up my mouth
And I’m fine, just fine.
My grandmother’s favorite color was gray before people awarded points for such things.

It’s nearly night, now, and the sky swirls with peek a boo pink and blue where the clouds are thin and blowing.
No streetlights yet.
The shadows gather at their feet.
I pull out the spaghetti;
Time to start dinner.

#december #carpet #self #destruct #gray #days #motherhood

Dec 2024

S R Mats

Poetry Lives in Expression

“As no one can live without inhaling and exhaling, no one can live without feeling and expressing. The life of expression is how the heart breathes and how our spirit grows in the life that carries it.”

- Mark Nepo

Our need for Expression!
We long for expression.
It is a human desire.

Poetry is Expression in its rawness.
Poetry is the passing of feelings
From one human heart to another.

To be a poet is to believe in life
And in expression.
To be a poet one must not be greedy

Be the one who doles out sweets to share.

Dec 2024

jeffrey conyers

It's About Time.

Not sad.
Not mad.
Really glad this came to an end.

Not upset.
Just can't be.
For a while you been bugging me.

So, sign the papers.
Whew, a big relieve because for months you been killing me spiritually.

So, I embrace your hands signing on that line.
Just to hear many say, it's about time.