Some new can be the same
And some same can be new.
New can be same
If there are the same results,
The same viae
To arrive at the same loci.
Things are different though
All the same.

Cryptograms:
Secret messages waiting to be revealed
A symbol shields the letter in hiding.
Gee, a hint would sure sound nice,
But cryptographers aren’t always that merciful.
There are times where I am left
To guess, err, and scribble down
The correct corresponding equivalency,
Z=A, for instance,
Until I arrive at the satisfactory accomplishment
Of a puzzle solved and a stronger knowledge of code.

Jumbles:
Another newspaper favorite,
Words appear as sloppy anagrams,
Which requires much staring and mental shifting
Of letters until a rearranged combination of letters
Produces an existent word approved by Oxford or Webster.
Within each blank printed box is a certain number of circles,
The puzzler, guessing the words from each row of nonsensical anagrams,
Gathers the letters in the circumscribed spaces
Only to do more mental or written unscrambling
As no answer exists without persistence and resilience.

Crosswords:
My “worst nightmare” in the world of puzzles,
The only enigmas where I have to leave enigmas be
Because I always fall behind in experience and knowledge
To have any clue of what the hints mean,
For some hints are implicit cryptograms,
The solver needs to consider each word of the hint closely
To understand the pun, the sarcasm, wrapped up in the obvious literalism.
Some days I come close
To filling in all up-words and down-words,
But realize that I am never quite right, even in my most confident state.

Is a puzzle ever truly solved?
I don’t know! Figure it out yourself!

Until now, I never realized before
The beauty in the Beast
Or how Beauty is so beast!

No matter the desire to be open to all things,
We are always a close-minded people;
After all, does skin not enwrap
The sinuses of our imagination, thinking, and what we allow
To enter our cognition?

During the years prior to high-school graduation,
It was never a “piece-of-cake”
To adjust back to reality. A.K.A. school, immediately following
Occasions, such as vacations, for any reason, or even ordinary weekends.
There’s also that event that took place during a “school night,”
Where the thought of have to “hit the books” the next day
Haunted my conscience amid focus and participation, as I knew
There never were many take-off extensions during the week.
I’d be one who tended
To stare out a window and fantasize
Of the arousals and feel-goods
From being around groups or plainly out of the house.
There were times where I’d stare
And picture still being with my grandparents in Pittsburgh
Upon arriving home from visiting them at their house.
On some Sundays, we’d host a family from our church
To watch football games, eat, chat,
And freeze-tag around the condensed square of yard
Shielding the Kearneysville property.
How could I have bounced right into school Monday
With thoughts of care-free run-arounds
And my loosened muscles on furniture while watching football
Still spinning in my head?
Is fun really a dream come true
Or is it a manipulative dream that speeds up during the good times
And slows down with the drags in life?
I’d even find myself adjusting to reality
Even if I were not the primal host at my house.
When either my parents or siblings
Would invite friends or other people distracting their attention to the house,
I’d always feel like I had the house to myself,
Their attention on the humane outlier making them invisible
And not focusing on my whereabouts or whodunits.
To me, stepping off the grass and back on the mud track of reality
Won’t always work the way it should,
Whether recovering from brief gathering events
Or rock concert trips.
I heard a Sunday sermon where the minister referred to humanity as each a “vacationer.”
Might that imply that reality is an effortful fantasy?  After all, don’t vacations require work too?

Not just another side of me
Or everything I've done
And hear everything I said
Far from ear's reach.
But I'm the one that thinks,
As soon as I pass the security check
At every place in Washington D.C.
That I forgot to pull something out of my pocket
As a security precaution and protocol.
I pass scanners, but I think I'm that villain
That tricks the bomb-sniffers,
Without lifting a finger,
Into thinking that there's no harmful instrument on me...
When I hypnotize my memory
Thinking I passed GO
When I should have stayed at the STOP....

Other cases outside reality: TV shows and movies.
Oh my god!
What I would do sometimes to cut the middle of most plots
Just to twist heads,
Open eyes,
Slap faces,
Just to uncover who's on justice side
And who abused justice as a disguise.

Not everyone can be an “every-one”
But I am one who wants to dip my hands
In many fields of life
So as to be an omni-aid “when duty calls.”
Of course, I don’t always know what I get myself into,
And may not consider that I could regret doing too much
Or find myself doing what I don’t want to do.
Generally, if I could, I would monetarily give
To every figure standing vertically still along main areas of traffic
Who always appear to be seeking some kind of recognition.
Not that I stare, but when my pockets lack coins or bills,
I can only offer a silent word behind the steering wheel
For the ones standing in search of hope car-by-car.
I love to write, so why not write to a soldier or someone who could use a note?
Because, alas, rules and regulations for companies intimidate my passion
To do good yet follow procedures.
With my loves for drawing, writing, cleaning, fixing, puzzles,
I know there’s a lot I can contribute,
Not speaking haughtily but in respectful confidence,
But it also can come down to who would be receptively interested,
How often I could commit,
And am I giving more than I’m being given?
If I can give until I cannot give anymore,
As wearing as this may sound in words,
What else would I need?

Though night and day cover the same earth,
Their worlds are far unrelated;
Yes, the two portals of time
I know have skies the same,
But what one attracts
The other scares away.

Having lived a campus-student life,
Later departing to seek rest,
I was attracted to Scarborough’s halls
When darkness would ink the above
And when the daytime student traffic
Minimized, which freed space hard to claim
With the sun exposed.

Rays of LED lights flash
On the library’s main outside portico,
Students’ shoulders magnetized to the foundational pillars,
Bodies slanted, neutral-faced and minds set for commuting home.

Perfect!  Though other peers plan according to the daily rush,
I know there will be a chair for me and a platform to stack my books
Inside the library.
I neck my head heavenward
As I ascend the split-foyer stairs,
Seeing if others descend so as not to run over or be run over.

The second-floor is a puzzle,
A maze of paths edging the perimeter,
The space columned with light-brown shelves of books.
Let’s see: Study room?  Taken.
A free table along the main communal hall of the second floor?
Eh, I feel watched there.
Aha!  A fine venue!
A single-person desk, an attached light,
Room on the desk for layering my backpack’s own library,
And side wooden indentations to conceal my peripheral vision.
I never would have expected to lust for nightly library moments,
But I believe, now, that my visits were past due.

A breeze
that disappears.
Just like
The uniformed
Army
Guarding a wreath
Of remembrance:
Flight 93,
9...1...1...
The bus kept going,
Passengers guessing
What the army officers
Could possibly be out
In the dragging sun for,
Motionless and focused,
Like the queen's guards.

Good deeds are worthwhile,
But it can take an eternity
To say "mission accomplished."
Walking to a flower shop,
Buying a rose,
Walking tens of steps
Of never-ending sidewalk,
Actually feeling lost.

I never found these people
And the memorial wreath.
I felt I had wasted my time.
Don't tell me to remember
If I know I thought about it.
Maybe frustration
Is the only way I'll learn,
But from here to the grave,
Remember those unsaved.

Though words plainly expand the levitation of gases,
I still feel a twitch in my nerves when you talk,
Like anything I have ever said was meaningless;
Yet, when I express that your speech bothers my sensory system,
I feel a guilt
That I am the one who changed you
For my own satisfaction.
Why do I cater to myself
Instead of I who am more considerate?

I should have known better:
The Catholic all-boy camps,
Themed with talks on vocations,
Never truly acknowledged prayer,
But the clock
And its ticking weighing all
With its cesium hypnosis.

“Regulars” expand beyond religious culture, though.
When I go to meet people casually or formally,
Regardless of age,
I am time’s pawn
That never understands when it’s time to end
Unless I want that time to end.
When I don’t like an event,
An hour can feel like an eon.
When I enjoy moments so much,
An hour is a blissful breath-second.

Due assignments,
Ugh! Perfect focus never exists then,
Only “****, ****, ****” in tapping my skull
To assess the situation
And submit a ******* draft, ******!
Don’t be late…too late,
The white rabbit’s time is on schedule:
I’m always late.
Time to start over.

Someone asked me recently
What drives me to write in a journal,
Just a page or two each day.
I have been waiting to answer this question myself
And was amazed that an outside social-media voice
Prompted my response.
Here's what I had to say:

"I want to remember the person I actually turned out to be at this point in time and not let poor memory resort to stereotypes to describe my 20s. I made a mistake I think not writing earlier because there’s a lot I don’t remember from the previous decade.  I want to remember the ordinary moments and to record where I showed my humanness and where I failed. I want to remind myself that, as swelled of a head as I can have most times, that I am human too and I’d like to be that person who has stories and moments that can relate to what people consider embarrassing or wrong so not to shame themselves for actions and words stumbled across by people left and right. It’s one thing to feel guilty about something; it’s another thing to feel like the world ended because of one moment, like how I have treated a lot of my own life moments."

I don't journal for myself entirely,
Yet I do take pleasure in that time of concentration.
To live in the present is the goal,
To live in the future is understandable,
But to remember how I lived in the past
Reminds me I have been human all the way up to now.

I’m for sure not a Barbara Walters
Or Bill O’Reilly,
But, sure enough, I have scholastic interviewing experience,
And I see it all around.
The questions I ask, the questions beckoned toward me
All seek answers,
Whether the questions are true and thoughtful
Or fillers that fog up the air.
At every meeting or get-together,
Whether casual, usual, professional, etc.
Words will be spoken,
And unless serious objections arise
Or more than two people are circulating verbal clauses,
You, my friend, could also be simultaneously under review.

Not to make too many other announcements, but I recently came across this meditation in my inbox by Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan author, who talks more deeply about spirituality on his site called Center for Action and Contemplation.  The reason why I share Richard Rohr's name today is because his meditation for today ties spirituality and poetry together, which I had to share with this poetry-rich online community!!  I apologize if it seems too "Christianized" for those who  have other beliefs, but I encourage all to keep the poetry topic in mind more as I am not seeking to promote any outside or irrelevant source on this site.  To access the specific meditation on poetry from the CAC, here is the link:  https://cac.org/poetry-2018-05-22/     If anyone experiences trouble in accessing the meditation write-up, let me know.  Peace fellow poets! :D

Lying in the car seat,
Head hairs smeared against the window,
Eyes shut in slumber.
The sun takes a bow
With its finale rays
That split through
Columns of trees alongside the road.
Though the inner, red-blue nervy scene of a forgotten blink
Serves as the eyes surrounding imagery,
The inner eyelids start flouncing
From a stronger pulse of red
Back to the darker internal hue.
The flashes of sun that zoom in presto tempo
Outside closed eyes,
Which can confuse dreams and dizzy focus.
As the trees make the sun blink,
Awaken to the mirages before the sun dreams.

The music that plays back in memory
Becomes the better version of music aloud.
After all, memory doesn’t require a scrolling mouse
And clicking pad
To play back favored tunes.
When working or staring at a given space,
The music plays,
Yet no one else can hear it,
No one but the DJ, a Picasso
Whose playlist is creative art
From various artists.

You have heard of the “monster under the bed”
Or “the boogie man in the closet.”
But nothing is more frightening
Than mistaking things as having life
In broad daylight.

A car
Its headlights are eyes
Its anterior insignia is the nose
And the area between a car’s front lights and symbol
Is the mouth that never moves.

An electrical outlet
Still though it seems
Stares at you from its wired soul
Through rectangular slits.
An outlet is never happy to see you,
It’s mouth the top half of a semicircle.
Ha! Take that!
A plug will keep you quiet!

Floral patterned curtains
Fool you with detail.
Much staring can lead
Into seeing dotted swirls as eyes
Curved arcs as brows
Or even a flower’s center as the face of a ghost
It’s ******* seeds molding a drooping face.

So, remember when next time you’re at home or in the public
The population may be larger than it seems.

The kitchen table is at the right position
Where my family and I can leisurely face our eyes
In the direction of the clear-glass screen door that displays
Views of our backyard.

On the evening of March 16, I sat on the dark brown, black wooden chair at my usual curve of the table.
There are times where I sit and, though I cogitate “Get up! Get up!”, there are times where I just cannot collect the energy to rise from a still, muscle-relaxing pose.
The setting, yellow-white tint of the sun lured my soul to head outside, the natural character in me felt a need for.
Without delay, I zipped on my AHA sweater and capped my head with a retro blue-and-red Super Mario winter hat.
Opening the side door of the garage, the setting sun continued to lure my presence to still myself before its gentle mantle.
[At least there is no admission for seeing nature run its course!]

This evening scene of twilight I had to view seated on a purple cushion 90-degreed,
Unfolded on the outdoor swing.
I try not to let the urban sights of a barn shed, a house gated, dogs’ barks to my right
Derail my focus of natural concentration.
I learned in meditation once to just let noises and sights come as they please,
For they will have their exit.
I may not be a master at letting things go, but I kept meditative concentration
As the practice for the evening.

Every couple beats I would turn my eyes away from the westward sunset
To see if I noticed a lower sun and a higher indigo darkness.
Maybe I am not bound to the ascetic life, but I would not let the crispy, invisible chills
Of the evening winds chase me inside so easily, though the cold rush along the thighs of
My Lee jeans was a caveat that soon, Kearneysville would submerge into hours of a dark, polar void.

I tried to lose sense of the clock, so time would not be my focus in nature, which doesn’t go by Greenwich anyway.
The right amount of cold air lingered that night: enough to be outside for a while and enough to keep the pestiferous gnats away from my eyes.
No clouds passed my line of vision aimed at the ionosphere, and all the hues of the sun’s petering rays shone a “goodnight.”  This evening sun vanished in the optimistic vigilance that natural green scenes and Emerald green scenes were only one horizon away.

I've stayed in hotels and other traveling accommodations before,
Whether for a day or two,
A week or two,
Even staying at relatives
Like Granny and Pappy,
Places I'd never want to leave.

But now I am somewhere that's my place,
My room, my community:
Fairmont State.
Can't wait to start over
And try school again
In a different town
With a brand new attitude.

Some tasks may still be
The same level of difficulty,
Like making friends,
Timing and sharing,
Getting to class and hitting the books,
But I think what'll keep me from dropping out this time
Is the hometown support of friends, family and other neighbors,
Like a major athlete going for the gold
To return to the people that nurtured such a yearning.
Some say life's not FAIR
When most pay a FARE,
But if I can FAREwell,
I can FAIRmont.

Jittery, jittery,
My skin knows
When I don't know
Where I am.

Acting like I've been through this
Lands me between
Amateur and professional.
Pick your choice.

Round one...
Rules, regulations, and blood
Pin me on a cushion.
(Squeeze)
One pump of blood through a tube,
And squeeze again.
I can't shake the feeling,
The feeling shakes me.
There goes
Some of me to restore
Hope and vivacity.

Two...
I know how everyone
Has their own definition
For them...
But really?
Twirling the hairs on my chin
Just to remind myself of masculinity?
Puh-lease. It's gotta go.
I don't care if my razor is a manual,
My "beard" never looked right anyway.
(Strokes along shaving-cream spots)
Owwwwww!
I had to apply cream twice
To shave the hairs in the under-corners
Of my jaw
And to clot the blood
For just two figurative seconds.
Paper towel after paper towel after...
The trash is red,
The tile floor has blood circles
Forming a macaroni path
From my dorm room to the sink.

One could play connect the dots
On the sorry face of mine.
I looked like a quiet ******
With each rub and dab I ran
Along the blood eruptions,
Not slowing for me to catch them.
Blood gravitated
Toward the skin inside my shirt collar.
If life really is a game,
I hate this round, match, etc.
Bound by ethics
To clean the ruins from the battle of hygiene,
I had to at least see
If a paper towel could suction
To the blood tears on my face
So I could use my hands.
Catching my look in the sink mirror,
I looked like a desperado
Wounded along a tight bandana,
Around a mouthless casualty.

I guess the Anglican insert of "******"
Makes some sense,
Since most things come about
Through blood and words.
Sometimes for me
It can feel good not to feel good
Just to remind myself I can still feel
The world around me.

For all that blood does and for the many times
It leaves the body,
It's too bad it can't escape
It's own cells.

...A city here
That now bears ruins.
...A renowned ship
That has fallen asunder.
...Creatures so ginormous
And dominant
Not even today's technology
Could de-populate such wonders.
...A slave plantation
Along this grass,
Romping the dirt,
Doing much of the work for historically
Acclaimed inventor names of the time.
Where blood spurt and rationality
Could not be found across persons
Because of the rods and cones
That see different hues
Instead of similar traits.
...A person who walked here
That made a beneficial change,
Forwarding freedom, living and brotherhood.
Now where I sit and write
Will soon be a place
Where there was once
A home.

This is the thought
That many I knew couldn't solve for me
Or that kept me wondering
About when I would grow
Taller:
How I should know better
(Take from every person who has reprimanded me to now),
How there are things I should be doing
At a certain age.

You know what this means?
Fear doesn't die.
People like those family members and friends
I knew, know, maybe will know
Keep fear alive each time I should have done something,
Said something,
Thought something
At a given instant.

I've always had other fears though:
I would always like the bedroom lights turned on at night
To be able to see and notice movement;
During the years my brother and I shared a bedroom,
He liked immediate darkness at night so he could fall asleep.
When it's dark in a given space,
Not only is it hard for me to sense
If my eyes are open or closed,
But it 'twas hard and still is a question
Whether the moving particles pupils take from darkness
Are just optical matter construed in the air
Or ghosts and other dimension-flopping figures
That I can't make go away.

Other fears over the years:
I never liked being stung or bit by any insect,
But the ones I feared the most were the ones people told me not to worry about,
Like wasps or yellow jackets
Or spiders.
I can feel stung before even feeling a sting sometimes.

I was always afraid of balloons popping.
They look so innocent, but forcefully stabbing the air out of a full one
Chokes me on the inside and makes me jump
As if taking that sound as a bullet,
Felt yet unfelt.

Afraid of rooms with indentations or corners.
I may have had an illusory vision or two in my sleep
Of friends leaving me behind for whatever reason
To face a ferocious being alone,
Two fears right there.
The thing about corners for me
And not having a birds-eye view of geography
Is I don't know what's around them
Until I bring myself to approach and find out.

Fear of silent places.
Being home alone
Was an exciting thing for me
The first time my mom allowed it to happen with intent.
Little did I know the fear of a new scene
Would make me so nervous,
Whether home with one of my siblings or not.
Just like the one day after a piano lesson I had at Ruth's house
When my mom was running late picking me up
And it was raining,
So being at home for the first or second time one night years back
Had me wondering if my mom would return home at all.
Some days my mom can't get a hold of me on my cell phone
While other days I can't reach her.
How have people through the years
Remained faithfully confident that, whether some one they love
Would only be gone a few minutes...hours...days...years,
Another time being together would ever come around?
Be it the time before cars,
Before horse and buggy.

There's the fear I have had and still have
Of being lost.
Socially lost, not understanding society
Or the language of social interaction.
Not knowing how to score a date with a young woman,
Not knowing the right extent to keep her interested in me
And to let her know I care
Without taking up all her time,
But yet there's the fear within a fear
Of another guy like me preying in and leaving
With a person I chose not to chase after or fight for
As they say.

As far as being lost,
How do I know what I did and what I am doing now
Is right for my person to do?
Some days, even though my mother would put this thought to rest,
I feel like I should fill every pair of laboring shoes out there.
Few interests capture my attention
To last a career's length anyway to me.
And, even though I react as angry
When trying to find my way on streets,
Walking or driving, in a town or city that I should be familiar with
Or a new view,
I get scared thinking that others will think I'm stupid,
I will think I'm stupid
When I actually appear lost
Turning around embarrassingly.
I almost think that every car going by
Has its drivers going "Hmmmm...must be a newbie."

I have a moderate fear of heights.
I say that now,
But I could easily go back to fearing heights
As I may have years back.
Even the Mount Washington lookout from Pittsburgh
Had me holding my breath some times
Hoping that the top of the mount wouldn't start slanting
And my feet wouldn't slide toward feet down into concrete streets
And buildings.

I have a fear of friending young men.
I don't have a lot of the same interests as guys my age nowadays,
And a lot don't seem to find my humor inviting.
Every random word I have said,
Every attempt at light-hearted talk
Has left a scar on my previous self
Giving my present self the burden of explaining these scars
To those who notice them.
I also found it hard when a guy like me and around me
Would get all of the attention
Even though I wasn't much of an attention getter myself
And even now not really that much.
I was afraid, like the cartoon movie Home On the Range,
That another young guy would be that Slim,
That guy who would flip out his guitar,
Hypnotize all the "lady cows" to come to his ranch.
I find a lot of guys (I shouldn't even call them friends really)
Like to challenge me and question me
All the live-long day.
Challenge me to things I can't do
To see me fall.
Challenge me to the things I am good at
To watch me crumble in on-the-spot nervousness.

I fear church ***** instruments.
I never liked them growing up,
They were always loud especially in larger atmospheres.
I felt like hearing the ***** was like hearing the rhythm
Of music to words sung and directed at exposing my faults.
Although I think its safe for me to say
That I have sinned not in my natural way of life,
But also for other people so they wouldn't have to sin,
Like eating meat for someone too holy and devoted
But also not one to waste either.
When the God of the Israelites told Adam and Eve not to eat from One tree,
I don't believe he gave them a reason why,
He didn't say a serpent will then tempt you not to listen to Command and you will go to Hell.
Suppose just being afraid of such a Deity in the Christian world
Is plenty of reason not to rebel against limitations of food.

I fear public speaking.
I love it, but when I do it
I hate it.
It's so odd to have words
And then have people-stares just eat them and leave you with Nothing.
I cried over public speaking
Because I thought I had developed this flawless reputation
(Yes, in freshman year of high school, I thought this).
I in no way am a Mozart-child prodigy,
But some adults and people pressured me to learn fast,
Which made me feel like nothing if I didn't learn as fast as a dial-up Computer.

FDR said that fear is the scariest thing to exist.
I don't disagree,
I just fear I'll never fully know that.

The wind-up figurine
Plays a chimy and peppy lullaby
Of Irish tune.

It makes me think of your smiles,
The trips to the store for waffles and Klondike bars,
How you were there for activities such as my basketball games when I was little,
My Confirmation in my teens,
My First Communion,
So many of my childhood birthdays were celebrated at your home
On Keywest Drive.
I think of the time, Pappy, that you scattered dollar coins around the backyard of the before-I-turned-eleven house
So I could test my National Geographic metal detector.
I remember talking with you, Granny, in the kitchens of your home and my parents’ current house
Asking me how I’ve been doing.
I even remember the times
Where I was rebuked by you because of my behavior.
I picture you guys standing in front of your house
Waving goodbye.
I took every moment for granted.
I just hope you aren’t too far away now
Because heaven knows I need you and your hugs and kisses.
You both are now super angels
And I miss you.

My childhood was fortified and I am reminded of your presence by you, Pappy, reading me Magic Tree House and saying so eloquently: “The wind started to blow, the treehouse started to spin. It spun faster and faster and faster, until everything was still. Absolutely still.”

As the figurine’s tune slows to a stop,
I stare into space imagining and recalling the feeling of you in my life.

I love you Granny and Pappy.

Often, I trick myself into thinking
It’s just a one-time feeling;
My, how I can fool myself
Into reconsidering my thoughts and feelings:
“What am I doing?”
“What am I thinking?” flow life’s inquiries.

I’m not a fool that I know I’m a fool
For speeding blood-flow in a beautiful woman’s presence.
Perhaps I can fake that I don’t notice
Or maybe say something for once.

Maybe about her hair
As it thickens, folds, threads, waves.
Or could it be a new style in my eyes?
Leave it to heart
To end up finding out.

Why do I stumble, my eyes?
And see what may divert my stir?
Don’t you see beauty in real-time, my eyes?
Such is pretend: imagery, photo-shopping.

See the royal richness before you, my eyes!
See the eyes across from you!
Open your heart, my eyes, to see that she, in her stare,
Has open her heart unto you!

She may blow a kiss; she may not
But her mouth is wonderful just the same.
Her lips say “Stay with me”
Without stretching to romantically whisper.

Could I hold your hand?
May I kiss your cheek?
I am simply honored to be
With you, a heart near to my own!

How I wish there was a way
To express love with more emotion;
For the idea, the thought drives me
To find a powerful way,
Such that I may let you know
You mean more beyond imagination!
More than they eye may fall prey to believe!

To continue my words to you,
May I play you a melody on the 88 keys?
To hear your voice hug the air
With an anthem that you love
An anthem that comforts and brings together?

As the rain might fall
I’ll hold you under my umbrella;
Your face shaded in half under its protection
Firing a pulsing launch of blood in me!

I am honored to be next to you
Breathing in a neighboring air;
Though a flower wilts when away from ground
I will not let such a blossom as you go parched!
You, a precious bloom, a luring beauty
Tell me what makes you grow and I
Will feed it to you, “amor mea.”

Why must I let the simple opticals
Distract me from the beauty I see?
She is attractive so; why must my mind
Break free and wander?
Such is my weakness; Love, you fortify my low energy.

Do not think, Love
That I come to you to remain alive!
No! There are many a vital aid
But I want you for more than your beauty
More than because you understand me.

I want you for you!
Listen, I do struggle mentally
To see your beauty all around
But you always see it in me!
Teach me! Be my guide!
Society restricts women, past and forward;
Remember, I am your equal
But as long as I am with you, you are
The better half!
I fault to fight the statement
But it’s truth, and I want to chase you
My reality, partner; my abstract; my truth
All in the same woman wonder!

Might as well be the law of demographics
In that people who are favored in some places
Are not going to be cared for in others as much.
The news is definitely a place...
After all: North East West South,
More than one place to correct a leading message.
It's easy to get haughty
And to just as easily plunge to distress,
But the body needs to feel both
To remember it's mortality.

My originality, yes,
Can be overshadowed by who I
Resemble.

I assume positions and mannerisms
Like my dad,
I’ve been told.
The laughter, the cadences in dialogue
Similar on the paternal end, it seems.

Any mention of resembling Mom?
Not really,
Mostly the “like father, like son” interpretation.
I know I have Mom in me, though;
She even told me how I have her lips,
And my dad notices the excited energy Mom and I both have.
Time to break the norm:
I propose “like mother, like son”
For what I learn and have inherited from the maternal side.

I’m not just a mix of my parents, though,
I’m also a homogenization of those I encounter.

There were times where I would try
To emulate my brother’s life strength,
Letting words that try to haunt evaporate from memory.
Of course, when people advise me to “be yourself”
The truth becomes clearer as I experiment with ways
Of trying to escape the life-burdens only I can undertake
That mimicry only makes “me-me-cry.”

Sometimes I’d love my sister’s assertiveness,
How somehow the strength of her direct dialogue
Thunders when her mind is set on a course of action.

Too many instances
Where before friends my eyes become “copy machines”
Scanning what I see fit to scale, but unfit for me:
Folding my arms toughly,
******* my hands in my pants’ pockets,
Adjusting the cadences of my voice,
Adjusting the volume/tone of my voice,
Thinking I can think what others think.

How do I stay original, regardless of how I’m prone to change?
Well, at least I have one area of originality:
Who I’ve encountered
And where I’ve been
At uniquely arranged times fit for me.

Let poetry receive honor
In every expression!
O Poetry, be the spirit of casual conversation,
The purpose for music bedecking your emotion!
O Poetry, let me find you everywhere:
Trees, people, oceans, buildings, the center of the earth,
Books and in the invisible amid the visible!
O Poetry, touch every heart
According to life events and direction,
According to imagination and creativity!
O Poetry, teach me,
Let me learn from you
And want to learn from you,
For without you,
I would be a self-poet internalized,
Letting thoughts loiter my soul,
Wandering and wondering
For a way out.
As I was begotten from a womb,
You, Poetry, as a mother, have always hewn my greater self
Out of my troubled soul.
Cheers, Ad Multos Annos, Hooray,
Here’s to Poetry!

Warm is a cold we become used to.

I give you a stare showing I care,
But inside I don’t quite get what you’re saying;
I try, but does squeezing veins inside my head
Really trigger a better response and logic?
Would you prefer a sad truth?
Or a lie to make you happy?
Sure, I listen,
But eventually I hear the sounds of my thoughts
And am drowned by realistic crowd hubbub.
I want to respond with words
That favor the progress of a good conversation,
But I only have puns.
Trust me, I love to talk,
But when two voices and minds don’t catch on,
The mission for understanding becomes prolonged.
Maybe this is where
Talk-the-talk takes on a walk-the-walk cruciality.

O Lord,
With my hands clasped together,
Never let me forget my friendship with you.
O Lord,
With my head bowed low,
Never let me forget that You are the primal origin and I am the secondary creation.
O Lord,
With my eyes closed,
Allow me to look into myself so as to see beauty in me,
That I may see and feel equal beauty toward what surrounds my life.
O Lord,
If my prayer requires me to silence myself,
May I be attentive to the sounds I hear,
And accept the aural in the air so as to let nothing bother me from Your Love.
O Lord,
When I conclude formal prayer and time set apart for You,
Never let me forget that You are with me always in life
And that it’s worth more to abide in You than any other dwelling in this world.
Amen.

https://artsofthought.com/2018/05/01/poets-mind-an-interview-with-jamadhi-verse/

Supporting fellow poets; check out Jamadhi Verse on here!!!! :D

To me, poetry is easier written
Than read.
If reading poetry is more difficult
To come by,
Why do I read poetry still?
See, that is the point:
It’s when I don’t understand a poem
That I want to read on.
For poetry proclaims
That there will always be those quirks in life
Which will never be understood fully
Unless we confront the author for which the work came to be.

I, as a kid,
Always imagined being a video game character
And hoped to gain abilities
That would shock the world.
Although that's considered a fantasia of some sort,
It's not too far off
From the fantasia of reality:
That we can imagine change.
And after imagining,
Accepting and beginning that change.

I’m not mad,
I’m not mean,
Unlike the dual-colored monster:
The Big Blue-Green.

The Blue Green’s not orange
And especially not yellow,
Because he’s as irate
As the red of the rainbow.

Don’t call that Blue-Green pink
And definitely not purple,
Or prepare to give into
A raging Blue-Green whirlpool.

All the other colors
Turn faint white
As they cower before
The Blue-Green’s might.

What can the Blue-Green do?
It’s only two colors.
Ah, that’s the Blue-Green’s trick
To entrap some fellers.

The Blue-Green doesn’t dye,
Nor lives as a vision to glance,
But it’s the fear inside you
Whipping its lance.