THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: – Promote Yourself

In daily life we go through emotions,
Prostration, Stagnation, Frustration;
Occasionally there’s a liability,
Alternating Happiness with Irritability,
Down in doldrums; then ecstasy

The Mind power is Overwhelming;
Reaching down in the ocean ,depths, where darkness rules
Forging forward in Cosmos, conquering galaxies;

So I have churned my own philosophy,
Man is as sacred as Deity,
I endorse the teachings of Humanity,
Hopefully, to be able to keep everyone happy!!!

Aisha Idris

Tending to My Flock – Promote Yourself

I often ask myself

whether or not to put those ideas

on the page, let them

run free in fields of lower-case letters.

 

I can’t decide whether or not to put those ideas forward,

let them soar, revel in nothingness

and run free in fields of lower-case letters.

How can I make choices for them?

 

To let them soar, revel in nothingness

might be terribly cruel.

Could I really make choices for them?

I never asked to be their shepherd.

 

I might be terribly cruel

all the same

because I never asked to be their shepherd.

They’re better off here, under someone else.

 

It’s all the same, in the end,

to look on the page and let my ideas go.

“Are they better off here, under someone else?”

I far too often ask myself.

link to my blog: http://troynikander.wordpress.com/

Elegy for Jane – Theodore Roethke – Your Favourite Poem

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neck curls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once started into talk, the light syllables leaped for her.
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiny shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

Theodore Roethke

Your Favourite Poem sent in by you what’s yours?

Holding on too tight – Promote Yourself

You’re holding on too tight, to demons from the past 
Some will bear their crosses, but you will bear the scars

They’re timeless faint reminders, of a troubled, naive few
Picture postcard memories, of a life that we once knew

A nevous on the soul, from cuts that once ran deep
Whether you conceal it now, it’s your memory to keep

You’re not the only one, who carries all that weight
I was there remember? We shared the burdens fate

Now only time can mend the edges, of a fractured heart
And the infiniteness of time, will give the truth its chance

So bathe yourself in happiness, and wash away the mess
You’re holding on too tight, to a life you must digress

Mr Mister.

http://clusey79.wordpress.com/

 

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Search your thoughts for answers,

Of questions that trouble your mind,

The things that you don’t understand,

Of answers that are hard to find.

 

We accept the things we see and touch,

The past and future too,

What of the things we cannot see,

Are we to believe that they are true?

 

Take the religions of our world,

With different dogma and creed’s,

All pray to a God,

Driven on by spiritual needs.

 

Built within all of us,

It’s a power un-traced by man?

A power that drives men forward,

To learn all the knowledge he can.

 

The power comes from the world of spirit,

Unseen, but it fills the air,

Waiting to be tapped by the human mind,

Waiting for all to share.

 

Do not be ignorant in your thinking,

Seek with an open mind,

You will be surprised what you discover,

No longer will you be spiritually blind.

 

Do not close your mind to the unusual,

Don’t miss what is rightfully yours,

The keys to the spirit world,

Which will open all spiritual doors.

 

Malcolm G Bradshaw

Bridges over mottled water – Promote Yourself

The darkness is deep

Deeper even than the oily pools,

That tumble in the recesses, 

Somewhere behind my eyes. 

Looking outward,

It is like a peacock 

Splayed its glassy feathers 

On this tarry mirror.

The mountains make jagged splits

Nursing the bulging veins 

Pulsating.

I dreamt of the dive

It was clear.

From my house to the bridge 

Not ghostly or ethereal

Just a shadow 

A figure cutting through the haze of hail and wailing torrents. 

I could only think of water on my way there

The smooth torpedo of my body. 

I sat by the edge for some time

I let the rain reshape me

And breathing came in gasps

Handfuls of breath and spit

Propelled.

I thought of the green moss in the depths

The sinewy comfort of it’s tangles.

The bridge gave me my leap 

My freedom spoke to me mid-air

Down I went 

And the cold ripped away all thought.

By Alex Dale 

“Likest Thou My Facebook Post” – Promote Yourself

 

 

Remember now, while resting in thy seat,

How friends who hath the fame of being true

Inform themselves of what their friend doth eat

And sundry other things that friend might do.

Perforce thou needest soon that “Like” to click

If in thee doth a mote of mercy live.

For seconds, as if swords, my heart now prick

Whilst wait I for what’s only thine to give—

A “Like” to say thy care for me is great,

As care that hath a holy man for God,

When showing care of thine for my update

By clicking that’s akin to heads that nod.

If likest thou not my new Facebook post,

Of myself, anon, I’ll make a ghastly ghost.

“Likest Thou My Facebook Post” A Shakespearean Sonnet by Paul Burgess

Paul Burgess, author of the blog paulwhitberg.wordpress.com, is quickly becoming one of nonsense poetry’s most prolific hacks. When not posting inane poetry, he enjoys meditating, reading philosophy, listening to and playing acoustic blues, and spending time with his lovely wife and adorable dog.

Thank you for your time,

Paul

 

We Are Called – Promote Yourself

We are called to stand out,
Not to conform;
We are called to speak out,
Not to silently stand by;
We are called to reach out,
Not introspectively retreat;

We are called to love outsiders,
We are called;
We are called to love God;
We are called;
We are called to love,
We are called.

We are called His children;
We are called;
We are called His saints,
We are called;
We are called by God;
Hear His call.

by @FaithUnlocked

http://faithunlocked.wordpress.com

Nightmare – Promote Yourself

Used to be where

I sweated out

a place to hide. The hunters

way down there in the valley

after me, the mess in the closet

in the house on a hilltop

miles away. If I but crack that door

they’ll spot me sure enough

and come howling. I have been through

places of red fear, stripped

of everything. I have wept

in attics on  seeing that even

the snow cannot obscure

these black landscapes. I have been there

and back again. Back again. That is the thing.

Now no longer is it about hiding. I

become the terror.

Now am I the howler of my dark dreams.

Hunt me.

Soon I’ll have your weapon and you on your knees

begging for release

from this awful place

because it is where I sleep,

I have no tolerance

for the chase

and turn on you.

I take you by your neck, toss

you from frightening heights.

I crack heads

of horrid things,

make them whimper. Hunters

witness this and shudder to see

I awaken. Oh

How I awaken.

Copyright (c) 2014 Steve Kline | April 4, 2014

Maya’s Lasting Impression

 

~

I have tears this evening

Pools, welling in my eyes

Imagining a spirit soaring

Streaking across our skies.

Hers, a delightful voice

Allowing us our choice

To recognize the human condition

To celebrate her marvelous vision.

~

 

We were hearing your words

Welcoming a stately event

All of us gave pause afterwards

This new sound began an advent.

Hers, a delightful voice

Allowing us our choice

Realizing today we have a mission

Heartfelt we wish only inclusion

~

You spoke eloquent verse

Eyes that recognized nature

Passion of a healing nurse

We needed a path mature

Hers, a delightful voice

Allowing us our choice

We are a society driven by a common

Ground; shrieks to lessen the demon.

~

That day, you shouted aloud

Spoke of nations, of people

A message of love so loud

Tipping the cynic’s steeple

Hers, a delightful voice

Allowing us our choice

Know today we have made a decision

Sweet words shall stifle our aggression

~

Remind me your love today

Compassion, delight in real

Moments may lead our way

Paths we may reach surreal,

Hers, a delightful voice

Allowing us our choice

When will our song bury oppression

Live wise, sing Maya’s lasting impression

~

© Thom Amundsen 2014

http://thinkingoutloudagain.wordpress.com

We Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Dr. Maya Angelou, You Now Have Your Wings!

 

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” -Dr. Maya Angelou

I am saddened yet I rejoice today. Heaven gained a beautiful angel today. Renowned author, poet, and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou took her rightful place in heaven today.

Dr. Angelou was not only a great voice to contemporary literature, but she was a voice of distinction to many. She touched the lives of many.

Her speech was with grace and eloquence. Her words were like a breath of fresh air to a troubled ear that would hear and listen. She spoke of struggles we could all identify with and knew in some way we too, could overcome them.

She was trailblazer; a survivor. She set the path to know how we could live life with meaning. She taught us through her writings, in the face of adversity or hatred, like the air, we can rise above it and still respect ourselves. Life had new meaning. In spite of barriers, celebrate who we are no matter what. She had a distinctive name that clearly set her apart. Her contribution will live on forever. She will always live in our hearts.

Ms. Maya, you leave behind a great legacy. You always will be remembered. We will miss you dear one. You may be gone but never forgotten. We will cherish your memory.

We know “Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Dr. Maya Angelou is now resting in heaven. Rest in paradise love. You now have your wings!

I leave you with this. Here are  some of her greatest quotes. I hope you enjoy it.

Quotes from Dr. Maya Angelo:

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise!”

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style.”

“In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave and suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet, it is only love which sets us free.”

– Dr. Maya Angelou

 

Here’s a poem I wrote in remembrance of Dr. Maya Angelou and hope that it can be shared on your poetreereations.org website to honour her legacy. Thank you.

 

– JD

Photo credit: http://www.anonymousartofrevolution.com/2013/01/each-time-woman-stands-up-for-herself.ht

Not Your Friend Any-more – Promote Yourself

“I’m Not Your Friend Anymore”

I wanted to defend you,

But no, I’m done, and

You’re right,

You’re an embarrassment,

You’re insane, and there’s

No help for people like you

That wish to hurt people—

Friends—like me, and I don’t

Want to be seen with you.

You’re right, I don’t want to be

Brought down

By you, with you, and I don’t

Want to talk to you, to see you,

Ever again.

Rebecca Grubb

I follow your blog, Poetreecreations, and I am a huge fan of it as well as your own work. I think it is a wonderful project to promote authors on-line  for the simple love of expression via poetry

Bio: Rebecca Grubb is a student at Rutgers Camden working on her BA in English. Her first loves are reading and writing, and she enjoys learning new languages and working on stained glass projects. When not doing schoolwork (which she should probably be doing), she can be found watching Star Trek reruns and doting on her cats. 

A Brave and Startling Truth – Your Favourite Poem

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet 
Travelling through casual space 
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns 
To a destination where all signs tell us 
It is possible and imperative that we learn 
A brave and startling truth 

And when we come to it 
To the day of peacemaking 
When we release our fingers 
From fists of hostility 
And allow the pure air to cool our palms 

When we come to it 
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate 
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean 
When battlefields and coliseum 
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters 
Up with the bruised and bloody grass 
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil 

When the rapacious storming of the churches 
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased 
When the pennants are waving gaily 
When the banners of the world tremble 
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze 

When we come to it 
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders 
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce 
When land mines of death have been removed 
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace 
When religious ritual is not perfumed 
By the incense of burning flesh 
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake 
By nightmares of abuse 

When we come to it 
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids 
With their stones set in mysterious perfection 
Nor the Gardens of Babylon 
Hanging as eternal beauty 
In our collective memory 
Not the Grand Canyon 
Kindled into delicious color 
By Western sunsets 

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe 
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji 
Stretching to the Rising Sun 
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, 
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores 
These are not the only wonders of the world 

When we come to it 
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe 
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger 
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace 
We, this people on this mote of matter 
In whose mouths abide cankerous words 
Which challenge our very existence 
Yet out of those same mouths 
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness 
That the heart falters in its labor 
And the body is quieted into awe 

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet 
Whose hands can strike with such abandon 
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living 
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness 
That the haughty neck is happy to bow 
And the proud back is glad to bend 
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction 
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines 

When we come to it 
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body 
Created on this earth, of this earth 
Have the power to fashion for this earth 
A climate where every man and every woman 
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety 
Without crippling fear 

When we come to it 
We must confess that we are the possible 
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world 
That is when, and only when 
We come to it. 

Maya Angelou

A Visit From An Angel

 

 

As I sat beside the bed side

Keeping vigil with my friend

Watching his life drift away

Waiting for the end

 

My thoughts turned to the inevitable

What happens when we are dead?

Do we survive the material?

These thoughts were in my head

 

As I watched my friend drift away

The room was filled with light

An angel from the Spirit world

Came to him that night

 

I felt no fear or foreboding

These words she spoke to me

Do not be saddened with grief

For death has set him free

 

Free to pursue a life in heaven

Re-united with love ones and friends

Now into a spiritual atmosphere

Into a life that never ends

 

She smiled at me as they left

With these words to me she said

My child do not be afraid

For your friend is alive not dead

 

My child do not be afraid

For your friend is alive not dead

I was left with that inner peace

Knowing my friend would be all right

 

It changed my life completely

Of an angel that came so near

Knowing that death is natural

And there is nothing for us to fear.

 

Malcolm G Bradshaw

DARKNESS – Promote Yourself

You feel the darkness as an emptiness,
A claustrophobic enemy that closes in
To damage your perception of the world
As bright and hopeful, glistening
With prospects you would wish to win.

The dew-filled rose, refreshed from night
That closes light, and yet precurses day,
Unfurling sheds its tearful self.  Its petals,
Frail, yet live enough to hold their shape;
Its beauty, transient, yet gay.

Beyond the light of life, the dark of you
Admits appeal; this open room reveals
The Darkness-Womb we nightly turn to,
Grants, if we but let Her, comfort; grants that we be healed.

 D P Orman  my blog (ormanslices.wordpress.com).

The Darkest Day – Promote Yourself

5

The one on whom we pinned our hopes is now forever gone;
His broken, twisted corpse has shown all witnesses Rome won!
His promises of life and mercy clearly all a fraud,
Hide and lock yourselves away before you face a viscious sword!

What was he thinking? When they came he told us not to fight,
He surrendered with such calm, as if he controlled that night.
We could have made a break for it and seen another day,
With all the wonders that he worked, there had to be another way…

When he merely said his name, they all fell to the ground,
Wasn’t he supposed to clear the temple then be crowned?
Clearly not, no king would choose to die the way he did,
When morning comes it will be time that we all fled and hid.

Deny you ever knew him our you’ll share his shameful fate,
Our home towns might just take us back, if it’s not too late.
Our women want to see the tomb, embalm his body right,
There they go, despite the gloom of dawn’s approaching light…

http://benzwycky.com/2014/04/19/the-darkest-day/

MEMORIAL DAY … MEMORIES – Promote Yourself

There’s a bullet with my name on it.
It may be in the magazine.
It may be in the chamber. Or … it
may be … in the air … unseen.
 
How long until romantic notions of seeing the world and being all you can be
surrender to the unbearable reality of PTSD’s insanity?
How long, if ever, until the romantic notion of the glory of being a warrior be
relegated to the dust bin… of history? 

By Miguel Vera from Puerto Rico
 
https://www.chachomanopapa.wordpress.com
 
https://www.facebook.com/chacho.manopapa
 
@chachomanopapa on Twitter

You are wasted – Promote Yourself

You are wasted

you haven’t even tasted

your potential

I have no place amongst you

There is nothing here for me

Money will not serve me

Not in living only in dying

All that can serve me now

Is persistence, integrity

No inheritance, no talent

I have to find a balance

Great things come at great cost?

Ha! From those who have lost

THE VALUE OF HONOR!

The objects that define value ( = $ )

The actions that define humanity

You are wasted, to fall in line,

Lining up to die conveniently,

Zombies chasing the screen,

 

In Boxes, in cages, you are wasted

Every city I see is a humane zoo

Look around you are wasted

You know it’s not only you

 

Brotherhood must be earned not inherited

So when the world begins to weigh down

Remember Persistence

Remember Integrity

 

Our Respect, Our Courage, Our Honor, Our Lives

CAN NOT BE BOUGHT, WE CAN NOT BE BOUGHT

These values must be taught or humanity will rot

Instilling so much imposed suffering along the way

 

Nature, physics, chaos

these are all unrelenting

as I will be, as I must be

Until I join the relentless void

 

Christian Adams